 anybody can sell over the phone if they follow a process. That is it. I mean, I mean, I've seen you with Northstar for a minute. Totally, totally. Totally processed. He can make anybody's successful. Same thing. If you have a if you have a process, you can you can do it. And that's what that's what we do at Digital BGA as well. And so we, you know, have the technology and the training that anybody can go in and plug into assistant and just literally click a button and talk to somebody. Okay. Interested or not interested and just just keep going until you're until you make a sound. What is up and welcome back to another episode of insurance influencers where we find our freaking players and influencers in our industry to jump on educator audience and to bring some valuable content. My buddy Jeff Root is one of the best at doing that. Dude, thank you for being all man. Of course, of course, anything. I love it, buddy. Dude, I've always been, even before we knew each other, I was the dude lurking and listening to everything you put out, you know, and you didn't even know it. This was pre, pre YouTube and all this stuff, you know, but I was, I was the dude every time I got on a plane. I put on your podcast. That's, that's awesome, man. That was, man, that was like four or five years ago, I think when I first came out with that modern life insurance selling podcast. I haven't done it for a couple of years, but I'm going to fire that thing back up pretty soon here. That's awesome. I think it's been fantastic. Jeff is the owner of digital BGA, the host of the modern life insurance selling podcast we were just talking about and the author of the digital life insurance agent. He also talks a lot about five business owner fundamentals of life insurance agent, which I'm sure we'll touch on. When did you start to, you've been doing phone sales and, and you know, building outside the SEO for a while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, like everybody, I got recruited into the industry by Northwestern Mutuals, a financial advisor and ran through my personal network and ended up buying a batch of leads and selling one over the phone. The guy didn't want to meet with me even though he's 15. Yeah. And so he's like, do we need to even meet? Just send me the application. I was like, all right, I got it back, placed in force as the easiest seller made. And I was like, all right, this is what I'm going to focus on. You know, and so that was, you know, that was in 2007. And yeah. And then, uh, yeah. And so I just started working leads. I was, you know, back then it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Like every lead company was good. And, uh, you know, why do you think that was? Yeah. You know, so people were going online and there wasn't, there wasn't much competition. There wasn't many people advertising for life. When I was selling life insurance those days, I mean, I even put up a website and within two months, I think I posted like 10 blog posts, you know, not, I didn't know what I was doing. And then I started getting leads, people finding me. And these were great leads. And that's kind of how I kind of got my, you know, started getting my taste of marketing down. So, um, you know, as far as why it was so good, um, I think around 2008, that's when ping posting technology came out. And, uh, you know, where then those lead vendors instead of selling direct to agent and dealing with, with all that, they started sending them through Ping trees, which sells to the highest bidder and sells multiple times. And then it just diluted the quality of a lead. And so it's been refreshing the past couple of years seeing like, you know, your, your lead company and a bunch of others out there just really doing agents right and not going through Ping trees, you know. Thank you, buddy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, with those, with those, with the ping posts and everything else, they're like, they're selling to each other and it's like a frenzy and a bidding market. And you can, who knows how many times the leads actually resold. I mean, it's insane. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, after 2008, everything changed. But before that, man, those, that was the heyday. Hey, have you ever, have you ever taken a disc assessment on yourself? No. You know why I ask? Because I see you as like someone, and I don't say it's about many people. You have, you have ambition and drive, you know, aggression, right? That's a D. I is like, I'm influential. I'm social, which, you know, you're both of those. S is like service oriented, which obviously you are. C is like, I'm consistent. I'm like a computer guy, you know, I'm going to put in the work, data. I kind of see you as being good in a lot of versatile ways. You know, you're selling over the phone, you're running a company, you're scaling a business, you know, you're doing a podcast, you're an influencer, you're a face, a personality, but you're also, you know, have taught yourself all these amazing marketing secrets behind the scenes. You know, what do you, what do you think of that? I think it describes me to a T for sure. I'm writing it down right now to look into that. It's a personality, like a personality behavior test, you know, we do it with, with, we actually have every one of our salespeople take a disc before we hire them. And because you want salespeople that are like high D's and high I's, if their service oriented, they should be in my support department. If they're, you know, a high C computer consistency, all that, they should be in my, you know, they should be an engineer, but high D and high I, they're typically a better salesperson. You wouldn't believe this, but when I do Myers-Briggs, I always identify as an introvert. So seriously. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason that's, you know, maybe that's why, maybe that's why I podcast because nobody's in the room. I don't have to be on video. You know, I wrote a book again. That's completely ends off, you know, but, um, yeah, it's, you know, something people wouldn't think of. No, totally. Is that something, has that been a, not a struggle, but do you, I mean, you put yourself out there, you've got a Facebook group, you're doing live videos and videos, you're hosting the mat, you know, the digital architecture, agent mastermind, you know, I mean, the conference now, I mean, you're all over the place, you know, is that something like you've had to force yourself to do being, you know, maybe an introvert, you know? Definitely. No, absolutely. Um, you know, it all started when, um, I joined this location independent entrepreneur group, um, back in 2012, but I made a trip to Bangkok and I met all these like ninja marketers and, um, these guys doing just crazy things that I didn't think were possible, right? And that's where I kind of got the idea is like, at the time podcasts were like rising and these, you know, I saw a couple of presentations on podcasts and I was like, all right, I could do this, you know? And so that's where I did the podcast and I wanted back the next year to Bangkok. Again, these guys, they live around the world. I mean, they're just like you and me, you know, um, but they're, you know, um, they're just crazy into their work doing these, um, you know, little known things that work and they kind of share it totally in this conference. And then they said, you know what, right now, if you want to build authority, you got to write a book. I was like, all right. Okay. So I wrote the book. Yeah. And so when you say the whole, the whole this thing, it makes, you know, makes it, cause I'm always diving into information and then applying it to insurance, you know, and not just to like that part of it, but to, you know, selling it over the phone. Um, and, uh, you know, a lot of different strategies that are pulled out of the insurance industry. Cause I mean, uh, let's see, uh, November 5th, Nailba, which is a BGA, um, conference that's in the next couple of days or so. It's just right at the street in Dallas from me. I'm in Austin and I keep getting phone calls. Hey, are you going? Like, you're going like, no, it's not my thing. I don't get any value from it. You know, you know, just like these, these old ways of, of insurance. I just, I just don't identify with, with that. So, you know, I think that's, that's kind of the way I'm, I'm kind of progressing is I'm just pulling information from outside and, uh, not really doing what's I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, you, you were, you were making digital phone sales sexy before it was, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, and now everyone wants to do it. You know, and, and so I've kind of noticed that as a trend over the last several years. We'll put out content and honestly, the most sought after thing that always comes up is tele-sales. You know, it's phone sales. It's, hey, I want to stay in my pajamas and make a million bucks a year. You know, like Anthony Martin. Um, you know, it's just like incredible. What, what, uh, was it, was it just the guy said, I don't want you to come to my house and you sold it and you're like, maybe I can do this again. Yeah. Was that it? That's exactly it. I like doing my Monday, my Monday night cold calls. And then, you know, the whole project 100 going through all that and, um, just, I just didn't like it. And so once I just, you know, once that happened, I was like, see, I'm done. Like I left within, within a couple of weeks, um, I was gone once I sold a couple more. And, uh, and then I just picked up other contracts at the time. AIG was the big one and, um, just wrote a bunch of AIG for a couple of years. I mean, I really, right? Yeah. Yeah. Almost all term. I didn't even sell a final expense policy. Like I didn't even know it existed back then. So sell term life.com. Right. I mean, exactly. My wife came up with that name, by the way. Dude, that's a great name. Great name. I'll actually, I do research on stuff all the time. I'm, I'm like a research junkie and I kind of like to know what other people are doing, you know, and that site comes up all the time. Cool. Good. Good. It's still working. I just got to put some more