 Give me a warm welcome for the owner of SecureAgent Marketing, the owner of the Kodiaskins brand, the creator of 8% Nation, my good buddy, Kodiaskins. Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, you guys awake, you ready? Okay, I'm about to bring some energy into this place, you ready? Here's what I've learned. At conferences, the next morning, day two, beginning of day two always has the lowest attendance. Winners show up though, am I right? Give yourselves a hand for showing up today, okay? I can guarantee you and promise you that you will leave here after this, thinking bigger than you've ever thought, with specific action steps to blow up your business. Who's okay with that this morning, okay? Who's okay with that this morning, who's okay with that this morning? I'll also know that when speakers ask someone to raise their hand or talk, like I even feel bad I was in the back of this thing because I'm normally sitting in front row and standing and clapping for every speaker, right? If you struggle with this, okay, you will struggle with everything else I talk about today, okay? So, and the more engaged and focused you are, the more energy you give me, I promise you, the more I will deliver and the better I will be, okay? So who's ready for that today? Okay? Here we go, okay? Here's a QR code on the screen. We have a event called the Business Expansion Workshop where we spend multiple days going over finding good people, hiring, interviewing, onboarding, training, day-to-day operations and this entire PDF is right there for free. This is our entire Kodiaskans onboarding system, okay? Because what most people need, people don't really need money because when you get money, you get complacent. If you were only showing up to get money, right? Most people think that businesses build people. Who at one point or another thought, dude, I can drag anybody's success, man. I can make anyone successful, right? Rich and I have probably have that in common. I can help anybody make sales. You can't. What really happens and what I've learned is people build businesses. What I'm going to talk about is how you need people to start to blow up what you're doing. Most valuable thing you can do is surround yourself with incredible people, okay? The gentleman in the back getting me on an Instagram story right now. His name's Andy. He's my COO. Okay? He's been with me for just over two years. He was after, before, after you were hired with me, you were offered a coaching job with Villanova, before or after. Before he started with me, he was offered a coaching job with Villanova. He chose me. That's a pretty freaking cool feeling. I want to ask you guys, okay, if you're putting that predicament, are they going to choose you? I'm telling you, you want them to choose you because people build businesses. If you ever want, for example, I'll tell you why you would want to scan the QR code and grab this for free. If any of the following is true, who would like to own multiple companies? Who would like to have multiple companies in multiple buildings? Who would like to have over 100 employees? Who would like to do over $13 million in revenue this year? Who would like to buy a storage facility right behind your office? If any of those things are true, I'm going to talk about it today because that's exactly what has happened over these last five and a half years of putting out content on YouTube and the last three and a half years of actually adding people. August of 2017, I had zero team members. Now we have over 100 in Springfield, Missouri. It isn't me, by the way, okay? You get the culture right. You get the people right. And before you know it, anyone will be attracted to what you're doing, okay? So today I'm going to give you five steps. So if that's true and you want the whole onboarding system and you ever want people, okay, because really what I've learned is I coach a lot of people that earn $200,000 to $600,000 a year, and they pay me a lot more than I'm going to even say because some of you would be like, dude, that's too much, okay? But they still do it. I coach a lot of people between $200,000 and $600,000 a year, and they all tell me the same thing. I'm tired of doing it all. Who else in the room is a little bit tired of freaking doing it all? Okay? It doesn't mean you're lazy if you don't want to do it all. There's still things you need to do. For example, here's a task I want you to do at some point today. There's certain steps to this. I want you to write this down. At some point today, I want you to write down the top 10 tasks that you do every single day. I want you to organize those from one to 10, from the most productive, the highest productive to the least productive, from one to 10. Then I want you to eventually try to delegate the bottom seven and only do the top three. Who thinks you would drive more revenue if you did that, by the way, okay? Who already got their money's worth, right? All right, thank you for having me. Appreciate you, Jeff. Okay? There's three things I focus on every single day. Building revenue, promoting brands, building relationships. That's it. I have a team of