 When you start thinking about insurance as selling and not as believing, you're never going to sell a thing. You've got to have conviction to make a connection. And if you don't have convictions, you're not going to have any connections, which is sales. So when I put that between their head, instead of this lead sucks, or everybody's calling me, want to know how to get free health insurance, and my day was miserable, people are going to hear you say that, and they're going to go, I don't want to be around you. I sure as crap don't want to buy from you. Welcome back to Insurance Influencers. We find people that are influencing our industry. And I have the pleasure of interviewing Miss Galen Hendricks today. Hello, and how are you? Fantastic. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited about today. Absolutely. Yeah, you are someone that I think about that is a powerful woman influencing our industry, doing some big things. You're well-liked by a lot of people that I know and that I'm close with, which is important, right? Yes. Yeah, which is awesome. Thank you for being on. Galen is the CEO, Chief Executive Officer for Senior Security Benefits and known as the Queen of the Bundle, which we'll get to in a little bit, just to go ahead and segue that and get people excited about the ability to cross-sell and make more money. As I know, you can teach and train them to do. Why don't you, for those who don't know Galen yet, why don't you jump in and tell me about you and your history and your story? And I'm sure you grew up when you were 10 saying, I want to be in insurance. Yeah, we all do that, right? Exactly. You know, it's so funny. I'll be celebrating in May. My 35th year in this business. May of 2020. Yes. You started when you were like four years old. That's awesome. Yes, that's a good way to go. I like that. I was young, though, and the fun thing about it is that we don't grow up wanting to be an insurance agent. I mean, if somebody says, hey, Galen, what do you want to be? You're like, I'm an insurance agent. My thing I think at age five was like I want to be a beauty queen. But the cool thing is what the insurance business does for us. And 35 years, I'm working with guys who aren't even 35 years old yet. And as much as I love being queen of the bundle, I think the phrase that a lot of the guys that you know know me will tell you that they call me Mama Galen. And at first I was like, oh, I don't know about that. Because in this industry, I used to be the only female and the absolute youngest. Well, not the absolute youngest anymore, but the good news is I'm still a woman. And I love that. And what cool about this industry for me, Cody, is that the guys are so welcoming. I talk to a lot of women that are in my generation. And they're negative about what's going on in their companies and what's going on in their work. And I'm working around all these up-and-comers. And even people that have been doing this a while have just gotten a re-ignition of inspiration. And it inspires me. I mean, when I go home on a drive home at night, it's like, who am I going to call? I call people that are in this business just to talk about the day. And we get off the phone, and we're having a good time and smiling. I mean, that's great. Who's your go-to? OK, you want to kill some time. You want to have some fun. And you want to call somebody on your way home. Who is it? Oh my gosh, I have lots. But you know, there'll be Justin Brock. There'll be Eric Yaro. Guys, you all know already. But guys, you don't know yet that are coming up. I mean, there's Jagger, Esch. There's Robert Beige. There's Daniel Kunkel. And people that actually run insurance companies, I'll call them or they call me. I mean, what industry are you in really? We're a president of, let's just say, Aetna. Picks up the phone and calls you and says, how's your day today? How did things go? Or the CMO of Manhattan Life calls and says, hey, I want to pick your brain today. I mean, those are the other things of being an insurance agent. Now that same little girl that grew up saying, hey, I want to be a beauty queen, you know, I'm doubtful I'd be talking to other beauty queens, right? Right now, it's the insurance business. I mean, I'm talking to people who make me better. And hopefully, I add a little bit to what they do. Absolutely, yeah. It's cool you mentioned that. I was at America sitting with the owner's son, CFO, CEO in a boardroom full of eight people talking like lead gen and marketing and stuff yesterday. And it was, yeah, it was so humbling and just cool to see like that and stuff. There's a lot of issues that stuff doesn't happen in, you know? And you know what I think about? I have, I don't know why I always do this. I always like to tell people what I think about them when we start an interview. You know what I think about when I think about you? Oh, goodness. And we're just getting to know each other, right? Right. We've only spoke a couple of times, even though I've seen your name and heard about you a ton. Right. I can already tell, without ever even speaking, that what's got you where you are is because you are fantastic at relationships. And I can just already tell that. Well, I appreciate that. That's probably one of the best compliments I've ever been given. You know, that was humbling. Friendships are what make this business work. Relationships are what make this business work. You know, I'll hear people, I'll say, do you know so-and-so? Oh, he's