effort into it, you know? Totally. I'm with you. Dude, what was the inspiration for the book and the book again, the digital life insurance agent? Yep. You can find it on Amazon. Um, inspiration for the book was I kept getting so many emails and so many people wanting me to mentor them. And I just don't have time to mentor people. And I'm not a Kodiaskans that's going to go to people and do all these presentations because it's not, it's not my thing, you know? So I just put everything that I knew about marketing insurance, generating leads, selling insurance over the phone, the processes, the scripting, the, um, you know, what's working and how I do it. Just as some people have the baseline. And so then I could just say, Hey, just send them a link instead of, Hey, I don't mentor people, but literally follow the book. That's what you mentioned, Anthony Martin. That's what Anthony Martin did. He followed the book, you know? So yeah. Wow. How long ago did you write the book? Uh, July 2016 is when it came out. Okay. Okay. I remember it had been out for several years, but that's good. That's really good. And you've noticed it. Um, but you know, um, you know, someone says, you know, if you want to get some attention, be an expert, you know, uh, bring, bring, I've actually, the reason I'm asking about the book for a second, totally random. Sure. Is I was in the car. Um, I think I was listening to a podcast or an audio book or something. Um, I think it was today. It was today or yesterday. My brain's always so scattered. And I literally had the thought, you know, I'm always talking about sales and building a sales team and everything we're doing. And I'm like, maybe I should write a book, you know? Yeah. It was hard to get me to sit down for a day and write a book, but I think I should write a book, you know, for sure. I mean, it's, I'll tell you how the process went for me. It was, I wrote the first chapter. I outlined the rest of the book and then I hired somebody to kind of be my behind the scenes, like help me through this, help me formulate my thoughts, basically, um, interview me for Skype calls and then, and then jot all, and then she just took notes on everything that I said as I was just brain dumping. And then I take those notes, do some copy and paste and some typing on it. That's, that's how I got a book writer, but that's kind of, that's what I did, you know? Um, because I can't sit in front of a screen and and, and type thousands of words at a time and try and cause my thoughts, they happen right now. I'll forget my thought, you know, if I'm trying to type it out. Exactly. Dude, I mean, that is the, that is the mind of an entrepreneur. Like we, someone could be, someone could like hate our guts and two hours later, we're like, who were they again? You know? Yep. Yeah. So true. How long did it take you to write the book? Three to four months. So yeah, three months and then four months. Once it got to formatting, and I had to do a book cover and stuff and get it into Amazon. So I did create space on Amazon. So they print it as somebody orders it, they just print it out. Wow. Yep. That's awesome. Dude, that sounds so simple. They go through like a massive publishing company and everything else. Right. Then, you know, buying, committing to printing it, you know, a couple of thousand books and then trying to sell them. Yeah. It's, yeah. You're not going to make any money selling books. I'm guessing. Exactly. I didn't do it to sell the books. So I don't care if I'm losing money by doing that. Yeah. Right. It, and why would you say you did it for a couple of reasons? You know, um, I would imagine, obviously it does help people. It does help insurance agents, you know, and it elevates your status. You know, you're an author, you know, for sure. I mean, I did it for, I did it for the authority. Truly. Absolutely. I wanted to get my knowledge out there in a digestible, tangible thing. I mean, it's pretty cool when somebody, you know, has something of yours tangible that they refer to rather than a website where they can read a blog or, or anything else, listen to the podcast. It's a lot more powerful and, um, I mean, that's, that's, that's the reason we're trying to build out, uh, yeah, like more swag, you know, and items and, you know, um, maybe a book, you know, etc. Because that's just, yeah, I noticed that like people, when I get a box in the middle, it goes on my Instagram story, you know, I mean, why not, right? It's, and so I think that's the same case for anybody in, in anything, you know, so. Yeah. And it's exactly what happened. Book came out and people started taking pictures with all my friends, of course, and the industry and like posting and sagging me. And then they kind of like, it was awesome. Yeah. That's cool, man. What, what tips would you give for someone that's really interested in, in selling over the phone, whether it's term or final expense? And they're like, they don't know where, they don't know where to get started. And it's not easy, you know. Right. I think, um, well, first of all, they need to come to the realization that, um, they need to invest in leads. And that is just a, that is that you are, you know, I think. Would you agree with without leads and agent is unemployed? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Good. Exactly. So that's, that's number one. Don't even hop into telesales if you don't have any money for leads. And you don't even need that much money for leads, especially for final expense at cash flows. So well, you sell policy today, you get, you know, for a lot of companies that pays tomorrow, you know, with a 75% advance fund your next lead order. About how much money is a good starting point? Like, or at least like a minimum, you know, do you got to have this? I mean, minimum, I'd say minimum $1,000, you know, Even though more. Yeah. Yeah. Even then, you're like, it's $1,000. If you, if they don't like, you know, strike gold or, or get good or have a few cells, it's like, you know, where are they going to go next? You know, you don't want to like get somebody involved. And then there's $1,000, you know, I always tell people, well, number one, find a place where you can get the training. And there's a repeatable sales process that you can plug into. Anybody can sell over the phone if they follow a process. That is it. I mean, I mean, I've seen you with North Star remit totally, totally, totally processed. He can make anybody successful. Same thing. If you have a, if you have a process, you can, you can do it. And that's what, that's what we do at digital VGA as well. And so we, you know, have the technology and the training that anybody can go in and, and plug into a system and just literally click a button and talk to somebody. Okay. Interested or not interested and just, just keep going until you're until you make a sale. And so to kind of get back to, you know, you made the comment, like, yeah, $1,000, they might make a sale. They might not, you know, and they, they base it all off of that. It's true. Like I always say, if, if you buy your first batch of leads and you make a sale or two, that is awesome. Even if you're barely profitable, like you still have those leads to work, you still have all those follow-ups, they're going to fall in our technology. We can see, I mean, this is a, this is a cool piece of data where we can see our marketing and to, you know, and what results in sales. So we can take any time frame. And we see every week. So let's just say it took November 1st, you know, four days ago, and oh, it's, you know, it's maybe like a 1.5% sale ratio. The next week, 1.7. The next week, you know, three months later, 6, 7%. You know, it's just, it takes time. So if you can break even your, like that's how all the rock stars started. Like you made a little bit of money from the very beginning. And a lot of people quit right there. And that's the thing is like, oh man, you know, I sold two policies out of my thousand lead order. Dude, you're profitable. Yeah. You know, keep buying your, a lot of those other ones are going to pop. So, you know, I think expectations are, are, you know, really need to be set that, you know, it's, it does take a while to build your pipeline. And that's, absolutely. And you know, if the cost of starting a business like this is only the cost of leads, come on man, like just do it work. Yeah. I mean, I spent thousands of dollars on cleaning equipment when I was 18 or 19, I don't know, before I started insurance, because I was like, I'm going to go clean offices because I'm a freshman in college playing basketball and I'm going to just go around and sell people and let me clean their office, you know, and I had to like borrow the money, spend thousands of dollars on vacuums and everything else and then pay it back, you know, but it was like, you can get into insurance for freaking less than a cleaning business. You know, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. And literally, it's the cost of doing businesses leads. So that's my number one thing. You got to have money for leads if you want to get into business. That's good. Nothing groundbreaking, Emil. No, no, that's great though. And I love the sales process. I think it's one thing people struggle with, you know, even when they do have leads are like, I don't want to say I don't want to do, you know, and so I love, I love that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, month after month, the guys I see in the top of our leaderboards, I mean, they stick to the same process every single call, they brain it in, they control the call, they've got great tonality, they've got a great attitude, they're saying, you know, they're, they're hitting their emotional points and they do well. And, you know, the guys that still they take a bunch of leads, they do well, they're profitable, they're not as profitable as the other guys, you know, they're winging it, they're kind of going off script and, you know, kind of being their friend. And, you know, you just, you're not here to make friends on the phone, you're here to, you know, guide somebody to a sale. So, you know, a lot of agents kind of could really use like just a good sales process. And that's what would make