people to do the rest. There's also five things that I'm going to just share what has really shifted me because January of 2018, I came alive. And the last three and a half years, I've been a different Cody Askins than the 27 years before that. I'm old now, I'm 30, okay? I'm a different CA, if you will, these last three years. And it's because most people operate a business like they're an amateur. I want to go pro. Professionals run a business like they're serious about running a business. The number one thing you do when you're operating a business is what? Drive revenue. If your revenue is not going up, something's wrong. Like if our revenue is not going up on an organization, I am looking to see who do I need to fire because somebody's holding us back. Maybe it's me, maybe it's somebody else. But I can tell you, the number one thing you can do to help a company is to drive top-line revenue. Everybody's so worried about expenses, right? I spent over half a million dollars on the Apris Nation Conference in 2018, lost $200,000. And some of you're like, dude, that's nuts, that's insane. That's the single best business decision I've ever made. At some point, we got to go pro, right? It's a difference between being serious and being casual. Who wants to be serious this morning? Who's going to start after this? Who's going to start to get a little more serious in 2021 simply based on what you've already heard this morning? And I haven't even gave you anything yet. There's five things I do every single day to start my day, every morning. Every single morning. Number one, okay, I'm going to give them to you right now. If you want to be successful, if you want to get better, if you want to level up, you'll write these down and you'll do them. Number one, I'll wake up before 6 a.m. Every single morning. A lot of days I don't feel like doing it, right? By doing it, some of you are like, that's pretty easy. Okay, good. You're with me so far then, okay? Number two, I get a workout in or today a basketball game, okay? Which is a really good workout. I got need in the thigh and I got a dead leg and I'm like limping around the court out there, okay? But I'm like, I can't quit. Okay, that's number two, okay? Get a good workout. Why? Because energy matters. When you are in cells and you have people, they're not really selling insurance. They're selling passion. They're selling conviction. They're selling them. They're selling a relationship with the prospect. They're not really selling life insurance. That's just the product that someone buys because they like somebody. My energy has to be right to start my day. Who believes if you got your energy a little higher and a little better and a little more right in the morning, you would have more successful days, okay? We only get so many successful days, by the way. I'm 30 and I'm running like I'm 82 because I'm like, dude, I have so much I want to accomplish. Which brings me to step number three, which is to write down my goals every single morning. If there's one thing you take away from this entire weekend and you actually implement one single thing, that would be the one that you have to absolutely implement. I can tell you everything I've ever written down, I eventually achieved. Because I am tricking myself as if it's already happened, okay? You cannot hit a target, you cannot see, right? Here's some of the things I'm writing down. I don't mind sharing them. I share them on YouTube all the time. I write them down every day like I know them like the back of my hand, right? Like I write down that I am the number one public speaker in the world. After Peter Shankman last time, I'm like, I'm not yet, okay? But I'm gonna work on it. I got a long way to go. That's why I'm like, please record this so I can watch it and I can learn and I can get better, okay? Number two, I write down that our two sales teams sell over a million dollars every 30 days. We don't yet, about 60, 70% of the way there, okay? So maybe I need to raise it even higher, right? I also write down, my wife wants a beach house that we own a beach house, a jet and a helicopter. Some of you are like, dude, why the helicopter? Why not, right? I don't know, okay? I also write down that we have a four story glass office tower in Springfield, Missouri, with a helicopter pad on the top. And a big room like this to train and do events and conferences, right? I also write down that I got into real estate and own over a thousand units of apartment buildings and I've raised over $100 million worth of capital. Because I eventually wanna get strong in the real estate space. Some of you are like, why? Well, every wealthy person I know had a business, you guys are with me, had a business, it spits out cash and they invested it in the real estate. True or true? So why not, right, okay? Also, I write down that we do over $100 million in revenue every single year. I write down we have 50 sales people in the office and we only have 20, right? I write down that I'm gonna help every insurance agent in the world. Why? Because it keeps me humble and it keeps me focused on what I'm going out to do, right? I have a