 Welcome back to Insurance Influencers. I'm Cody Askins and I'm excited I got a big guest today, a dude that put up over 100,000 in a month one time. I'm telling you what, my good buddy, he's an insurance freak and I'm excited to interview him, Matt Walker with the FFL Revolution. Matt, thanks buddy, I appreciate you being on. It's an honor to be here Cody and I appreciate you allowing me to share my knowledge with you. Yeah, Matt's someone that I've known for a few years. We've always got along really well. Just seem to see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. He is an absolute stud at what he does. But before we get to what he's doing now, which is helping a lot of insurance agents, like anyone that's on your team that writes always does over 10K, which is super impressive, right? Cause a lot of places can tout big numbers, but when you can like, you know what I mean, put some freaking specific numbers to it and show it off, I think it's always impressive. But I want to start with you, man. Tell us a little about you, where you're from, you know, family and all of that. Absolutely, absolutely, more than happy to. I live in Waterford, Connecticut. And I got into the insurance industry about, I got my license about three years ago. I was personal training, had my indoor baseball facility, was having fun doing that, but just really wasn't content where I was at Cody, making about $60,000, $70,000 a year. My wife was a nurse at the time, you know, starting to bring up a young family. I have a two and three year old boy and a girl and just kind of at the point where, you know, we weren't broke by any stretch of the imagination and we had pretty low expenses, living in a condo and all that. And I just knew I wasn't content and actually I had to have the fortune of meeting Sean Mike, our president of Family First Life. I was actually training him about four or five times a week and he was paying me $70 a clip for a one-on-one session. Yeah, that's right. Showing up in a different vehicle every time he came and bought this brand new house over an old black point, which if you live by me, you know that that's, you know, there isn't a house for a shade under, you know, $2 million over there. So I'm just, aside from the money, it was his attitude, it was energy, his passion, just very, I didn't even know at the time, you know, when we first started training him, what he did, I just said, I wanna go where that guy's going. Like, I don't know what he does, I don't know what his deal is, but like, I wanna go where he's going and just kind of started talking one day about what he did and I said, well, obviously, you know, you make a lot of money being the president of the company, you know, what are your average agents doing? He's just throwing out these like Nintendo numbers that didn't make any sense to me and initially I was kind of skeptical, but I'd known Sean for a little while and I was just kind of like, you know what, I trusted him and I'm like, I'd be crazy not to at least give this a shot and see how it goes and so I went and got my license in the beginning of 2016, doing it very part-time, doing the personal training thing in my indoor baseball facility and you know, started seeing, you go out in a weekend, it would make 3,000, $3,000, $4,000 in a weekend, working some leads, working some age leads and sitting there going like, oh my God, like this is what I make in a, you know, a month at the gym, this is one, well, a few hours of work on a Saturday, I'm like, okay, this is real, this is real and that kind of like hooked me, you know, so I sat down with my wife, ended December, so I remember the conversation very well, ended December 2016 and said, hey babe, you know, I mean, she saw what it was doing for us and I said, I'm gonna go into this full-time, you know, and I think it, you know, at the end of the day, it was like Sean always said, the biggest risk was, okay, you'll have your insurance license and I kind of always, I just kind of looked at it like that, I took a few grand, invested it in leads and never really looked back and I wasn't a huge risk, I mean, you could say it was a little bit, I closed up shop, I mean, I wasn't working a nine to five per se, but it was similar in the sense of like, I had my steady clientele, I knew what I was making, if I had a few people that fall off, I knew what I was making every single month and I just dove in full bore and just really haven't looked back since. That's one of the things, that's a super awesome story, but that's one of the things that we hear the most and I get the most amount of questions about is, Cody, I'm part-time, you know, should I really do it, should I really go for it? What's unique about you is you're making 60, 70K a year, you know, five, six grand a month, solid income and above average income, you know, maybe not in Connecticut, but especially in Missouri, but just in general, you freaking went for it, you know, you saw the potential, you're probably someone that, you know, sports background, all that, obviously, I've heard and I want you to share at some point too, is, but just in general, you're probably someone that's like, if he's doing it, I can do it, you know? And so, talk about that a little bit because to be able to pull the trigger and go for it, if you took a disc assessment, you'd probably be at a high D, high I, you know, I'm just guessing. Yeah, I mean, for me it was like, so just to kind of even backpedal it further, like I've always been obsessed with I've always wanted to be in the special forces, that was something I've always wanted to do and my wife knew that's what I was, you know, she knew that about me when we met and I was actually planning on leaving to go and do that. I had done all my