them successful. What's your opinion on staying in control of the call? Asking questions? Yeah, I mean, so a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of consumers, prospects try to take control of the call. It's just a, it's a... Do you think that's what an objection? Yeah, do you think that's what objection is? They're just trying to take control? Yeah, yeah, in a way, for sure. You know, yeah, so I think that consumers don't know the buying process for life insurance when they sign up online, fill out a form online, you know, they just don't know the buying process. And because they don't know the buying process, you know, they're, they don't know what to expect and you're just going to put up your guard until somebody can explain to you that buying process, somebody you can trust can guide them, herd them to where they, you know, to the reason why they filled up that form online. So the fact that there's no, like consumers don't know the buying process of life insurance, yeah, people have the guards up and you got to get past that, you know, that's really what it is. And everybody's going to give you an objection, you know, until you can show them the process and you can get them to trust you. So. Absolutely. Yep. I love that. You mentioned before five business owner fundamentals of a life insurance agent. I'd like to get in those and share those with the audience. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So it's kind of this thing I've been helping agents in the business and, you know, specifically to tell sales. I'm a, you know, I'm a tell sales guy. And, you know, and we touched on it before is, is we are really with buying leads. We are business owners. And the great thing about our business is the cost of doing business is only the leads in a few nominal subscriptions for a CRM or whatever, right? Yeah. But agency to start viewing their agency as an actual business and most agents don't have the business education or experience. And so that's kind of what I'm kind of teaching agents. So they can kind of get another lens on some of the things that people are saying. So, you know, you know, what one of the five fundamentals that I talk about is increasing average order value. You go to any business school, you go to any e-commerce or any other type of business. Everybody's talking about increasing average order value. We don't use those terms in life insurance, but that's really, you know, we replace those terms and what we, you know, what you can do is obviously upselling, you know, adding writers or whatever, adding other products or cross selling with Medicare, DI, critical illness, anything like that, going for the double, spout sales, child sales, all that increases order value, something that nobody ever talks about is a down sell, like nobody's talking about down sells, right? But if you're an internet marketer, you know what I'm talking about, Cody, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. So when somebody tells you no, right, when they don't, you know, online, if you go online and you go through somebody's funnel and, you know, you don't buy the product, you're in the checkout thing, they're going to try and sell you something else a little bit cheaper or something else that's, you know, might be a, you know, a lead in to the product that they want to sell you. But, you know, agents can down sell too. If someone says no, offer them an alternative product, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, after a full presentation, when someone says no, most agents give up right then and there. They might try to overcome some objections. You know, by then you should know why it's a no, you know, is it affordability, is it trust, is it the wrong product? You know, the more savvy veteran agents know that this is a time to down sell and talk about something that they might have hit on in the fact finding process. So, you know, it's funny. It's funny you mentioned that. What I thought of and why I was actually laughing at the same time was I started at Mutual Omaha. I was 18 as an intern and I was calling, I don't, not actually on the phone book, but it, you know, it was cold calls so pretty much they were just, I hope they were scrubbed, but I was doing it for a veteran agent because I was an intern. I was learning and he would have me, the script was horrible, but it was like, hello, do you have life insurance? You know, or would you like, would you like a quote for life insurance? No. Well, are you on Medicare? No. Well, would you like a quote for an annuity? No. Well, how about disability? And it's just like, it's just like the worst down sell ever. Yeah. I mean, but, I mean, but really though, after a full presentation and you, and you still get to know, I mean, yeah, there's probably something wrong with your presentation that, you know, your intuition didn't take you to where the prospect wanted to go, but you can down sell and you can talk about something else that might be more interesting to them. So that's what I mean about that. Yeah, exactly. Which is, which is gosh, it's, it's funny. I mean, it just