question, okay, which will lead me on to my next point. Who saw me before you came to this event? Somewhere, online, whatever, okay? Look around, keep your hands up, look around, okay? Does it help to get attention or does it help to get attention, okay? It does, right? Daily Power Five, I gave you three, write down your goals, okay? Four, I'm learning and listening to something to soak up and to get me better every single morning. Like, right now, every time before I go speak, I listen to, there's a playlist on Spotify called TD Jake's Motivation. And the very first one at the top of that playlist is called A New You. And I listen to that every single morning. Why? Because I got a long way to go. Who wants to find another gear, right? Who wants to level up? Who wants to get to where, dude, I'm better this year than I was last year. Okay, and number five, there we go, there we go. I love that, we gotta bring, let's bring some life in this place, why not, right? Okay, ain't sure it's gonna have to be boring, okay? It always has been, but I don't mean that to stay that way, okay? And fifth, I finish every shower with a couple minutes of ice cold water. Some of you are like, all right, I'm done, I'm done listening to this dude. He's completely lost his mind, okay? And you're right, I have. Why? Because it wakes me up to start my day. But even more important than that, who believes you have to, the successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do? Who believes that, okay? I do that because I know there's gonna be things that I have to do every single day that I do not wanna do. Like, who loves cold calling, right? Like, let's keep it real, nobody. When I got started in the business at 20 years old, I was selling final expense life insurance, cold door knocking, no leads. And I was 20, and I was in college, and I was playing basketball, full time. And I earned $117,391.13 in my first eight months. Why, because I decided to take it freaking seriously. Cold door knocking. Like, I'm probably, I may be the only person in the room that's like, do I could go out in Austin for the week and make 20 grand cold door knocking? No question about it, right? Let me think it's weird because of COVID, the mask and all that, but I don't care, okay, I don't care. So number five is the cold shower, because there are things that you have to do every day that you don't wanna do. So I start my day off with something I don't wanna do. And you better believe it. Every time I turn it to cold, and I'm like, oh, it's freezing. Who's gonna do those five things to start your day every day, okay? For some of you, you're like, I'll do the first four. I don't know about the fifth one, okay? We can keep it real, you can be honest, okay? Here's what I wanna move into. I wanna move into how you can start to expand what you're doing. I'm gonna share what's happened to me and the five steps that I've followed the last three and a half years to start to build an empire in Springfield, Missouri. And ain't no empire yet, but I promise it will be. And there ain't nothing wrong with that. But I gotta see it first, I gotta believe it first, I gotta set my targets first, and I gotta go all in first, okay? Who wants to wake up in 2022 and not recognize the current you in 2021? Why not, okay? I can promise you, if it can happen for me, if it can happen for all the other speakers, it can happen for you too. The number one thing that people struggle with, by the way, the number of business owners struggle with, salespeople struggle with, entrepreneurs struggle with, speakers struggle with, humans struggle with. The number one thing every person on human, every human on planet Earth typically struggles with, personal confidence. Personal confidence is the difference maker between someone that is getting out and doing what they need to do and they're more successful than those that aren't. Who has the guts to be honest and say, you know what? My personal confidence could use a little boost, okay? I'm telling you, there's been plenty, and trust me, I still have, every time before I come up here and speak, I have doubts. I think really stupid stuff, I still get nerves. Every time I come speak, someone asks me the day after you speak and I'm like, probably 20, 25 events a year, okay? When I was 10, I watched my grandfather as a Baptist pastor. And at 10 years old, I said, I wanna be a public speaker when I grow up. You go there in the mind before you go there in the body. And to go there, you gotta go there. To actually go there, you gotta go there. A lot of us are not going there, but you have to go there for you to go there. You follow me? You have to go there for you to go there. So I'm gonna share five steps of how we have took a company from zero people to multiple companies, multiple buildings in little Springfield, Missouri, so don't complain about your area, okay? I hear that a lot too, to eight figures in 2021. Step number one, you must get known. You must get known. Who thinks it's actually gonna hurt you if people know you? Nobody, because it's never going to. The number one reason why, like for example, J.T. Justin Thomas yesterday