tests and everything and gotten where I, probably one of my biggest regrets in life is not being in the military. I just love our military and I've got buddies that serve and so just something about it that I just, I've always been really, really drawn to. I think it's that sense of team, that sense of community, that sense of just the competitive nature of it and, you know, the fact that a lot of folks said, you know, that, you know, there's only so many that make it, that was always very intriguing to me. But, you know, we were starting to have a young family kind of sat down and realize that this probably wasn't, probably wasn't gonna be the best thing if I was gonna be a family man to go and pursue that dream. So, you know, my biggest passion in life is, I've always known I've wanted to help a lot of people, you know, I wanna be able to provide for my family in the manner that's best in the best interest of our family, not based on what's in our account, you know, what we wanna do. I wanna be able to help my parents out who were kind of in a tight situation. I wanna be able to give back to my outer circle. So it's like I had a buddy of mine who had a cancer benefit a few years back and was able to donate like 500 bucks. And I'm just like, how can I get to the point where I can donate 5,000, 15,000, 20,000? So for me, it was like, what I was doing at that moment in time I knew wasn't gonna be able to fulfill all my passions. I thought that if I did like the military that would fulfill my, you know, that I could make some sort of tangible difference. But this is the next best avenue that I've found to be able to do that. From an income standpoint, it's not about money to me. It's to me, it's like, money's just paper. But it's what you can do with it, you know, to be able to give back in a massive way. You know, like I measure everything on like the rocking chair test. If I'm 75, 80, 85 years old and looking back on my life, reflecting upon my life, I wanna know that I made some sort of difference. So for shifting over from part time to full time, when I saw the potential, I immediately recognized that this was an avenue that would allow me to truly fulfill my passion and really achieve my why. And so, and then once I dove in, at that point it was, I'm just like, I'm 110% into whatever I'm doing at that moment in time. So at that time it was insurance. I'm 110% in, I'm not gonna fail. What am I gonna do? Quit on my wife and kids? Like, it's not an option. You know, I think success becomes really easy when failure really isn't an option. You know, you get back into a corner and it's made like how far can I get ahead of everything? How far I can get ahead of my lead bill, my personal bills? Like I wanna get so far ahead. Like I'm not, you know, I'm sure you're a football fan. Like I don't wanna be up, in NFL, I don't wanna be up, I don't wanna be up, you know, two scores at the half, three scores at the half. Like anything can happen in NFL football game. Like I wanna be up like seven, eight, nine, 10 scores. I've always kind of taken that approach with everything that I've done. And yeah, I mean, and the transition from full-time to part-time, I don't, initially it was very part-time, very, very half-heartedly, you know, working a weekend here and there. But then as I was approaching full-time, it was really, my part-time schedule was probably similar to a lot of folks' full-time schedule. And I think like, it's like a buddy of mine, Eric Schmidt, who came over from the car business, was in the car business for 20 through 24 years. He was working about 50, 60 hours a week, making 180, 190 grand, you know, a year over there, but not able to spend a lot of time with his family. I mean, the dealership basically owned him. But when he transitioned, he knew he wanted to get out and he saw what I was doing. And when he wasn't at the dealership on that transition, I mean, he was still running, he was able to run 15 appointments a week. Like, so when he wasn't at the dealership, he was running part-time. So like everyone's definition of part-time. For me, like if you're gonna do it part-time, you definitely have to be able to get in front of, you gotta get in front of a bunch of families right away to know if it's something that's gonna be for you or not. And how many is a bunch? Like, how many a week? I will dive in deeper later, but... I think part-time you gotta be running, I think you can run 15 appointments a week part-time. I don't think that's unreasonable. I think you can run, if you're working a nine to five, I think you can run a few appointments at night during the week and I think you can stack a weekend, you know? That's strong, man, that's strong. Because most agents aren't even running 15 appointments full-time. I bet the average insurance agent in the country runs, definitely runs less than five a week out of all the full-time agents, which is just a freaking joke. One thing I wanna transition to real quick is I always find that ex-athletes tend to do very well in our industry. Walk me through that, cause I know you're an ex, you know, cause I know your background a little bit, so. I love athletes as well, athletes in military. I would even add military. That's good. I think it's so systematic. Everything is very, very system-driven, no matter what IMO, FMO, NMO, whatever you wanna call it, where you're at. There's some sort of system and for me, like the folks that brought me in, I knew that they were successful and I knew that they knew a lot more than me. Like it's kinda like I wouldn't, you know, if I had someone come over to my house to do plumbing, you know, I'm not gonna say, hey man, hey Tom, like you need to bring a snake. Like that's what they do. I would never question them. So like