 Welcome to this week's podcast, 8% Nation. I'll share a little nugget with your audience for presentation-wise. I'm an MP guy, but you can use this for final expense as well. Let's say you're doing your presentation whenever that might be. Always give them a free option close. Find somebody or someone or something in a way to hold yourself accountable. Write down your goal every day. You talk about how you recommend that if I'm not mistaken that new agents, maybe if they don't have a lot of money, obviously one market, but also age leads. Can you talk about that for a second? I look at your career as an insurance agent, right? Even if you're a personal producer for the rest of your life, you gotta look at your career as like two bookends. At the beginning of your career, you work one market and referrals until you save up enough money and just consistently buy leads. And then at the end of your career, you should have enough referrals where you never have to buy a lead ever again. But the middle, you better be pouring crazy money into lead resources. You are listening to the 8% Nation podcast, created to help you become a top producer in the insurance industry. Enjoy the show. Welcome to this week's podcast, 8% Nation. Cody, it's been a little while, man. It has, man. I'm excited to be back in the saddle again. I miss talking to our friends and dropping knowledge bombs on people. So we got Pete Fournier and Jared Mangum with us today. Two beasts in the industry. Thank you so much for having us. We appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. You got it, buddy. Yeah. Thank you, man. Yeah, thank you. Hey, so the theme of this, obviously 8% Nation, you guys know all about that. So I want to start off with a question. You know, why do you guys think 8% of insurance agents fail? Why don't we just start there? Or succeed, 92% fail, which either way is crazy big. I said 92% fail is what I meant to say. Yeah. In my opinion, the one thing the independent market is lacking a lot of is accountability. Like there's no one there. You know, you have uplines, downlines, things like that. But the employee model, the captive model, you know, there's someone there to fire you if you don't produce and do what you need to do to get it done. But on the independent model, there's no one there. You know, if you're a downline or an agent, you're not costing your upline any money. If you only do a thousand a month or something, you know, that's what you do. And they just let you go. There's no one there. Now some uplines do, some don't. You know, they just build and recruit. But, and even for the agent, there's just no one there to really hold them accountable unless they hold their sales accountable, which a lot of agents just don't. Yeah. You can't necessarily force them to do something, right? Everybody's a 1099, employee's a bad word, but 1099, right? You're your own business owner. So like to branch off from that too is like, the failure comes from failing to treat your business like a business. Most agents, they see the cars or the money or whatever, the lavish lifestyle, the freedom, but they don't invest in themselves to get there. You have to, even though it's really cliche, you know, spend money to make money. And most agents don't treat it like a business. They just want the income and they don't want anything to leave their bank account to get that income. Just pay me, just pay me Pete, just pay me bro. Just pay it, cut the checks. I would love to get to know each of your stories real quick. There's probably a lot that maybe do know or a lot that maybe don't know. So I'd love for each of you to share real quick and give us a little background about Pete and Jared. Jared, go ahead. All right, so starting in the industry almost 10 years ago, which is crazy. That's probably where some of the gray hair comes from now. But yeah, it'll happen. So almost 10 years, I actually started as an intern for a captive company when I was in college and I was the poor guy, yeah, same as you. So I was the poor guy that was making all the cold calls for all the producers and they were driving around in their horses and stuff. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? So I got my license shortly after that. I did the whole like write down 250 people that you know, then my manager said, okay, that's cool. And I'll call them and try to sell them like a term policy and I was like, what? So commission only like, I think they gave us like a hundred bucks a week for like parking. And then I was it, cause it was in Cleveland. And then I migrated to another captive that I stayed with for probably like 15 months or so. And then I finally hit the independent market and never really looked back. But I also, I think to going back to like, why 92% of agents fail too, there's such a different mentality I feel like then Cody, then maybe when me and you started in the business, even though it was like only 10 years ago, the mentalities changed so much. Like most agents nowadays don't realize what it was like to get paid 30% comp, you know, or something of that nature and try to make six figures on that compensation plan, right? So I think that's part of the reason too, where failure occurs. But I went through the mud and the muck, like you did to 30%, 40%, 50%. I remember when I got like a 65% comp plan, I was like, oh my God, I am loaded. And hit the independent market, did a lot of mortgage protection, that was my play. I know you're the final expense guru, but I did the MP side, got on planes, flew all over the place to make sure I was getting decent lead return. So that was the other thing, like not trying to work in my backyard, I would have loved to, but the leads just weren't there. So I would jump on a plane, go to the Midwest or the South or something like that. Is that what? One or two percent lead return for MP. And then eventually found my home at Innovative. Nice. Is that what got you thinking about traveling was able to get a better return, more leads for your money? Yeah, so when I first went independent, right, I didn't have a ton of money. And it's so funny like watching the cost of mail go up, which is why the digital space is so important. But eight leads were like $26, $30. So they were one expensive, right? And two, the lead returns in like the Northeast and where I was at in Ohio weren't that