one of my best friends. And now I've gotten where I like, oh, every time I bring up his name, he's everybody's best friend. And I think that's because friendship is about giving. And we're in a world now where 20 years ago, this business was very cutthroat. I mean, everybody was about one-uping or getting something that somebody else didn't get. And everybody would say, man, if they're copying you, accept that as the best compliment because, you know, that's just flattery. And now what I find, it's kind of like the America thing. You get people in a room and they're not afraid to share. They want to share. And I was given some advice a long time ago by a guy that I worked with. And he said, you know, the best thing about having two brains in a room is that third brain that's created. That third brain is the best of you two. It's kind of like having a child, you know? You look at that kid and you're like, oh man, that's the best of my husband and the best of me. But that's how ideas are born. And I think the more we share, the more we get. And it doesn't really look like somebody's one up in us or I got the best compliment the other day. You know, FMO's in this business for a while, got a bad rap. And this guy goes, but I don't ever think of you as an FMO. You're just my friend. You're an agent. You still sell business. You're just one of us. And I heard that and I was telling one of my business partners today. I was like, you know, that's probably a great compliment because, you know, at the end of the day, we're all agents. We all started selling. And being an agent is hard. I mean, you're out there by yourself. You don't have somebody you can really say, hey, did I do well? Did I do bad? I think that's where I'm gonna give you a compliment. I think you getting out on this platform and bringing these agents together so that they have a group that they can talk in and say, hey, am I doing okay? You know, I only sold two deals this week and, you know, we can't all be, you know, some of these other guys out there, AK Medicare Guru that knocks it out of the park every day. But we can be that guy that goes, hey, I wrote two today. Is that good? Oh man, I can't even remember when I started. There would be days I didn't sell anything in the days I sold five. So, you know, one of the things I've told agents for years is, you may have a bad day in this business, but you won't have a bad week. And if you have a bad week, you won't have a bad month. And, you know, the end all's the year. So you look at the year and if the year's the number you wanted, then you don't think about that bad day or that bad week. You know, so many of the motivational speakers you grew up with and I grew up with, you know, Zig Ziglers who I quote constantly. I can't wait for some of these new folks, you know, to hear about Zig Zigler. What a legacy and Norman Vincent Peel. You know, when I got started in this business, I called my dad and I said, okay, what's cool do I go to? Now that you've got me wanting to be in the insurance business, because I didn't want to be. He was a debit agent. He worked really hard. And he was like, you need to be in the ordinary side, which is what we're all in now. Right. That's how old I am, y'all. Yeah, that's for real. But the cool thing that he did for me is, he said, you don't need a schooling. You need these two books. You need Zig Zigler, see you at the top, and you need Norman Vincent Peel about positive thinking and just immerse yourself in these two books. And you may not be a superstar by the end of this year, but you will be a superstar. And I'll never forget it, what he told me. And I've told people the reason I sell so much cancer insurance these days is because of my dad. His legacy, he died at 52 years of age. And he told me, he said, you'll be a superstar because you work incredibly hard. But more importantly, you listen, and then you put it in play. He goes, any good football player I've ever seen, any good baseball player I've ever seen, and that's what my dad and I bonded over. He goes, it was always work ethic. It was always work ethic. He goes, some of those good, some, but that's not what gets them to the Super Bowl. That's not what gets them to the World Series. It's the hard work. And then he goes, the other component you have is you're a good person and you're a good leader, and that's what gets people to championships. And so I kind of took that advice he gave me and I put that in my business. And as I was coming up, not a lot of people listened to that. They kind of thought I was being cheesy or cliche-ish or whatever, but the more I started listening to the motivators that I was listening to in my windshield time, now y'all would call it podcast, back then we called cassette tapes, but they worked and they worked well and they were just emblazed in my brain. And so I don't get negative easily and I don't think anybody should that's in sales. The exigler used to always say, if you don't have a positive spouse, go find your one. Oh. Yeah. And you know that, and he loved his red-headed wife, but she was positive and she was positive all the time. And I love that kind of thing because it's real. If you don't have somebody at home that it's not gonna work out well. So you've got to have positive, and if you've got that spouse at home that's not being positive, call one of us. Yeah, exactly. Lie in a dark night. Exactly. That's good, that's good. I always listen to Brian Tracy when I was first