I just, for me, it was very simple. I've always been like a yes coach guy. Like I just, I've had some great coaches in my career. Coaches that I'd wanna run through a brick wall for. So like if I could somehow get that out of the insurance, you know, industry, the folks, I've just always really trusted. And trust is a, you know, it's a tough thing, especially if you're coming over from another agency or you've been kinda burned in the industry or maybe, you know, you just, you're coming from a job where you just weren't treated well and so it's, you know, I do believe trust is earned. It took me a minute, but I knew that these folks that were my mentors and Sean's one of my mentors, I knew like they were way ahead of where I wanted to be. So I just figured I'm just gonna, whatever they tell me to do, like if they tell me to buy 50 leads, I'll buy 50 leads. If I don't have the money to buy 50 leads, like I'll borrow some money from somebody and pay them back or take on a loan or a credit card. Like I just, I just trusted. I just trusted them and I just, that's, so that's why I think athletes typically do very well because it's just tell me what to do and I'll do it. This thing was very visual for me. Like I was watching some of the top producers in the company, I was watching how many leads they were buying. I was watching how many appointments they were running. I was watching what they did in the phones. I was watching how they overcame objections. I was watching, I was just, I went to all the trainings. I watched all the videos and like for me, this thing is very visual. If I can just, you know, I always joke around, like you just gotta be a really good thief. Like I just steal everybody's ideas and then kind of spin it into my own kind of hybrid model. You know, so if I can just watch everyone that's having a lot of success and just kind of replicate that into my own style, you know, it's pretty, pretty easy. What was your athletic background? So I played baseball. I played D1 ball, had a couple opportunities to play some pro ball. Didn't work out. Wanted to be a pro ball player. That's what I want to do my whole life. And, you know, didn't work out. And that's kind of when I started the personal training and started my own indoor baseball facility, helping guys coaching. I love coaching. I really do love coaching. I'm intense, I'm passionate. And, you know, so I just, you know, the problem with coaching is it's just, it doesn't pay enough to be able to fulfill my passion. So I kind of take that same mindset into the whole insurance deal. Where's your, because you're a very driven individual, you could just feel it, right? Like I can feel it through the camera. People watching live right now, you can feel it. Where's that drive come from? Where's the drive come from? Right? I don't know. I mean, it's just, I think the drive comes from just me wanting to, I just want to help people, man. Like I just, I don't, it's not that, it's not much deeper than that. Every successful person, every successful person I've ever talked to, interviewed, mentors, et cetera, they've just, they've got this, it's almost like something you can't explain, but it's just like an it factor, you know? I mean, and always just meeting you and talking to you, you could just tell like, you freaking got it, you know? Let's jump into you as an agent. Walk us through your first, you know, I'm, you know, I'm still running my business. I'm a part-time agent, like your first few months, your first year, like walk us, how was Matt as a new agent? Yeah. Of course, hindsight's always 2020, but if there's a lot of things I would have changed about myself, but as a brand new agent, I had a pretty, pretty strong first couple of months in my mind at the time. And I'd issued like 30, I think like my first month I issued like 13 grand was real pumped about it. Next month I issued like 15 and working a lot of age leads, working some new stuff, but primarily age leads, just trying to get, put some money in my account to reinvent, be able to reinvest. That was part-time or first full-time? I'm sorry, I'll back up a little bit. That was transitioning into, that was my first full couple full-time months. So part-time it was, I was working, doing my personal training thing. So personal training I was doing classes at about 5 a.m. My first class was 5 a.m. and usually getting out around, you know, 7, 8 o'clock, but there were some nights I could have, I could sneak off a little bit sooner. So there was a few nights where like I would run appointments if I could find some, you know, relatively local appointments I'd try to run appointments from like 6 to like 8.39 p.m. as late as people would meet me. And then I would try to stack a weekend, you know, I would run, you know, it's funny we come from a society and from the mindset, at least even in my family where it's like, you know, weekends are sacred, they're for family time, this and that, you know, but the folks that I was working with who were making a lot more money than I was said, well, if you're, if you need to make money and you're trying to transition, like you need to work the weekend. I said, okay, sure. So I worked, I was working, I would try to stack as many as I could, as many as appointments as I could on a Saturday and a Sunday and my old deal is if you're not content where you are and you, like, you know, no one has to work the weekends, I don't tell any, I don't tell any of my ages, we're all independent in the end of the day, you don't have to work the weekends, but if you're not content where you're at, or if you're trying to transition into this full time, you know, you need to work the weekends, it's when everyone's home, it's when everyone's in a good mood and typically that's