great. It was pretty saturated market. So I would fly to like Washington state or Arizona or California or something because they were getting like 1.9% lead returns, which was like crazy high. And then I would supplement those with age leads because I couldn't afford like a hundred lead drop, right? In a given area. So I'd buy three or 400 age leads on top of 25, maybe brand new ones, and then go spend like four or five days there and just run points. Wow. And that's dedication, man. That's impressive work. Yeah, for real. Also, Pete, while you're going, buddy, you talk about how you recommend that if I'm not mistaken that new agents, maybe if they don't have a lot of money, obviously war market, but also age leads. Can you talk with that for a second? I don't think I invented the process by any means because people were doing it long before I did, but I tweaked it to a way where you basically turn the age lead into a brand new one by doing a refresh letter. And if anyone wants to reach out after this, I mean, I'll show you mine. It's nothing special, but there's like small things that turn that age lead and it could be two, three, four years old into a brand new one. So if you don't have the upfront capital, you still need to invest in your business, but you could do it on a smaller level. So, you know, two or 300 age leads at three or four bucks a piece, plus maybe a dollar for stamps and envelopes, you're all in at like $5. And that's three or 400 opportunities to go get some money, as opposed to maybe spending $50, right? For a brand new MP lead at this point, maybe that's even cheap. And having only 25 at bats, you know? I want as many people as humanly possible to talk to. That was the whole game plan. It's a good game plan. I'm talking about too, if you fly to another state, you have no choice but to hold yourself accountable. You have to, yeah, you have no choice. And no distractions or anything. And that didn't come from too, I don't want to give the misconception of like, I went independent and jumped on a plane. Like I built up my bankroll to be able to do that. But yeah, I mean, to your point, I mean, you spend three grand just to get to your territory, right? And then the clock starts ticking. So I think that was a big motivator too. Thank you. That's awesome, bro. That's impressive. That's good, dude. That's real good. Jared, what about you, man? Yeah, so I got licensed roughly almost eight years ago now. Started at a captive P&C shop. Sold all to home, life help business. They did bank loans as well. They pushed, you know, they shove life down your throat. They were a P&C agency, but you know, that's the bread and butter. So I was there, became a top producing agent in bank loans throughout the country. And while I was young, I think I was 26 at the time, decided to go independent because with the captive, I didn't own any of it. So I couldn't give it to my son or sell it, do anything like that. I was just building it for them. So going independent, I started making insurance group three years ago, three, three and a half years ago. And in about a year and a half, a little bit under two years, built that to like one and a half million doing that. But before I did that, I ran FE Leads for about two months, did about 62 grand or so in FE to get some capital started. Bam! Good grief, man. So I love life. I'm a P&C guy, but I love life. So I did that to get the capital to start the P&C because starting P&C is not cheap at all. You gotta have storefront, you gotta have this, you gotta do sponsorships if you're local. So I did all that, never bought any leads for the P&C. Just did marketing, sponsorships, donations, things of that such. And then about a year ago or so, I'd always had my life contracts with Innovative. Innovative and when they decided to get the P&C is when we partnered up and went on from there. Cool. Nice, dude. Dang, 62K in FE. So from the P&C guru. I was gonna ask, how in the world? Okay, so walk me through your mindset on your like, okay, I'm gonna do the FE sales to get the revenue for the P&C. Why don't you just keep going on the FE? What was going on? What was your mindset there? Long-term residuals. Okay. P&C has some really good long-term residuals and I'm in insurance for the long-term play. I love property and casualty. I like dealing with the clients one-on-one. And the 15% new commission is 15% renewal as well. So it always matches up and it's just a long-term play of that. So I knew I wanted a storefront and at the time I was a mom and pop, one-on-one with clients, face-to-face and just wanted to keep rolling it. And I wanted to build that book up because as you're building it up, everybody's gotta have home and auto. If you have it, you have to have it by state law. Not everyone has to have life. So every home I did, I knew how much money they owed on the home so I had a lot of term. It was all, the P&C was free life at least. It's what it turned out. Got you. And I always did at least 70, 80 grand or so just organically off of P&C. Right on. Wow. Yeah, you seem like a relationship guy and that's maybe why you weren't necessarily wanting to just pound the FE. You just liked people and you wanted to do more than just one and done. This sounds like. I'm a big, I love building relationships. That's kind of my passion and what I truly enjoyed it. Well, can we segue to that? Well, I mean, yeah, who coined you Captain Connect? Was that Peter? Was that me? Or was that a conversation? I tried it a half hour ago, but it is true. Like, I mean, I knew about innovative just as an example, right? Like, I really wouldn't have taken the plunge or like even entertain the opportunity without knowing Jared. And I think Jared even introduced us. He probably did. Together. So, I mean, I've seen him at work in just public setting. I mean, without getting into a great detail, he basically sold the bartender like a couple of weeks ago while I was sitting with him at the restaurant. Like, he's always on. Was he recruiting? It's really impressive. Yeah, Uber driver. Yeah, it's not. That's good, man. Was he recruiting the bartender or selling him insurance or both? Selling him insurance, yeah. P&C. I'm gonna sell you for us and then recruit. There you go, I got it. Commission, then you need to go make your own, you know? Yeah. I like that. Where does that come from for you, Jared? Is