was talking about video, right? And given you the actual formula to go and do video, most won't do it. Why? Personal confidence and they worry about what everybody else thinks when they put out a video. You have to stop caring what other people think. That's a limiting belief that is holding you back from taking that next level in your life. At some point, you gotta burn the bridge, you gotta become a pro. Stop treating this thing so casually and freaking go for it. And if it means doing a video every single day, one a week, three a week, whatever. I'm not saying that's what it is for you by the way, okay? One of the best things we ever did was start a YouTube channel December of 2015. Because now we have, as of yesterday, we have 36,000 insurance agents that subscribe and watch our content every day, right? Before today, who has seen our YouTube channel? There you go, okay? And trust me, they're not the best videos in the world. Majority of my early videos, freaking horrible. Go watch them, we can laugh together. But the difference is, I did it. Differences have put myself out there to build something special. Step number one is you must get known. It's never the best product or the best price. It's not, it's not. Everybody always thinks, man, I gotta offer the absolute lowest price every single time. And if you have the ability to and you want to, go for it. You know who actually shops? Coverage? Agents. Prospects aren't freaking looking around shopping everywhere and saying, okay, that one's 13 cents lower. But they got a B plus rating, ooh. You will always know more than they know. Step one, get known. Who believes you can get a little more known this morning, okay? Who believes you can put yourself out there a little more than you're doing now? Step two, I'm hydrating and recovering from basketball this morning, okay? So bear with me. Step two, once you get known, you will start to attract people. Because again, what do you need to build an incredible business? People. Because people build, people build, people build. I'll wait, people build. That's right, people build, people build. You guys still with me, people build. Do we need to get up and do some jumping jacks? People build. All right, there we go, okay? People build businesses. So what do you need? You need people. Or you're gonna be like 20 of my coaching clients that are paying us 25 to 36K a year. And they are making $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 and they're doing it all. And they hate their life and they have no freaking time and they're taking every customer service call, their answer in the phone, they're checking emails, they're working, they're pending, they're doing all the sales and but they have four sales people but they still sell the most, right? Nothing wrong with that, but at some point you need people. You can't do it all. The toughest thing for me to do was to like, I'm a little bit of a control freak, okay? I don't think micromanaging is that bad if it works, okay? I just don't. For me to relinquish control and actually delegate, that's when everything started to change. Because I was sitting with a gentleman that had $170 million company, okay? If a guy owned a $170 million company said for you to do something, who would listen and actually do it, okay? Luckily, I did. You wanna know what he said? I would hope so, right? You got $170 million company, okay? $170 million in our company, we're sitting on the whiteboard and we're whiteboarding all my different companies, organizational structure, all the different people. He's like, okay, who does this? Me, who does this? Me, who does this? Me, who else is like, okay, I know this feeling. Who does this? Me, who does this? Me, who does this? Me, who does this? Me, I'm like, he's like, why? I'm like, cuz I'm the best at all of it? Wrong answer by the way, okay? Stupid, he's like, that's your problem. He's like, that's your problem, that's what's holding you back. Cuz our revenue is leveling off. The moment we actually started to delegate and to add incredible people to the team, everything started to change. Now, when we talk about step number two of attracting people, you will also attract a lot of the wrong people by the way, okay? So you gotta weed those out. That's what Andy does. I'm like, hey, we wanna partner with you in some way, all right? Are they like, good person? Are they just trying to ride on my coattails? Can I trust them? Are they ethical? Are they honest? They have high integrity, right? If you guys have ever met my dad, Brian Askin's own secure insurance group in Springfield, Missouri. Most ethical, hardworking individual I've ever met. That's the example I have every day. I tried out working, I still can't, I just can't, I gave up, I'm like. So step two, attract people. Question is, are you attracting people? Are people attracted to you? Are you like a magnet? We have people right now in California, Indiana, and somewhere else that are Utah, I think, that are considering moving to Springfield, Missouri to work for us. That's ridiculous, but I love it. Step number three, hire up. You can have a big team and a lot of