when I, you know, make most of my sales on the weekend. So, so yeah, I would say, you know, a few appointments, probably like a, you know, Tuesday and Thursday, usually got a little bit earlier. So Tuesday and Thursday, I'd run six, you know, maybe two, maybe two, three appointments, whatever I could do, not a lot during the week and then I would just try to run, like, as just as many as I possibly could. What number, it was just however, the max amount that I possibly could. You know, if it was five, it was five, if it was eight, it was eight, if it was three, it was three, it was just whatever I could do. And then you, and when did you find time for dials? Did you door knock, did you set appointments, you have a setter? I was, I would go into my car at the gym and I'd make dials, like in between clients and things like that, especially final, I mean, final expense, because I was getting a good amount of final expense mail to start before Facebook leads and all that. So I would call during the day, kind of at work. I mean, to be honest, my personal trend is it's not a real taxing profession. So I mean, I would, you know, figure out ways to dial in between appointments, you know, other times I'd dial and like, I'd have the client, you know, I'd have one of my clients like doing, you know, burpees or whatever. I'm like, on the side, like making phone calls and they're like, what's next? I'm like, what? I'm like, oh yeah, three sets. You got three, you got three, you know? But yeah, I mean, I would just find ways that, you know, when I got home, I would dial at night. I would dial from like, if I got home at six o'clock, seven o'clock, like depending on the night, seven o'clock, like I would just, I would just spend some time either in my car. There's, you know, there's some nights where like, you know, I had a baby girl at the time so like I didn't want to wake her up. So like I'm dialing my car outside before I got home just to try to fill up, fill up any gaps in my schedule. That's awesome, man. Transition, fast forward a few months to full time now. Walk us through your week as an agent, you know, and what was going on there. Yeah, so full time, you know, I won't forget the day was I was working a lot of age stuff. I was getting a few new leads here and there and I just remember talking to Sean and going, you know, I gotta, I gotta dive in. You know, I just, I keep, and he's like, I couldn't agree with you more. So I just decided to go and buy a bunch of fresh leads and I literally sat down with my, and just, it just, it was after one weekend. I made a few big sales and put like four grand in my account and I said, babe, this is like, this is it. I'm leaving when I'm doing, I'm closing up shop and I'm going full time. And I, my first month I issued, you know, I issued like 13 grand, my second month 15 grand and I remember feeling so good and loving life and like, and then I started getting my first few charge backs and going, oh man, there is a catch to this, you know, and I think a lot of agents, you know, they get their first few charge backs and that's when they're like all the folks that told them this was too good to be true. Oh, it's a pyramid scheme. Oh, life insurance is a racket. You know, be careful. That's when they kind of tucked tail and a lot of agents, you know, tend to tuck tail and run. I looked at it like a challenge. My mentor said, it's part of the business. You're going to have that happen. And if you just keep writing and selling it all, it all works itself out. So I just listened to them and I stayed, you know, I kept plugging and, you know, eventually. So after my first year, I got to the point where I was issuing over 20,000 a month. I issued about a couple of annuities in there, but I issued about 243,000 at the end of it. So January, February, 13,000, 15,000. And then I had a couple low month, but then I had some big months, but the average ended up being, you know, it ended up being about 20,000 a month at the, when all said and done, but I had to. Like, I think if you're an agent and you're just starting this thing full time, like if you're not issuing at least 15 grand a month, you know, with your lead expenses and, you know, depending on your compensation level, I don't think you're doing what you really, truly need to do. Everyone's goals are different now, but if you're, if this is the only thing that you're doing, like for me, it was, I had to make at least that to do what I needed to do for my family. Your first year, what did the numbers look like? Like how many leads, how many sets, sits, cells, commission, kind of walk us through a week and like some of the numbers behind it. Sure, sure, there weren't a lot of mortgage leads available. And I was running the primarily final expense. I was probably running, I was probably running, you know, solid 15, 15 appointments a week, 15 to 20, you know, 15 to 20 appointments. Sits, actually running? Actually, actually, yeah, actually, well, set, yeah, setting 15 to 20, you know, you know, obviously you're gonna get people that no show year, you know, folks that aren't gonna be there, but yeah, I was setting 15 to 20 when I first started and realized that as I progressed that that just, you know, it just simply wasn't enough. That's good, man. How many were you, out of 15 or 20 were you sitting with 10, 10, 10, 10, 12? Yeah, probably, yeah, probably nine, nine to 12, depending if it was, you know, let's face it, final expense, you're gonna get a little bit, you know, higher no show ratio. So, yeah, I was probably sitting with nine to 12. How many would you close out of that on average back then? Obviously, you're better now, but... When I first started, probably 40, 50%, okay, about half. That's solid, that's solid, okay, perfect. Let's, I