that like, is there something in your childhood that like, you know, I mean, maybe it's like on a disc assessment, I'm assuming you're off the charts on an eye. If you guys know what I'm talking about, the disc assessment. Yeah. I guarantee. I don't know, I just always, I love interacting with people. I love meeting them, finding out where they're from, where they've been, where they wanna go. You know, that's exciting to me, finding out what someone truly wants to do and what their goals are and how maybe I might be able to help in some small way, get them there. That's just, you know, I don't even, I don't get paid to do that. I just enjoy building relationships. You know, when I saw you and you were throwing on the 8% nation, if you dig back deep, you know, I was a network and hard with you. You were. I was like, I'm coming, I'm coming. And I just truly enjoy it. I don't know if it's anything from childhood or anything like that. I just really enjoy building relationships with people and meeting people and connecting people. Yeah, yeah. Has it been a week since the plane, since you reminded me about the plane push or what? Oh yeah, that'll be coming Friday. Yeah. We're gonna do that plane push. He's consistent about it, man. I put it out there, you know, it's one of my dreams and goals and that dude reminds me about it all the time. He's like, you need those for me. All the accountable. Good. Those are the kind of people you want in your life. Every time I put out a video, you know, I'll eventually get like a gift, a plane gift from Jared. Hashtag plane push, you know. I love that, man. I love it. I'm not gonna stop, neither, until you get it, man. Please go, man. Well, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen today, but it'll happen, you know. Oh yeah. And I appreciate that, because, you know, you don't, I mean, dude, you don't make any money off, just reminding me of my dreams and goals, you know. I think that's just cool, man. There's just, we need more people that think like that, you know, and that they're not just in it for the quick buck. They're like, they care. And they're like, you know what? I'm gonna, like, for instance, you just put out a post. Like, hey, I'm gonna hold 10 life insurance agents accountable to make it a hundred good. Yeah. And yeah, it don't matter if you're with me or not. Like, all it is is a Sunday call and I'm gonna be pretty hard if you select off that week or something. You know, I'm gonna talk strongly to you and say, well, listen, we need to fix it this week, you know, plain and simple, or the next phone call will be worse and I'm gonna, you know, be on top of it. You know, I'm running into more and more, like, good dudes that we all just want to, like, grab each other by the shirt collar and lift each other up, unless you've got to lose for me to win. Yeah. You know, if I start to sniff that out, like, I'm, like, out of there, you know what I mean? Like, if it's about you beating me to, like, get something, like, oh, I'm competitive, but, like, let's help each other win. You know what I'm saying? Definitely, all of you guys are like that. It's such a close-minded, and I don't know if it comes from, like, the stigma of our industry, like, we're all hunters, you know, whatever the case may be, but, like, it's such a short-term mindset to think about that, where, like, this is such a bigger value play, like, what Jared and you guys do, what I try to do, right, I'm not as good as him, but, like, the value prop of giving others, what is that, Six Ziggler, right? Yeah. Give others what, or help others achieve what they want so you can achieve what you want. It's so true. Like, it may be a little cliche, but it works. Yeah, well, the insurance business is a relationship business period. It's people. It's people, people, people first, and recruiting, or product sales, whatever it is. So, Pete, you are the sales master, my friend. I have heard a lot, and I troll some Facebook groups that you're a part of, and you're always dropping nuggets and dropping sales tips, and, you know, I saw your video you did that was like 5,400 bucks for 40 minutes, or whatever, that premium you sold. So, let me ask you this. This is a question I like to ask guys like yourself. If you were to write a book, a 30-page book, right, what would you, what would the core of that book be, man? What's the best you got to help some of these people be successful there to pick up your book? Good question. Yeah, so I think, overall, it's the process. Like, well, I would say 50-50 process, 50-50 mindset. So, my mind, even to this day going into a house, is what's the backend, just like relationships, what's the backend value of XYZ policy? I try never to talk about costs. The premium really doesn't matter. It's the end goal. So, I'll share a little nugget with your audience for presentation-wise. I'm an MP guy, but you can use this for final expenses, well. Let's say you're doing your presentation whenever that might be. Always give them a three-option close. So, my MP sets, right, I'm always showing a three-option close. I'm showing, let's say, a fully underwritten term. I'm showing term return of premium, option B, right? And I'm showing full-blown whole life to cover mortgage protection. And most agents might say that's nuts. No one's gonna afford $400 a month. Well, it's not really $400 a month, because when you break down the total cost of A, B, and C, A is actually really expensive. What, one to 2% of the term policies pay out? So, 98% of the chance is you're gonna outlive that. You're gonna wind up spending, let's say, $20,000 on that policy. Option B is net zero. You don't gain anything, but you don't lose. If you outlive the policy, you get your premiums back. Option C, however, I'm almost showing you how to make money on your money. Right, you wanna outlive, you wanna die. So, let's show you how to make two times your money based on the cash value accumulation of a policy, whatever the case may be. So, that's an example of, like, and how I did that close for $5,400 bucks. They saw the value of a term combined with a whole life product, right? And they ultimately picked option C. That's good. I actually don't think I've heard. I've heard of three options, obviously, but I don't think I've heard it put as in three totally different options, right? Because when you said that, I