an insurance agent, you know? Amazing. Yes, yes. I always listen to the art of closing the cell every single day, you know? Just love that stuff. Yeah, really good. Thank you, thank you. So why do you think this business is so hard? You've mentioned it a few times. I know it's difficult, obviously, about 8% of agents actually succeed in safe participation. Yes. But there's more millionaires in their industry in the world. Absolutely. Why is it so difficult? Well, I think one is it's between what's these two years. You know, the agent gets it in his head that the lead sucks, the lead's no good. You know, in our organization, you'll ask anybody that works with me, they'll tell you rule number one is you never complain about a lead. Because a lead is just a piece of- Can you say that again? They never, they do not get to complain about a lead. They know that they'll see the door faster than anything else because there's two reasons for that. The first reason is, is because they're negging themselves out and they're not worth the investment that I'm making in them. And then number two, they're negging out the team around them. So poison spreads like wildfire. So if you create in your head that that lead is nothing but a piece of paper. The minute I see an agent turn in a lead and it says not interested, my first response back to that agent is, why weren't you interesting? People are only going to listen to things that are interested. Just like today, you know, you can turn on anything on any computer device and if you don't like it, you can turn it off. Why are we turning it off? Cause it didn't interest us. The great thing about sales is, yeah, there's not 100% closers. There are people that want to make you think they're 100% closers and great. Let them keep believing that lie because it's not real. But there are people who are 50% closers and that's a great living. I mean, if every agent I knew close 50% of his leads glory hallelujah, I mean, 8% nation wouldn't be 8% nation anymore. That's right. It would be 80% nation. Yes. So, you know, the good news is, is if you get in your head, that's just a piece of paper. And it's up to me to turn that paper into a $500 bill. And some people go, yeah, but I'm not making 500 on that sale. You are thinking so short-sighted because in the days of the motivational speakers, they used to talk to tea. So after you got this person sold, you went to their neighbor on this side, you went to the neighbor on this side, and what was like a $100 commission turned out to be $500 commissions because they had to know how to prospect. They didn't have technology like they had today. You know, and people around me love to go, did they have phones? And I'm like, yeah, we had phones. Let me clarify that. I did have one of the brick cell phones. But... Is that Justin or Eric that's saying that? Oh, probably both thought it, but they're still respectful enough not to tell me. But at the end of the day, those guys had to do real prospecting. There's an old, old guy by the name of Joe Gandalfa, one of the best life insurance agents that ever existed. And he said his reward at each day was a steak dinner. But he would not have a steak dinner if he didn't sell one person and one referral. So that's the key word, one person and one referral. Now, I'm sure there were lots of days he didn't eat steak, but then they made him go find that referral. And we've just gotten into the age. You know, I hear a lot of agents complaining right now that Facebook ads have soared in pricing. You know, when they first started, they were cheap. Now they're gone with dollars. And somebody said something the other day, I think I'm quoting Justin here, but I was telling about an agent complaining about something and he was like, yeah, there are just people that call the ambulance no matter what. And I think that's a really good thing to have right here. Don't start whining, start working. You know, if work was fun, it would be spelled F-U-N and not W-O-R-K. Now we can have fun at work. We have to work, we have to prospect. And what I love to do last night, I have a good friend, she's a new children's author. And this is a perfect example of how to prospect. So we went to this Ronald McDonald house here in Fort Worth. I'm a big advocate of theirs and we went to their Christmas tree life. Well, I know all these people who have children that are under the age of 10. And I'm like, hey, this is Nancy. She's a children's author. Have you bought a Christmas present yet? Oh, I love books. We sold about 20 books there last night. We got ready to go to the car and she goes, you are an amazing salesperson. And I'm like, I wasn't selling. I was talking about my friend who I believe in what she does. And I think every one of their children needs your book. When you start thinking about insurance as selling and not as believing, you're never gonna sell a thing. You've gotta have conviction to make a connection. And if you don't have convictions, you're not gonna have any connections, which is sales. So when I put that between their head instead of this lead sucks or everybody's calling me wanting to know how to get free health insurance. My day was miserable. People are gonna hear you say that and they're gonna go, I don't wanna be around you. That sure is crap, don't wanna buy from you. So we gotta think about how people view us and how they see us. And when they see your conviction, that connection starts happening. And so that's probably