wanna jump straight into, because I know we got a little time left. What was your, you did 243K your first full year, first full-time year, which is freaking crazy, right? I mean, it's awesome. What was the second year like? It was definitely game-changing income-wise. For me, for my family, I just, after the first year, I kind of evaluated where I was at. I realized I wasn't content where I was at and needed to make a change. I mean, I was dumping back into the business and things like that, but... Okay, and I don't wanna interrupt, but you just said something that I freaking love. And every successful person, that's like, you're probably not even like super content now. And you're probably making even more now than you were then. Have you noticed that too, about successful people? Never content. Yeah, man, I mean, and it's not like we're greedy, we just think we can do better. Well, I can, I mean, but I can help a lot more people. Like I can help, like I just, I gave my dad, my parents a couple of grand last week from my, I've been a much younger sisters that goes to Florida Gulf Coast University. And I, you know, I gave my parents a couple thousand dollars to help out with tuition. And I just, the more, I'm never content because it, I'm not where I wanna be in terms of being able to help people on a large scale yet. And that's just, it's really that simple. It's not much deeper than that. So, but yeah, I agree. I don't think anybody, I'm never, it's not, it's not a money thing. It's just, it's just simply not a money thing. It's just, I'm just not where I wanna be in terms of being able to, again, just help as many folks as possible. Totally. Well, and if it was a money thing, you would have like, you would have settled at 243, you know? Like most agents, I mean, freaking 1% of agents are putting up 250K a year, you know? It's just true. So, gosh, I freaking love it. Okay, so you told me that, you told me the number that you put up your second year. Say that again for the audience now. So it was 501,000, I gotta cheat a little bit. 974 dollars and 37 cents. 501K second full-time year. What do you attribute that to? Primarily more activity, you know? And I think it's really important. Like I don't wanna be held up on a pest or anything like that. Like to me, I don't really think I'm anything special at all. For me, it was more activity, becoming really passionate about what I was doing and really, really transparent, you know? I think transparency is just so, we work with primarily, most of us agents, we're working with middle-income America. In some cases, lower middle-income America. And I think that's the most guarded and most delicate population there because most folks are the ones that are being taken advantage of left or right. So what I did, I think my first year, I was sitting with a decent amount of folks every week, but I was making everything really transactional. You know, and so one thing that I did was I really, I really started to invoke a lot more emotional value, but then I also increased my transparency. And I think transparency in this industry in general is so imperative, whether it's the clients that you're sitting with or the agents that you're working with, people looking to make a move, come over. Like transparency is so insanely important. When I sit down with a family, I let them know exactly why I'm there. I let them know exactly how I got their information. I pull up in a Cadillac. Like, you know, I used to think that was pretentious. I wear a polo pair of jeans. I pull up in a Cadillac. Like, what the heck? Like, I work hard. You know, I work hard for my family. I work hard to protect families. So it's kind of my whole deal. Like I would just, you know, and I sit down with some folks and let them know that, you know, what I'm here to do. Here's Sarah. So I got, if it was a mortgage protection lead, here's how I got your information. We work with these big mail houses. They send these things out in flying colors. You probably got them in, you know, pink, yellow, green, blue, and they laugh. They said, yep. I said, so we get a very small percentage of these things back. And which is still a lot, because there's a lot of people buying houses, a lot of people refinancing, as you can imagine. I don't work with anybody that has, I don't do any door knocking. I don't do any cold calling. I don't do any networking. I only sit down with folks that have requested our help that have sent one of these cars back into us. So, you know, that being said, Tom, one thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shoot you really straight. You know, one thing I'm gonna, I can guarantee is I'm gonna tell you the truth. I'm gonna treat you, you know, Cody, I'm gonna treat you like you're my brother. You know, that being said, if you say something silly, I'm gonna call you out on it. You know, one thing that I know about middle income America, which is, you know, those are the majority of the folks that I sit with is we're a guarded population. You know, you know someone that's been screwed over by somebody, maybe it was a victim to identity theft or couldn't retire when they wanted to retire due to their way their portfolio was structured. So, you know, I think it's just really important that, you know, you get the truth. And so that's one thing I'm gonna do with you is I'm gonna treat you just like you're my brother. You know, and I think that's all we really, really can ever ask for. And the clients just kind of start to become at ease. I'll have to know that what my commitment is to be able to help them and put them in a better situation than I found them in. If there is a need, which in most cases there is because they fill out the card or fill out the form. And, you