was thinking three different benefit options, you know? I like that, dude. That's creative, it's unique. I think it's cool. I think it's good. Thanks, appreciate it. Really cool. How'd you figure that one out, man? Just trial and error? I mean, MP for me, and I guess you can say the same about FB too. Like, basically any agent can go into an MP sit and sell a fully underwritten term all day, and their closing ratio might be like 80%, but those policies are like 30 bucks a month and they take a long, long time to underwrite, right? You might get paid next month off of that. I didn't wanna play that game. One, I'm not gonna say no to business, but I don't really like writing dollar a day policies. It doesn't show a lot of value to the client. So how do I increase that? And that was the easiest way for me to get there. And I'm not saying like you're gonna close 50% of people on an IUL or a whole life for mortgage protection, but if you get one a week at three or 400 bucks, that's some people's entire quotas in their mind, right? I'm gonna write four or five grand this week. You did it in one policy, one sit. That's all you need. Right on, man. Well, I'm extremely intrigued by how old were you when you were jumping on a plane to go to your territory? I was like 23-ish, 23 and a half, I would say. So a 23 year old kid taking three grand, let's just say, to get to the territory and then by the time you got your eight leads and your age leads and your direct mail leads, you're into that trip, you're into the trip for what, four grand, five grand? Yeah, my average travel trip I would say was anywhere between nine and like 15,000 somewhere in there depending on where I was going and what I was selling, but I knew I had to sell four, five, six policies at 100 bucks a month at the time to be able to break even because I was only at like 50, 60, 70% comp too. So that's where the larger case size came into play and sometimes I get a little flack for it talking about every policy you go after should be at 85 or 100 bucks and that's something internal that I have to get over but that was my mentality at 23, 24 because if I don't sell you 100 a month policy, I'm eating ramen noodles, right? Cause I'm in the middle of North Dakota, solid insurance. So that's kind of where that comes from. Hey, do you still go to the exact same county that you shared with me on video? And you don't have to share it again because you already shared it once, but you shared it 18 months ago or so. And I remember what the state was. Yep. And there was a county that, do you still go there? I have not been there, I would say in like two or three years, but if you go there, you'll definitely see a lot of my policy holders and there's probably still not a lot of agents there, but if you want to look back at Cody's content. That's right. The state is Washington state. That's right. So if you guys in Washington state, you're living in a gold mine, but there's one gold mine in particular. So take a peek back at Cody's content. That's right. And if you find it, you deserve to go there right now. There you go. You found the gold. I remember that really well. Like that stood out to me, you know? I'm like, that's a good memory. Well, and I'd never heard of it before. You know, I knew it was Washington. I don't remember the county name, but they're gonna go back and watch now. But just in general, I'm like, this dude, like, okay, so where did you live when you were traveling to Washington? So I lived in Ohio. I went to school in Cleveland, right? Okay. And I lived in Ohio for a little bit afterwards, and then I moved back home to Jersey. But I was in between, I probably went there the first time the year after I graduated college. So I was still in Cleveland at the time. A Browns fan? No. Well, yes. It's just as worse. A-E-T-S. Well, it's just as bad to be a Cowboys fan right now, too. Yeah. Before we move on. Before we move on to that, I wanna understand your mindset on what it took for you to get to the place where you went from not spending money on leads and working in a warm market to I'm gonna spend this money to get to this county. And I mean, that's a big jump for a 23-year-old man. Like, that is like a big jump. So walk me through the mentality of what click with you. Was it a book you read? Was it a mentor you had? Was it a piece of wisdom you got? How did you make that switch? Cause that's a big deal. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's huge. I tried to like, I guess go against the status quo of what other agents I saw doing in my IMO were doing. You know, if that makes sense. So, I mean, there were some top producers that would just go out and crush FE in their backyard and they would spend like three grand a week on leads and make $10,000. And that's great. But like, I wanted to kind of break the mold of the other like 500 agents that I saw that were only making $1,200 a week or 500 bucks a week or whatever. So one thing clicked and I've posted content about it. It's in my playbook. I firmly believe, and this is just what happened to me, once I got to $3,000 set aside. So I was paying all my bills, right? I had a house at the time, a condo, but it was in Cleveland, so it was pretty cheap. I lived fairly frugally during that time. But once I set aside $3,000 as a comfortable buffer for myself in a separate checking account, I was like, man, I'm covering all my expenses, all my leads, I'm eating okay, like I'm not eating spaghetti or ramen noodles every day. Once that 3K was set aside, I was like, screw it. I'm gonna spend the whole thing, jump on a plane, if it doesn't work, I'm back to zero and I don't have any money in my business account. At that time, it was just a separate checking account. So that was the moment, like I saw 3K and I don't remember ever setting aside like that much money, not in like just the savings account before, towards a bigger purpose. So I was like, eh, screw it, let's spend it all, see what happens. So it was basically a gamble for a long-winded answer. Yeah, roll the dice, man, which worked out. Yeah, my first week in Washington was like 11, eight. I was out there for, I usually would go for four days. So if you want the perfect travel trip real quick, dial Wednesday, Thursday, get on a red-eye Thursday night, sleep on the plane, land Friday if it's far away, run appointments Friday or