the best advice that I've learned in 35 years. Somebody asked me the other day, do you ever have a negative day? And I thought that was a compliment, first of all. You know, I was like, not many. And they go, really, why is it? And I said, well, I typically wake up and thank Jesus. And if I forget, my day goes terrible. But I always try to read something inspirational in the morning. Some people are about Jesus, some people are about Pinterest, some people are about Zig Ziglar. You know, I'm just gonna tell you, find that happy place in the morning. And get your day started right. Read whatever sets you on fire so that by the end of the day, that fire is, you know, it's flaming instead of flickering. And that's why I think I'm viewed as a good salesperson because I believe in what I do. I love being around people that make me happy, visionary. You know, you could probably name five visionaries today that you talk to probably every week. And most people can't. When you're starting to talk to people in corporate America or, and I hate to say it, people that work for the government, you ask them who their visionaries are. First of all, I'll ask you what a visionary is. Now that's a sad day. Just a sad day. But in our world, we have visionaries. We have influencers. We have people that are excited, not only make this, but let me tell you what I was doing before I started making this. And they make you happy that you made the decision to be an insurance agent. So while we may not wake up wanting to be one, we're certainly glad we are one. Absolutely. And that is a major blessing. Huge blessing, yeah. Yeah. I noticed we were doing some research before the last 8% nation probably about a year ago. And I found a, I don't remember what the website was, but it said that our industry was 51% women. Did you know that? So I didn't know it, but I mentioned the other day when you and I were just visiting that there's a lot of women in this business, but there's not a lot of successful women in this business. And I hope we can all change that. Me too. You know, the cool thing is when I'm around a lot of the, I'll call them visionaries, maybe they're influencers, maybe we need to come up with a really creative name so we can marry those up. There you go. But what I find in that area is 90% of the time when I'm talking to women about why they're not more successful, why are you not doing more about it? It's really, and this is so sad to say, but they just say nobody really worked with me. Nobody believes in me. You know, I don't have a support at home. My husband thinks going straight commission's not a good idea. And you know, I think in my own life, I had a lot of great male role models. I mean, I'm so blessed. I had a dad that believed in me like nobody's business. My husband is a major contributor to my success. I mean, there's been times in this 35 year history where he was like, you go do that and I'll stay back and I'll do this. And that's not easy for a Vietnam veteran to do. I mean, stay at home dad in the 80s was not as popular as it is today. Absolutely. Let me go hit my goals. And has been my biggest cheerleader all along. My business partner is a great believer in me. My son's a great believer in me. I'm surrounded by amazing male influences. And I think this thing where we're in one box or another is ridiculous. We're all people and some of my biggest cheerleaders are men and guys that have helped me and given me ideas along the way. Some of my best teachers are males and I think what these women need is to sit back and go, I can do anything I wanna do, but I need to listen and I need to get some negative garbage out of my head. Where does that come from for you? Because I can see it and sense it that you believe deeply that you could accomplish anything you want to. And I love that. There's certain people in my life that are the same way and I always wonder where that comes from. Well, it is strictly by one person. I started working in advertising sales at 17. I hadn't had my eighth birthday yet. Was gonna go to college but decided I wanted to go work. Most people think I have a college degree, I don't. And that used to be something that I didn't say out loud. I would just let people kind of find out about it because all the people in this business were college degree and everybody talked about their college education. But my very first boss, she sat me down and she says, I don't care if you use the F-bomb 40 times a day, you're never allowed to say the word can't. If I ever hear you say the word can't, I'm gonna fire you on the spot. And as a 17 year old with my 18th birthday in like three months, I was terrified and her name was Twyla Offill. And her maiden name, well her first married name we met was Twyla Folsom. And then she ended up marrying a really good friend of mine and they were married for a really long time. But she said, I just have so many dreams for you. And if you start using the word can't, you will never accomplish anything. So I got rid of can't in my vocabulary at 17. I use the words will not occasionally, but I'm not to say the word can't. I'm thinking most people if you talk, especially people that are in my employee and people that have been around me, they'll tell you they hardly ever hear that said. And I would probably say they've never heard it said because I just have practiced not using it. But I don't wanna say never in case one person heard it, you know how social media is. I got her on