know, if I can put them in a better situation and in the process provide for my own family, you know, to me that's the gift that keeps on given. And I just, I want to know, I think that's kind of, I know I went a little bit deep, kind of like into, you know, in home and all that, but I just want transparency is just so important. I think if the client knows that you're genuine, that you're there for them and you're being very transparent about the whole process, it gets, this business gets insanely easy, insanely easy, like so easy. That's all they want. They just want you to be real. They don't want to be sold. They just want to know, they just want to know that they can trust you, that you're out for the best. And if you're a brand new agent, it doesn't matter. Like they don't want a perfect insurance robot. Like they just want you, they just want to know that you're out for them. You know, hey, Tom, I just, I don't know, I don't really know the answer to this question right here. So I'm just going to get my, I'm going to get my manager, I'm going to get my product specialist on the phone and just ask them real quick. You know, so. That's good. That's real good feedback for those that think that they have to, I mean, you know, trick people or lie or anything. You know, I love how direct you are. You know, I think that's awesome. Eliminate the smoking mirrors. Just, you got to eliminate the smoking mirrors. It's, it's, it's, it's an agency. You know, life insurance has that stigma. Unfortunately, we're all battling it. You know, there's this trust barrier, especially with middle America. And it's just, it makes the process very seamless. If we just, just, just call it, call it the way it is. You know. What's your t-shirt say? My t-shirt says humble and hungry. Dude, I like that, man. Where'd you get that? Hungry. You know, it's, I love that. That's good. That's good. Now you can tell you're hungry, bro. You can, you can really tell. What are some tips for, we've got a few more minutes left. What would you like to say to, you know, an agent out there struggling? If you could help somebody right now, what, what, what would you say? Well, first I think you have to, I think the first question you have to ask is, is do I, do I believe in the person that brought me in? You know, I think that's a really, if you don't, because if you don't believe in the person that's mentoring you or the person that brought you into the business, it makes it very, very difficult. If you believe in that person, then just trust them. You know, trust him, trust her, as to what they're telling you, because the odds are they've been there. They know what you're going through and they, they know how to overcome whatever it is that you're going through to get to the next level. I think the biggest, my biggest advice for new agents would be, because a lot, a lot of us, and I was, you know, I was there for a little bit. You can't tiptoe. You can't just kind of tiptoe in the water. You have to dive in. I think we live in a society where it's really easy to get loans. Like I think the only really difficult loan to get, you know, where there's underwriting is really stringent is, you know, getting a mortgage. But other than that, like people are, the personal savings rates way down. People are getting the loans left and right. Like, you know, take a chance and invest in your business. You know, I always, all the agents that I speak with, it's like, I don't, we don't charge any fees. Like we don't make you, you know, it's going to cost you $500 or $1,000 to join, but it's, but this is a business venture. Like we're all adults and we're business owners. So like I would, I have to ask every single person that I talk to, like how much capital would you say you have, just like a, you know, someone that opens up a subway or a pizza shop or whatever, you have to have some capital to be able to, to be able to invest in your business. Why would we treat this any different? So my biggest advice to the folks that are kind of tiptoeing and trying to figure out this is for them is dive in, get a loan, 3,000, 4,000, 6,000, open up a credit card, invest in yourself, invest in your business. I think what happens a lot of times in new agencies, they tiptoe and they buy 50, you know, they buy 10, 15, 20 Facebook leads and let's call it the way it is. Yeah. Like let's just call it the way it is. You buy 15, 20 Facebook leads, like you're going to get some bad, you're going to get a couple of bad numbers. You're going to get a few people that thought it was free. You're going to get some people that hung up on you. You're going to get some people that are so jacked up, you can only write them a guaranteed issue product for $30 a month, you know. So I think you have to stack the odds in your favorite. And then we do that. And then all the folks that told you this is a pyramid scheme, this is a racket. Oh, I tried that once and failed miserably. The folks that are really more scared that you might actually succeed and disprove everything that they've ever known and been taught. Those same folks were now giving validity to what they're saying. So only because you didn't stack the odds in your favor. At the peak of your half a million dollar a year, how many leads were you buying? So just like last year, you know, in this year I probably bought, well I have to have 40 to 50 fresh leads every single week. If my numbers aren't worth that, if my numbers now, now here's the deal. At one point I was probably getting more leads than that. This is a game of repetition. So like I would like for new agents, like we should be screaming about what I scream about is if you're a new agent or you're coming over from another organization and you're not used to working the