is hilarious. So, so was that some of the things we were talking about was leads training sales process or were the fundamentals totally different? So, I mean, the fundamentals that what I just said was, you know, increase average order value, that's fundamental number one, you know, and it's just really getting those cross sells, those upsells, those down sells down. I mean, that's a big part of what business owners do and what you're taught in business school, what you're taught in really any internet marketing course to do that and just putting it in life insurance agent terms, you know, yeah, it's that's really what it is for us. And, you know, it's, it's just one of the fundamentals that a lot of business owners go through and it's just another, like I said, another way to look at these things that everybody's talking about and cross selling on everything, you're increasing your average order value and that's how you become more profitable as a business owner. Absolutely. No, I love that. I love that. That's good. What's number two? So, I got five. I'm not sure if we'll get through all of them, but I'm down to keep going. Number two, lift conversions. So, I mean, Cody, you're probably doing this all day, every day, you know, just looking at everything. How can you lift conversions? Every business owner is looking for a way to live conversions, meaning more sales per marketing dollar spent. You know, there's so many ways to do this. If you're generating your own leads online and, you know, that comes in the form of ad copy, targeting, landing page, conversion optimization, you know, I understand most agents don't do this, but it's one factor every agent generating leads is working on, you know, for agents that aren't, they're just selling great. The biggest thing you can do is follow a proven tele-sales process, get out of your comfort zone and adopt what the high volume agents are saying. That's conversion. You're going to sell more of the people you talk to. You know, get more policies you write to place in force. Another thing, field underwriting, you know, don't always sell the cheapest. Sell the most convenient. A lot of people don't want the cheapest. They just want to get something done, you know? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that brings up a good point. So, you've, I always think of you as, you know, sell term life.com, modern life, you're selling podcasts. I always think of you as like, you know, historically always selling a lot of term insurance over the phone, right? So, what would you say to someone that would say, well, should I sell fully underwritten or should I sell simplified issue? I would say present both and lean your sales process towards simplified issue. So, let them make the choice. Yeah. Good. Good. Because I used to sell, I guess I still do it once in a while, but fully underwritten term over the phone and or at least in person and I just hated the speed and the underwriting and it drove me nuts. Yeah. It's not fun. Yeah. It's not fun unless you have a big pipeline and it takes a while and we, you know, it's a falling off point for agents who want to sell over the phone is because they always go for the cheapest, which is the fully underwritten product, which takes six to eight weeks to get approved and paid or, you know, and then they're already out of money before they get that commission. So, you know, if you position it correctly in a sales process, most will lean towards simplified issue and, you know, hey, let's get this done today. You know, we can always cancel this and go with something cheaper later on. You know, and it's, if you position it correctly, you'll, you'll get more than half of your sales will be simplified issue. Wow. That's good. Yeah. That's really good. Because yeah, coming outside looking in, I was always curious what you were doing, you know, and I didn't know that. So that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Most of our term agents are positioning simplified issue where they can. Obviously, there's limits on coverage amounts and everything, but when they can, they're positioning a supply issue and the market's getting, you know, better with accelerated underwriting up to a million dollars, even more in some carriers under certain conditions. It's only going to get easier convenience wise for those term agents. Why is that? Are companies just noticing that agents are like, you know, fed up with it or? No, I just think it's technology catching up. That's really all it is. Yeah. Good. Good. That's awesome. Well, on the technology note, any, any thoughts from you on anything that is, you know, coming down the pike? You know, super random, but yeah, I mean, I went to insure tech a couple of months ago in Vegas. Yeah. It's, it's an incredible conference. It's not really fridge. Yeah. It's not really fridge. There's 7000 people there. It's unreal. You know, it's not really an agent conference, but I don't really see any technology in the life insurance space affecting independent agents in the near future. Good. Yeah. I think, I think agencies and agents just need to just