camera, she said can't. I'm giving everybody the caveat right now I might have said it. But I think that was the stepping stone to my success. And every 90 days she would bring me in and she'd tell me everything I had done wrong, constructive criticism become my middle name. And I would walk out of there in tears and feel like I was a failure and I was letting her down. Then when I left and went on to take another job in the insurance industry, which by the way I thought I was going into pharmaceutical sales. So that's a whole nother story for another session. But she literally looked at me across the desk and she said I wanna hold you here because you are the absolute best employee I've ever had. Wow. But I know the best thing for you is to go. And about, it's time flies in this world today, but I think it's about six months ago. I was going through this journey of some, everybody has a struggle and I was kind of going through this and I wrote this thing on Facebook and she came back and she goes, I don't know what your struggle is. I don't know what's happening, but I do know Galen and I know that you're gonna come out on the other side of this stronger and better than you ever were before. Now, I haven't worked for her in almost 40 years. Well, no, I left her when I was about 20. So not quite 40, let's go 36. I haven't worked for her in 36 years. And she put that on my Facebook and I read that and I came in and I started telling all of my employees about it. And they were like, that's so nice. That's so sweet. I was like, I wanna be that employer. It immediately changed because when people come and go, you always as an employer take it personally. You're like, oh my gosh, why is that person leaving me? And that happens a lot in our business because people go from captive to broker. And sometimes they come back broker to captive because they need that structure. But, and we always have an open door policy. You go out there, if it doesn't work, you're welcome back anytime. But I remember thinking when this one person left, I was really getting ready to take it really hard. And my former boss had written that like a month before. And I was like, I needed that message. I need to know that when you let your people go and become bigger and better, that's the reflection looking back at you. You helped that person become who they are. And you've got people like that in your life. You get to go back and go, hey, without them, I wouldn't be leading 8% nation. Totally. And so it's so cool to have that in your life. So I think learning not to say the word can't, I think knowing that I have all these people believe in me, but more importantly, I have had so many people in this journey that wanna help me. And sometimes we take their help as criticism, where it is open our vision and see that as not criticism, but really as somebody trying to help us. So if you've got that person that's kicking you in the butt saying, hey, you had 20 leads today, they all were not interested. You were just not on your game today. You need to call all those people back and apologize for not being who you needed to be. And get those people sold. Maybe you only sell five of them. And if all of those were a $400 commission, you turn that 20 number of leads into $2,000. You don't work in any business where you wake up in the morning and go, I get a raise today. I have to go to John and ask for a raise or Carol or Betty Sue. I get to get up and just work a little harder and I made a raise or I got a raise. That's what's beautiful about our business. You determine your destiny and you determine your paycheck. No one else does that. It doesn't matter what your commission is. It's, you're on a commission. You get to make it as big as you want. And the harder you work, the better people see you. And I think that that is what makes people want to work harder. I love that, Galen. Thank you for sharing that. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put that on those last 180 seconds of that. I'm going to just put it on repeat so I could just press it in my car. Seriously, that was good. So good. Yeah, I mean, I love your confidence, willing to help believe in yourself, believe in other people. I love the fact that you're like, we don't allow people to complain about leads. That's so good. Because even if someone, someone tells them obviously when they're not interested, it's not that they've never bought insurance before or that they're never going to, you know? Or that they don't need to. That's the part that agents don't make the connection on. You know, my dad told me, and I'll tell you this quick story, because I think it's important for the listeners to hear this. This was a debit agent who on a good week made 500 bucks, okay? But their work ethic was phenomenal. And he used to tell me, you've got to get three no's. And when you get three no's, turn that no around. Now it becomes spelled as on and it's onto the next. So no, no, no, onto the next. No, no, no, onto the next. But I was on a sales call with him and I was 12 years old. My very first job was taking all these debit agents books that were about this thick and I was really good on an adding machine. And so I balanced all their books. I mean, at 12th, I mean, I was just, I just loved it. So I was with my dad on this sales call and this lady was Dirt Port. Dirt Port. He was life insurance agent. At the time the company's name was National Life and Accident. And for people that don't know, you