team members, but if they're bozos, trust me, it's going to hold you back and ain't going to help. I've had plenty of losers on my staff, never again. That's right, there's one question Andy asked himself before he hires every single person. I tell him, ask yourself this one question before you hire anyone. Do they make our organization worse, the same, or better? If they do not make us better, do not hire them. I'm not going backwards. And when you're hiring up, you need the best people on your team. Like our video guy who's not here with me right now, because we got plenty of video, but I should have brought him anyway. He's winning film festivals in Missouri. We got the best videographer in the state. Hands down, no question about it. You're like, well, why do you need that? Why not? Is it going to help the brand or is it going to help the brand? Is it going to cost me some more money? Yeah, but also a loser is going to cost me even more money. True or true, so hire up. You must hire the best people and when you attract people, start to weed them out, right? Like there's several things that we look for. The first interview question that we ask when we're bringing someone on board, and we never hire someone in the first interview, by the way, okay? If you do that, please stop, okay? It's not smart, it's what I used to do, and it's really bad, okay? You also learn, Zach and I were talking about this at lunch today. There's visionaries and there's operators. I'm a visionary, Andy's an operator. I create messes, he cleans them up. If you're the visionary and you don't have anybody doing that, then nobody's cleaning up all the messes. And you're hiring people, like, you're cool, your hair's fixed, you look mature, you've been nice, you haven't swore. Cool, you're hired, get on the phones. That's how most people, that's how most companies hire people by the way, and it's a joke. It should be a privilege to work for your company. We will go through 90 resumes before we even hire one person. Why? Because we wanna hire up. Number four, you must know your numbers. You must know your numbers. First interview question is, actually that's funny, I didn't even tell you that, good, thank you, okay? Now, I can relate to Peter, by the way. I don't know if I actually have ADHD, but I will see a squirrel and run, okay? Guaranteed, guaranteed, okay? What do you know about the company? Trust me, if they do not do research before coming to your office, what do you say, right after that, they say, no, I did no research? Thank you for coming, you're not a good fit. Why would we waste 38 minutes or 62 minutes with someone that didn't know research on you when they came into your business? That's dumb, because guess what? They are, we can all say it at the same time, they are, search with an L, they are losers and lazy, okay, either way. I'll take either way, okay? They're definitely lazy, right? Totally, because ask yourself, if you were going to a company, would you at least look them up? Raise your hand if you would, okay? Then don't hire people that don't. You guys are getting excited today, okay? Number four, know your numbers. We do a monthly profit and loss on every salesperson every month. Why, because I can take this serious or I can take this casual, I can be a pro or I can be an amateur. And I'm guessing you guys want to be pros today. Trust me, I'm no better than anybody else. I've made 8,000 mistakes, spent as much money as anyone in the insurance industry the last three years, done a lot of dumb stuff, okay? But you got to put yourself out there and take some risks to learn, don't you, right? You can't just like sit in the corner and hoard all the nuts and not talked to anybody and just think, I'm not going to do anything because I don't want to make a mistake. Trust me, it's going to happen. The more mistakes, the better, the faster you learn. We do a monthly P&L on all our salespeople because I know exactly to the penny how much money they made me. Why, because they're not making me any money then it's time to what? Fire them. 100%. It is a privilege to work at Cody Askin's Enterprises. 100%. I'm not saying we're better than every other company in the nation but I believe in Springfield, Missouri, we are the best to work for and if you don't believe it, you're probably not. Indeed called Andy the other day and because we actually don't spend money on Indeed and we still get plenty of applicants, it's kind of funny, they called us and they said, Andy, I don't think you guys know this and they said improve by the way. You are number one most clicked job post in Southwest Missouri over companies like Lazy Boy, Chick-fil-A. Who else Andy, what were the companies I'm missing? Bass Pro Shops. Some of you are like, I don't believe you. He's got the proof cause I didn't believe it either, okay? That was ridiculous, I'm like there's no way. Wouldn't you like that to be you? The question is why not? When you start to know your numbers which brings me to number five, you can start to actually think bigger and start to scale something special. You need people to scale anything. So when we talk about thinking bigger