Saturday, do your paperwork Sunday, go to sleep on Monday. Yeah, that dedication right there is intense, man. That's awesome, good for you. So did you just dial all day Wednesday? And Thursday? Yeah, all day Wednesday. So like I would start, the nice part about going to the West Coast too, especially in Washington, was you had an extra three hours. You could dial till midnight, right? So I would start at like noon, I could sleep in a little bit because I was on my own schedule, or whatever, I'd sleep until 11 o'clock. Wake up, have lunch, dial from like noon to like 11 30, right, and do that Wednesday and Thursday, and then hop on a plane Thursday night and go to bed. Wow, dude, I'm six nine, and I know where I could sleep on a plane like that. Yeah, I know I'm six three and I was definitely high enough. Landon's got to sleep in first class for sure. You can as soon as Cody Boswell. That's exactly right, yeah. I better buy a big one, bro. I see what he did there. How many appointments would you have on that? Cause it was, you were in the field two days out there? Yeah, usually two full days. I didn't want any less than 15 preset, I'd usually go for 20. Nice. Right on, man, it's good. Jared, dude, what's in your book, bro? Like, what's your nugget, man? Your wisdom of wisdoms, of wisdom nuggets, what do you got? Honestly, one of the most important things to me is surrounding yourself with the right circle of people. And constantly, you know, there's a quote, I can't remember who it is, who said it, but it's, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Yep, I've heard that. I've heard you say that. Yeah, I like live my life by that. Like, I don't ever want, I want to be the dumbest person in the room because then I've walked into a new and a bigger and a better room. So building relationships, networking with the right people and just constantly, constantly doing it because it, you know, if you meet one person a day, you know, every year that's 365 people that you're building and surrounding yourself with. And so I always like to surround myself with people above me, which is Bob Ropetian, who's better than I am, smarter than I am. So, but so I always, you know, just building your circle and your circle of influence with the right people. Because when you put the right people around you, you have no choice but to go up. So because everybody's your prospect with PNC, how do you, I've been accused before, people have told me and I've gotten better. This is when I was younger. Landon, you're always, you're always settling me, man. Like, so how do you build relationships? How do you walk that line? Do you have any like trips? I mean, obviously we, you know, we can use our wisdom, but do you have any tips on how to like leverage your network, but also not be prospecting everybody all the time? And what's that line of working your warm market and how do you feel that out? Is there anything you could share? I have a three step system. Oh, okay. That I usually do before I pitch somebody, whether it's a prospect or an agent or anyone. So I'm gonna have three 20 minute conversations with them about something personal or just personal. So like Cody the other day was at a Duke game. You know, if I didn't know Cody and I saw that, I would watch, I'm not a Duke fan. So I would reach out and say, man, I cannot believe you're a Duke fan. If I wanted to build my relationship with Cody, I would upset that and had a 20 minute conversation about nothing. And then after I have three of those, maybe four of those, if I decide I wanna work with you or I want your business, that's when I go into it. Cause by that time, we've already built the relationship with for an hour. We've had three separate conversations that lasted a minute and we're now best friends or I wanna be your best friend. And then I'm gonna wanna work with you or I'm going into your business. That's a little better than spamming somebody to death. Yeah. Yeah. So I do, and I'm like, I'm picky with it. You know, I have some people, you know, I wanna make sure like with Pete here, I knew that I wanted to work with Pete. You know, it wasn't a recruitment thing. It was, look, I wanna work with you. We need to do this and this is a great place. Come hang out, worst case, we get to hang out for a few days, you know? So that's really what it was. I like surrounding myself and bringing on people that I want to spend time with. I like that. I'm gonna start thinking through that when I'm trying to build a relationship with someone in general, that's solid. So you don't just, you know, throw out a company in a comp level and say they're stupid if they don't join your team. You know what I mean? Come on, that doesn't work. No. I've never recruited on comp or contracts or anything else. So I just build a relationship. You don't get on LinkedIn and just fire out message after message? If that's the value, you can always find something better. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, it's when, you know, when does the madness end? There's only so far that you can go, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's, and there always is something better somewhere, you know? And the people who are constantly looking for it are gonna find a reason to go here or there or do this or that. But if you have that relationship with them and you've maintained it, you can't put a price on that. That's good. Who's the one person that you have the best relationship with that we know but that I didn't know that? Hmm, Taylor? I don't know if you know that or not. Taylor's a good friend of mine. Yeah, that's good. I love me some Dobby. Dude. He's a good friend of mine. Those are good dudes right there. Good guys, man. Yeah, really good. I'm trying to think outside of it. Mike Newton's a good friend of mine. I didn't know that. He's also a state fan. He's one up on you, noted. But yeah, but Taylor and Mike and then Michael and Michael McCormick too. You know, they're all great dudes and stuff and I love talking to them. And we can talk shop a little bit more too because they're P&C as well. So sometimes when I start rambling about P&C life, they just start to look confused and don't know my terms and stuff and everything with it. So it's nice to have somebody in the independent market that I can talk to about P&C and stuff. Well, Pete, you said that, I don't know