know, they owned the Grand Ole Opry, they owned WSM and which by the way WSM, if you're a Nashville person or like Nashville, that really means we shield millions because they got a lot of people protected and they took a lot of banks out of the great depression that went bankrupt. Wow. So I've always been in and around the insurance business but the cool thing about this particular sales call, this lady was Dirt Port and my dad took her last, I think it was like $2.50 a week is what her policy was. And we walk out and it's like, I cannot believe you took her last $2.50. This woman is now broke and he turned me around by my shoulders and he said, listen little girl, she may not care about her family but I do. You're too young to understand what's going on in this family's life but this woman will probably die and her kids have nothing without this life insurance policy. So I didn't take her $2.50, I invested her $2.50. And so for all those years that I fought getting in the insurance industry, I wanted to be an advertising exec and I wanted to be a pharmaceutical sales exec. Now going back, I go back to moments like that in my life and I'm like, what a teaching moment. So I'll tell all your folks out there, don't think your kids aren't listening because they are. So even though you're, it's a kid thing, it's also those new agents you're training up. You think a lot of time those new agents aren't listening to you. They're not just listening to you, they're watching you. They watch everything you do. They watch how hard you work. They watch what you believe in. They watch what you say to people. They watch everything. And I think that that is what going back in time has made me somewhat successful is that I really remembered hearing I didn't sell her that. She didn't buy a bunch of baloney. We invested this and this is gonna be the best thing for her family. So it doesn't matter if you're in life insurance, Medicare, health insurance, what any kind of insurance you're in, people need it. And most importantly, they want it. Now there is a bridge between needing and wanting and it's called the dollar bill. It's what their priority is and what they're gonna spend those dollars on. And one of the things that I've said for years in selling cancer is I've looked at people and I've said, look, I get, you want all the toys in life and you wanna keep smoking and you wanna keep drinking but a lot of those things you're doing is what causes cancer. Spend a dollar a day and protect the things that matter the most to you and that's your family. Cause one day these toys that you've gotta have, you're not gonna be able to use them. Smoking is gonna hurt your insides. Drinking, we all like a little bit, but you know, everything's at moderation. And you know, I just think that when you really break it down to them that it is just a dollar a day to invest in your family, then things like that start penetrating and they're like, well, you know what? I can't afford a dollar a day for them. I can still have fun doing all of this, but I just cut out one drink a week or I cut out one pack of cigarettes a week or I cut out something that's harming my family and instead invest it in my family. And what that does for the agent is now you've helped somebody but you've also increased your income 30 grand a year. So if you look at every product you add in a bundle, adding $30,000 a year to your income, if you're selling four products and you were making 50,000 but now you're making 120,000, you're on your way to tripling your income just because you have conviction in what you do. And you've showed somebody that. And that's the greatest thing about this is showing somebody. You know, we look at it as selling somebody. No, it's showing somebody. So I think- Love it. That's what's kind of clicks in my head. I love it, the queen of the bundle. Yay. I like that title. That's good. What, if someone wants to reach out to you or follow you or add you on Facebook or something like that, what should they do? Where should they go? So I'm on Facebook. It's really easy to find me because I don't have the name Cody. You know, mine is Galen, G-A-Y-L-A-N. And it's Galen Hendrix, it's easy to find. I'm on Instagram, it's Hendrix Galen. You know, that's one good thing about having a name like Reba and Cher, not everybody's got it. And so they can find me that way. They're always able to email me or call me. I love meeting new people. I love hearing new ideas. And you know, we're joining you guys, so we're gonna get to meet a whole new group of people. And so we're just really thrilled about the relationship. And like you said, I mean, we've just met, but it's like I told you the other day, I feel like we've known each other forever. Absolutely, yeah. It's easy, it's natural. You're phenomenal relationships and it's been fun getting to know you. Thank you so much for sharing everything. It's been unbelievable. And thank you for being on. Yeah, you're very welcome. Very welcome. Appreciate it. Huge thanks to Galen. Thanks for watching Insurance Influencers. If you wanna be on. And do you think you got what it takes? Email Andy at CodyAskans.com. See you next time. Hey, if you love this video, there's one video you absolutely have to watch. It's how to make $10,000 weekly and it's right there. Go click on it and I'll see you there. Let's do the math. So if you wanna think through 10K, all right? So the goal is $10,000, okay? If you divide that by an average premium,