kind of leads that we work, then you probably need more. Like it's, we tiptoe so much and we just, maybe we always go like, should I buy the 30 or 50? Let me play it safe and go with the 30. Like the thought process should be, whether to get, it should always be about getting more because you have to, this is a numbers game. Like if we just break the numbers down, let's just say, I mean, let's just say you're at a, you know, whatever. Let's say you're at 100% compensation level for round numbers and your average sale, let's just say 800 to 1,000 bucks, right? If you buy 20, 25 leads like, you'll probably get it, you'll probably make a profit, but if you buy 50 or 60, your profit will be exponential. Yeah, yeah, the ROI grows. Yeah, yeah. It's not, the profitability isn't linear, it's exponential, you know, it's if you have, you know, 20 to 25 Facebook leads and your profit's $2,000. It doesn't mean if you buy 50, 60, your profit's gonna be 5,000. You might go, you might go right 10, 12,000. Yeah. You know, so it's really just a, it's a very simple, it's a number, if you stack the odds in your favor, it really comes down to this. If you stack the odds in your favor, it's really hard to fail. And if you're a new agent, aside from the fact that you need to stack the odds in your favor in order to get really good and master your craft, you have to sit with more folks. Yeah. To sit with more families. I was talking to a guy the other day who was from a, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not mentioning the name, but a company where they had some kind of misleading bait and switch type leads. He said, I said, and they were doing a lot, but they were writing a lot of business over there. And I said, well, what do you, and he was kind of, he was initially not doing what he was doing, you know, submit wise over there here. And I said, well, what do you attribute that to? He said, well, he said, you know, over there, even though the leads were really, really crappy, we were just, we're putting in massive activity, like we're on the phones all day. I said, I go, okay, so let's just back up a second. What was that one word that you just said, like just a second ago, I said, well, crappy lead, no, they're the other one. Activity, I said bingo. So if you were to take, let's just say you were to take that same activity that you had over there, and then you were actually on the crappy leads, but we took that same activity and then we put it into fresh, like let's just say Facebook leads. Like how, you know, what would your production be then? He's like, that's a good point. Well, why do you think, well, you know, my agents are kind of, you know, they're just not sure if I go, well, but that's the missing piece. So it's activity always wins. Yeah, yeah, you said that earlier, massive activity always wins. You need to put that on a freaking t-shirt, I love that. The numbers, they always, if you put the massive activity in, there's weeks, I've got bad weeks just like anybody else. I have bad days like anybody else, but as long as I don't recycle negative energy into like, if I have a bad day, if you start to get negative, you start to see this kind of downward spiral, you get all these charts back, like, I just, like I look at every closed door, like this is just like, all right, onto the next, onto the next, flush it out, go to the next. Maybe it's my base momentality, but like if you just look at it like that, and you're staying positive and you're putting in the constant activity, my full time, we try to get people to run 25, 30 appointments a week. Yeah, and your transition is something I want to talk about it specifically. You've got a team, quarter million a month, all your active agents are doing it, you know, your average active agent does over 10K a month. What's, talk about team building and recruiting and we got a couple minutes real quick, but talk about like that side of the business that you're really diving into now and having some success with. Yeah, just like, I mean, just like, just like with the clients that I sit with, I think transparency is massive. I'm really big on like, if I can show you exactly what I'm doing, if I can show you like, I post my deposits weekly, it's not in a braggadocious or like conceded, you know, arrogant type of manner, I just, I want to share the opportunity, you know, and I want to know like, you know, especially like, I was, I went to a, I was going, I was down the road the other day and I was, I stopped at a light and there's some construction workers and they're just a couple of people look, like I'm not, I've got a lot of blue collar friends and things like that, but they just, they look miserable. And I've just, I empathize for the people that aren't happy where they're at. You know, I don't look down upon any profession, I have a, you know, again, I'm from blue collar America, but like, if you're not happy where you are, I empathize for your situation. And I feel like it's important to share the opportunity. I speak to a lot of agents daily, coming over from other agencies where they, you know, you can tell it's somewhere more guarded than others, they've been, they feel like they've been, they've been wronged or, you know, just it's, there's some delicate agents out there. So I just, I'm big on being really, really transparent. Here's six, seven minutes about what we do in terms of training, leads, vested renewals, our bonus structure, no contract. Like I just, I tell them, here's what we do. Like I'm gonna, I'll, I'll, every interview. That's how I, that's how I set it up. You know, I'm gonna, it's a real quick brief introduction. And then it's, you know, Tom, I'm gonna just kind of go over exactly what we're about, what are, what we do and about