and actually scaling, when I know my numbers, okay, let's see, let's play classroom for a second and see what you guys would do, okay? We had 20 sales people in our office. How many of them were profitable last month? Say it again, say it again. Say it again. Say it again. All of them. So what should we do? Hire more people. True or true? If they're all 100% profitable, now some can be more profitable and they need to get their act together. However, if you make money on every single sales person you have, I'm like, dude, why don't we have 50? Why don't we have 100 in our office? I'm gonna give you some of our schedule to close out because it's the most important part of all of it. Every single day, okay, if you ever come to our business expansion workshop to scale out an actual company and one of the things we do is we come and we tour our campus in Springfield and we have a new building that we just moved the marketing company into. And every single day, two of the companies, CA and Scragent Marketing, kick off their day at 8.30 with an entire company meeting. 60, 70 people all getting together to kick off the day together at 8.30. You wanna know why I implemented that and started doing that? Because people were showing up late. It's awkward to show up late in front of 70 people, isn't it? I'll put a stop to that. You guys see how many people show up late now? Zero, or they're like, Cody, I'm so sorry. Because it's obvious, I'm looking at them. And I'm like, go talk to Andy, I'm not the COO. I don't care, he can write you up. That ain't for me to do anymore, right? So 8.30, full company meeting, 8.35 to 8.50, we do sales training with me every single day, all 20 sales reps. We also have a CA sales system that you could plug a whole team into. 8.50, we have our Scragent Marketing Directors meeting. While I'm in that, our salespeople in both departments are role-playing from 8.50 to 9 o'clock every single day. You may think role-playing's cheesy. You may think role-playing sucks, right? But role-playing works. Role-playing makes your people better. You do not wanna practice on the first call of the day, am I right? Because it's not gonna go well, unless you're Danny Ray and you're just a freaking superstar, okay? And most of us are not, Danny Ray, yet, okay? 9-11, we do a 9-1-1 CA operations meeting. You're like, dude, you got all these meetings that start your day? Yes, why? Because I wanna know what everybody's doing every single day. In the 9-11 meeting, Andy goes around the table and asks every single person, what are you doing today and what's your deadline? You do not work for me, unless I know what you're working on. Why? Because that's dumb. People just shell out money and pay people and hire people and spend a bajillion dollars on payroll and all this stuff. For what? Like between SIG, S-A-M and CA, we spend three quarters of a million dollars a month before we make any money. $750,000 a month in expenses. And I want it to be more. Why not? Because guess what? When I wake up, okay? When I wake up June 1st, 2021, and I've got to outpace three quarters of a million dollars, you think I'm gonna act casual or do you think I'm gonna treat it like a professional? Like that's the kind of stuff we're talking about today. And hopefully this specifically will wake you up, make you think a little bigger and have some key takeaways to start to actually add people because I'm telling you, if you're a solopreneur, that's cool, but I promise you, nobody really wants to make calls and sell policies forever. They don't, right? We're not all freaks like Anthony Martin, okay? Like we're just not. I didn't get into, I mean, because literally, here's why people create a business. Most people don't know this. Here's why people, I'll close in one second. Here's why people start businesses. People start businesses and a company for one reason. So that one day, it operates and pays them whether they are there or not. That's the only reason anyone ever starts a business. They may not know that's why they're starting the business, but that's why they're starting the business. Like if I wanna go to Hawaii for a month, I can't. Do I want to? No, because I'm freaking obsessed with what we're doing. I would be calling it every day. And we're still in growth mode and we're still a long way from our potential. And guess what? So are you. Who's got another gear? Who's got another level? Who's thinking a little bigger? Who's ready to scale? Who wants to add people? Who wants to blow this thing up in 2021? Who wants to look back in 2022 and say, dude, I don't even recognize that person from 2021. It's up to you. You're the secret sauce. You're the secret weapon. The better people are around you, the better you will be. Guess what? It's time to build a real business. Grab the QR code, get the onboarding system for free. You guys are amazing. Let's rock and roll. Appreciate it. Hey, if you enjoyed this, I got another one, you're gonna love. It's right there. Click on it. See you in there. You generate a ton of inbound leads from social media, from Facebook, organically, like referrals friggin galore. You are the king.