if this was on the podcaster before, but Jared was got a policy out of the bartender the other day, which is, ha, ha, that's funny. But really, that's a skill to be able to get into a real conversation with a human being as you're crossing. Do you have any like ice breakers that you typically use or is there any like little tricks that you've, I mean, not that we're always selling people, but what have you found that's worked well in those situations, you know? Make somebody else talk. Don't talk about yourself. What do you do? Where are you from? How'd you get here? Nice to meet you, you know? You know, what is, are you gonna be working here next year? Are you gonna be doing this next year? You know, who do you have your insurance with? Are you happy with that? I try to make somebody else talk as much as possible. I think really- Not to give away your trade secrets, but Jared used like, it was almost like a survey approach. So we were just sitting there like eating and he was like, hey man, come here for a second. I walked over, you know? And he asked him like three or four questions and he was like, just out of curiosity, where do you have your auto insurance or something like that? And the guy was like, state farm or progressive or something. He was like, you shop it? Yeah, every once in a while. Where? You know, whatever. He was like, would you like me to be your agent? And the guy was like, sure. And I was like, oh my gosh. You should have got that on video, Pete. I know, I know. Next time we're filming either the Uber ride or dinner or you just need a GoPro attached to your head. There we go. That's where it's hard for me to talk about a process because really like, I'll spend a few minutes and like read the person, you know, because different people are different. If I've got this alpha male that I'm getting ready to pitch, you know, I'm not gonna say that to the same I would as a 20 year old guy. You know, just still in college, you know, I'm not gonna, I really get a read on the person and then go into my questions and just, I wing it, man. But you weren't afraid to ask for the business either, which is really, I think half the battle, you know. It's awesome. You gotta have it by law. It might as well be with me. Yeah. That's true. That's true. That's right, dude. That's right. That's your motto. Hey, we've considered, I want to get your guys' opinion because I know you'd be phenomenal fits for it. We're considering doing like a power networking retreat. And by invite only. I think that's a great idea. You bring a lot of, you know, key people into the same room, like craziness is gonna happen. Dude, for real. I think that's a great idea, Cody too, because like so many people are either on an island in this industry themselves, unless they go to like 8% nation or something like that, right? They're on an island either themselves or even on an island within their own organization, right? They stay so closed off to everybody else, which is so silly. So I think that's awesome. If you got like one or two nuggets in something like that, it's worth, it'll pay dividends in the future. Exactly. Dude, and you know what? I flew Red Eye to 10X3. And. Yes. And I don't know who reached out to who, but I knew you were there. And we get to see each other the last day at 10X3 in Miami. I flew Red Eye. I got there like 7 AM, barely got tickets. And Pete was down on the floor at probably the biggest conference in the world. So this dude, both of them, Power Networker. And Pete's always, I can tell you believe in events, man, because you guys have always supported 8%. You brought it up several times today. You show up. You guys were both there this past year, which is humbling and awesome and really cool. What is it about events that you show up? I think one from a networking perspective like is an absolute no brainer. I mean, you mentioned 10X, right? Or even yours, where else are you gonna get a thousand other people? Or in the case of 10X, like 30,000 people, right? That you could possibly network with? It's so silly to think like, I'll give you an example of ROI, right? On 10X. So I paid, it was my birthday. My 30th birthday that weekend. And I was at growth, kind of like a weirdo. So that's one, I don't really care. But I paid probably a total of $5,000 between ticket, plane ride, whatever. I think I wrote nine or 10 policies from it. So there's immediate ROI. I found my marketing team and I recruited six agents. Like, what, you know? So why wouldn't you go back to something like that every single year? Or go multiple times a year to a whole different ones? Like, the money doesn't matter. I don't wanna like come off pretentious, but like, man, it's like five grand to make exponentially more in the future, you know? I was a slacker, cause I flew Red Eye. I didn't sell, I didn't do anything while I was there, except for a CPU. You had a lot of other things going on beforehand though. That's true. Thanks, bro. That's crazy. So who'd you sell policies to? Dude, I sold policies to people. So my now fiance, it was my girlfriend at the time, went to like the ladies night, right? And she met like three or four women and naturally the women want to go out. So they brought all the men. I closed all of them. It took me a couple of weeks to like get on, you know, Skype calls and do the apps and stuff. But eventually they all got a policy. That's awesome. That's awesome, dude. Well, I mean, I told you, I may have said this before, but it's been a while. I had a revelation the other day when I went to the Dallas game with you guys. And there's 100,000 people in the stadium. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, every single one of these people have home insurance, auto insurance, a lot of them have life insurance. And then I'm like, oh, that's why all these 23 year old kids are making six figures in Quentin College to go sell insurance. You know what I mean? And whenever I was in college, we walked right past the insurance booth and laughed at it. I'm not going to insurance, you kidding me? Yeah, he was one of those guys. Landon, to your point too, like from a mindset perspective too, like I get so upset when like both slightly angry and like emotionally upset when the agents like down in the dumps, we're in the only industry where you can sell anybody. Yeah. You're not selling Ferraris or laptops or whatever. Like anybody is your prospect. That's so baffling, you know? I mean in the insurance premium that's coming out per head in that stadium, when you take the family and the home and the auto and the boats and the rentals and the kids and the health, it's like good grief. That's like, there's just, I just remember looking at those numbers and being like, oh my gosh, that's why I'm in the right industry. Because I'm not licensed, I'm not an insurance agent. I'm just a marketing guy before I met that guy. And I used to tell people there's only two industries I don't want to touch and it's insurance and real estate, you know? And so now here I am in the insurance industry and just good grief the opportunity. So well, sometimes me and my agents will go to lunch together and stuff. And on the way there, you know, we'll be sitting in the stoplight and I'll tell them like, you know, just look at all that money right now. Just waiting for you to go get it. There we go. That's right, dude, I love that. There you go. Well, Peter, are you going to 10X? Yeah, most likely. I hope Grant watches this. Well, no VIP deal. I don't need the Mandalay Bay stay. I just want to get one again. Come on, man. I'm surprised he hasn't done that for VIP. I know, wait until the last minute. Otherwise, I'll just pull the trigger and do it. But I'm holding out. Come on, I want to bring Meg, Grant. That's right. Well, talk to me a little bit about, you know, one of the things, you know, you guys can vote whoever wants to speak up. You mentioned before the podcast that investing in yourself is key and paramount to the success in the insurance industry. Why don't you walk us through what you meant by that statement? I'm sure you've thought about that a lot and told that a lot of people. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, so my entire process, like going back to the beginning of the podcast is like, you got to treat it like a business, right? So if you want, I guess my perfect formula or what I think is I look at your career as an insurance agent, right? Even if you're a personal producer for the rest of your life, you got to look at your career as like two bookends. At the beginning of your career, you work warm market and referrals until you save up enough money and just consistently buy leads. And then at the end of your career, you should have enough referrals where you never have to buy a lead ever again. But the middle, you better be pouring crazy money into lead resources, like multiples too, whether it's Facebook, direct mail, whatever, make sure you're investing because the minute you stop, you're gonna get complacent. You don't have that bill going out anymore and you're done, right? And in the meantime, work smart. If you're averaging two or three referrals in a house, you go see those referrals, you average two or three more again, you're gonna get to a point where six, seven, eight, 10 years down the road, hell, maybe two years down the road. I don't know how fast you're gonna do this, right? Depending on how many people you sit with, you may never have a cost for a lead ever again. But there's that middle section of the two bookends that you have to be spending money or else the career's never gonna work for you. Yeah, right on, man. Well, and there's, you know, things have evolved from a marketing perspective too. A lot of my conversations with clients come down to cost per acquisition and simple numbers. It becomes pretty easy if you know your cost per acquisition is $199 and you're making 800 bucks on average premium on a sale, it's easy to pour money into the marketing budget like that. I can't imagine it's always been that easy without digital, not to mention with tele-sales. There's just so many tools we have now to be successful, so. There's almost, to play devil's advocate, Landon, I think there's too many. You think that's an issue, right? Not that there's too many, because that's amazing, like the amount of resources within the industry, but like most agents are like up squirrel, you know, where they're looking for the shiny new thing as opposed to, dude, you don't know if something works or not until you spend like 10 or 15 grand on it, right? And then you move to the next one if it didn't work out. Like make sure you're pouring the money. If an agent buys, and you guys probably see it all the time, Cody, agents buy 10 Facebook leads, these don't work. Yeah, all right. Yeah, okay. Exactly. That's how it works, you know? And I love that one video you did, Cody, where you were recalling the leads that didn't work. The bad batch, bro. That's fantastic. From your team. But I want to go back to where you were talking about the events and stuff. So like 8% nation, especially, because it's detailed to our industry and then to carry your trips and stuff too. Like when I was going on the trips, I didn't care anything about the free trip. I wanted to talk to other people like me. So I may have done a hundred grand in a year doing it this way, but P that I didn't know might have done a hundred grand in a year doing it this way. So what you can learn from the other agents doing it differently than you can cause you to increase your income and production tremendously. When you find out how they're doing it and they're doing it completely different than you, and then you can take that and put the two together and mold it yourself. So learning from the other people who qualify for stuff like that or go to stuff like that is one of my biggest factors on why I go. I mean, I always told them the networking is the biggest. Cause we were talking, what's the key? What do you think, Landon, new to the industry? About 8%, what's going on? I'm like, bro, that, my favorite thing was that VIP night on the first night and just meeting a lot of our friends. I mean, you were there. I can't remember who always in there, but when I look back, it's like, now that I think about it, I did business with like half that room. You know what I'm saying? And in a good way, like we're friends. You pulled the Jared. I'm just saying we're friends. You know what I mean? Or repeat it 10x. We're friends now. Like we do a lot of business, you know? And it's a lot of fun to work with people that you like hanging around, you know? So. Yeah, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I don't know that I necessarily knew why I was putting them on 8% nation, right? And, you know, a lot of people think I'm insane. And I'm a little crazy, right? I think we all are to a certain degree. But if I look back on 8% the last couple years, the most powerful thing that's came from it is the relationships of people that I maybe would have never met if we wouldn't have started an event. Yeah, I agree. 