five, six minutes. And then if you have any question at the end, let me know. Do you do those on a call or on a video or? I just, well, I don't, I just do it. I just, you know, in just regular interviews, people call me up, you know, whether it's from a zip ad or from Facebook ad or whatever it is. And I just, I treat every single one the same. And I'm just ultra transparent for the agents that do come in. If I can get them plugged in to our system and to our culture, if we're at the office, if they can see me, Eric, you know, my buddy Eric who's a monster, Marisa, we've got like, we've got five, six, you know, 25 K plus producers. If I can just get you here, funnel you in here and get you around it, to me, this whole thing is just very visual. Like we're talking about earlier, it's all systematic and very visual. So if I can just get folks plugged in and watch how we do it, like it's, that's it. And if someone's fighting me, asking me a lot of questions, like already giving me reasons why this isn't gonna work out. Like I'm just, I'm not gonna force you to do anything you don't want to. I just like, but I'll just, I'll call them out on it. I'll say, you know what, Tom? You've already given me four or five reasons why this probably isn't gonna work out. And this is kind of getting kind of exhausting for me. I'm really busy. I have a lot of interviews left today and I've got some folks that I gotta meet with to protect in order to provide for my own family. So, you know, I don't think this is gonna be a good fit. I don't think this is a role that you or I wanna go down. You know, I just don't think it's gonna be a good fit for either of us. But I do appreciate, you know, appreciate your time and you reaching out to us and that's it. And then all of a sudden like you take it away from someone and they want more, you know, but like, no, I'll be really good. I'll quit my job tomorrow. You know, it's like, you know, you know. Oh, when you come across as like, you know what I mean? Just an honest ethical, you know, super, super transparent dude. I mean, I think that's what you gotta do whether it's clients or recruiting both. That's a big message we can take away from today's interview. Are you a, are you a big Rocky fan? I love, come on, bro. I love, hey, yo, Adrian. Yeah, I love, I love Rocky, man. I was, you know. Dude, I love it. I've got every single Rocky. I've seen every Rocky, you know, 37,000 times. Is four your favorite? Four is, you know, I'm a big one. I'm a big one and two guy, but four is right up there. I mean, yeah, the Russian. Yeah, it's definitely legit, legit. Are you excited for Rambo coming out here in like three days? Oh, yeah. Rocky, Rambo, Sylvester Stallone, you know it. Dude, I'm all about it, bro. I love it. You know it. Absolutely. Dude, this has been awesome, buddy. In any parting words, anything else you wanna say? If someone, you know, can someone go add you on Facebook? You know, I mean, what more would you like to add? Yeah, absolutely. You know, at the end of the day, and I think one thing and why I really, you know, I enjoy doing this interview with you, Cody, is I think you really make it about education. You know, I think there's just, there's a lot of agents out there that are struggling that aren't happy where they're at. They're trying to find their way, right? And I just think if we can just kind of give them some, if I can give anybody a couple nuggets, like, yeah, anybody can feel free to reach out to me. It doesn't matter, no affiliation. Like there's folks that I help out that don't work with us. I mean, it's just about being a good person, helping people out. So, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I think probably the biggest thing that I wanted to leave was, you know, I really don't consider myself to be anything special. I just, I consider myself to be a regular guy that just kind of figured out how to do this. And I just, I want to share my knowledge and I want to share my success in the industry with other folks. If I can just show people the way and help them, you'll put them in a better situation for them and their families. Like that's kind of part of my whole giving back and helping people, like the more agents that we help and get running. We always look at our average issue paid every month and if it's not, you know, where it needs to be, and we need to be realistic about goals. So I think every agent out there, last parting words is, know exactly what you're looking to get out of this. Figure out what, you know, it's all about expectations. So figure out where you want to be two, three, four, five months from now. If you're not where you want to be, we need to seriously reevaluate because if you're not doing what you need to do for you and your family, that's a problem. And I think that's where at least our organization, my organization differentiates. I don't want people to be, if they come in here with a set of goals and they come out with a list, which we make everybody do and we're not meeting those goals, three, four, five, six months, just like personal training. If you're not where you want to be, three, four, five, six months, we need to seriously reevaluate the plan or this might not be something for you. So figure that out, figure out what your goals are, what you're looking to get out of this. And if you're not where you want to be, you need to reevaluate because we don't want, I don't want people to be broke and unhappy with a rat. There's definitely, the industry's been very good to me. And I can definitely, I can help as many agents as I possibly can. I love it, Matt. Thanks for being on, buddy. I appreciate you having me, Cody, as always. You got it, bro. Thanks for watching Insurance Influencers. We'll see you next time.