100%. It's big, it's big. Hey, what's your guys' perspective on it? What would you guys like to see in 8% 2020 from an independent party? What's something we could do? Good. I really enjoyed Cody like the live training perspective. I think people like you were doing rebuttals and phoning and stuff like that. And Ramiz on the processes, like I really love, all the speakers were really good, but I really love like the in-depth actual process training because you can tell the room, you may lose somebody on a keynote every once in a while, right? If you're not the most dynamic speaker or something like that. But when you start actually talking about applications or processes, that whole room was scribbling notes, right? So I think that's huge. I love that stuff. Maybe doing like a live role-play or something like that. That's, I mean, priceless. You're charging let's say $497 for a ticket. That's crazy ROI. That's good dude, thank you. I'm glad you said that because I've been curious. So that's a big help for building an agenda for this year. That's a huge help, thank you. Yeah, I completely agree. That's when I was the most tuned in. That was the only time I quit networking was when we were misspoken. Taylor and Michael and a few others and stuff. And that's when I stopped talking and started listening and stuff. And that was, for me, that was the most I took away from it were those segments that were in-depth. That's good dude. Well, bringing it to a close. One of the questions I like to ask guests is we have a predominantly young audience in general or audience is pretty young. What wisdom would you give a young insurance agent? I mean, besides investing in yourself, besides networking, what are some other things that you haven't covered? You say, you know what, if I would have done this when I was 23 Pete, it would have changed the game but I didn't figure it out till I was 30. Is there any of that that we haven't covered yet or have you covered it all? Yeah, I mean, I would say to everybody and I feel like a lot of the audience maybe at 8% too is like the newer insurance agent, right? That's a big demographic of yours. I would say like, dude, 8, 10, 12 years in this business goes by like that. So if you're not putting in the work every day, you are gonna get 10 years down the road and look back and be like, man, I should have done that or man, picking up the phone that extra Sunday doesn't look so bad now because I wasted like eight years of my life being mediocre, right? So if you're ever down or whatever, we all have off days. Just make sure you're putting in the time, effort, you're getting the training that you need and you are sprinting every single day because the career itself is a marathon but like every day is a sprint because like I said, a decade is gonna fly and I don't want anyone listening to this looking back and be like, man, shoulda coulda woulda, you know? Yeah, that's really good. That is, man. For me, I would especially say, you know, if I've said it before, I'm gonna say it again, find somebody or someone or something in a way to hold yourself accountable, let write down your goal every day. Cody, you've talked about affirmations and stuff, write it down every day, what you're gonna do for the day and don't stop until it's dark or you hit that goal, plain and simple. I mean, because what it comes down to too, like the independent market, like, we're all pretty spoiled, like we, high comps, like, you know, I was selling captive, you know, I was 8% as earned, 12% as earned on whole and term, you know, and I'm selling a lot of it and I came to the independent and I was like, oh my God, 100%? I was like, yeah, let's hit FB for a few months and so it's take advantage of that. But find somebody or something, write down, let them know what your goals are and what you wanna do and find a way to hold yourself accountable daily and hourly. I live my life by a block schedule, so I know what I'm doing from 10 to 12 and that's what I'm doing. 12 to two, that's what I'm doing and it just breaks down my day for me to where I know, okay, I only have until two to get all this done. Two to four, okay, I only have until four to get this stuff done and it's a way, a system I created, I didn't create it, but I mean, it's been a thing but it's a system that I do that keeps me in routine with what I need to do. So, because I'm not structured, so I had to create a little bit of structure to help me get to where I want to be. So, but find a way to do it every day. That's really good, man, that's really good. Dang, it's been good, man. Can you believe it's, it don't feel like it's been 48 minutes. No, never. Time flies when you're having fun, man. I'm hanging out with family, you know, just not hanging out. Y'all are our Sam fam. Hey, there we go, Sam fam. These guys got nicknames for us, man. I love that. That's the new hashtag now. Captain Connect and I don't know what I, you know what I thought of, Pete, when I was thinking of a nickname is, I just heard of the show Sneaky Pete on Amazon. Oh, yeah. That's probably a bad nickname, but. Sneaky Pete and Captain Connection. These are terrible superheroes. Kids cartoon, man. That's good. Oh, man, dude, I look forward to seeing you guys again soon. Thank you for being on this. Hey, you too. I guess we'll see you in a couple of weeks if you guys are coming down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're coming out. Yeah, we're coming out. We'll have a good time. Let's do it, man. All right, thank you guys for being on. Yeah, we appreciate you guys very much. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, thanks for having us. All right, have a good afternoon. Y'all, you too. Take care. Hey, if you like this video, I've got another one on how to create a six figure renewal income so that you wake up and you make six figures. Right there. Click on it. You'll want to watch that video. I'll see you there. Smart skims the surface, but genius goes deep. So in some of my...