build better processes, build their own tech or whatnot. I just don't see it. Good. I just don't see it happening. I mean, the only thing that you can say is threatening is those buy online products, you know, the ecosystem of the world and the show and all them, but you just had a buddy that sold, sold one, right? Something similar. Yeah. What are you referring to? Well, I don't know if we're okay to talk about it was, well, I guess you shared it in your group and online. I forget the guy's name. They, they sell, they were selling Medicare and final expense and you know, so there was like some of their site was automated, driving a lot of inbound calls and, you know, okay. Yeah. So yeah, this is, this is public. So assurance, assurance.com was recently acquired by Prudential for $2 billion guaranteed, but $3.2 billion with, you know, earnouts and everything that they're projecting ahead. And in this guy, figured a couple things out just from his specific knowledge that he gained over the past decade of selling over the phone. And he put it into tech. He, he, he just has this really intuitive system. I mean, it's amazing. And I mean, a lot of people have heard of assurance. I mean, they advertise everywhere for agents and a lot of people might have a bad taste in the mouth about it. I know agents doing really well. I know agents that burned out. It's just one of those things. I think it's the effort you put into it. That's with anything though. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think it's a fine system. And you know, it's, but yeah, I mean, but that wasn't really disruptive at all. You know, that was, I don't think that would affect independent agents at all. And so, yeah, it's, it's nothing we can use. It's nothing we can, nothing we should feel threatened from or anything like that. Nice. Nice. Tell us about, for a quick second, digital life insurance agent mastermind. It was, it was in Vegas, right? Yeah. Last, it was earlier this year in Vegas, we had about 120 agents. It's a two-day thing. We're planning our next one for next April or May. And yeah, what we do is we just get agents in the trenches. We're not getting any carriers to speak. We're not getting any anybody that's going to try and sell you something on the stage. Everybody needs to provide value. We prefer agents in the trenches that are very successful. And so you kind of learn like the ins and outs and really it's just a place to connect with other digital life insurance agents. We're such a small niche and we get, I mean, and people take cracks at the digital life insurance space all the time, face-to-face agents saying how it doesn't work, how your persistency is terrible, how X what, you know, and it's just one of those things where we know what it really is. We're all going to hang out. We just have a great time. You know, we, it's, it's basically a two-day party with a ton of value. That's awesome. That's cool. You know what, you know what I love about that is, and the same thing for 8% is bringing those online relationships offline. You know, and I've learned, like even getting to know you over the last couple years, it's, it's been, it's been incredible, the people you meet, you know, because of conferences and events and things, mastermind things you can do in general. It's just, I'm learning that it is small. Networking is important. I used to ignore it, but man, I love, I'm enjoying socializing with other people. I always leave it valuable nuggets, you know. I think it's great. Absolutely. I mean, building community is, is everything. I mean, we're, as life insurance agents, we're at home working by ourselves, you know, to be able to get with people and talk to people that are doing what you're doing and learning from each other, you know, getting out of that, that bubble. Picking up new skills and new insights is just, is worth it. I mean, I always tell people it's not the, yeah, you're going to get a ton of value from the speakers, but it's those sidebar conversations where somebody is just going to leave you a nugget and it's just going to change the way you do your business. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, what's your, for those that are interested in joining the Facebook group, is it, is it, are people able to join it if they want to? Yeah. Yeah. It's the digital life insurance, yeah. Digital life insurance agent Facebook group. Okay. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. You can confirm while we're out on here. Yeah. But yeah, I was thinking that because I actually, I'm in it, you know, I see things every once in a while and again, and I think it's very, yeah, digital life insurance agents. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Tell us sales, tech and online marketing. Perfect. Perfect. Yep. I love it. I love it. What's something that, because I'm a big, big proponent of only 8% succeed and there's, it's a tough industry, you know, if you had a chance to like speak to someone that's, you know, we get this to happen a lot. I get messages every day of an agent that's like, and you probably do too from your podcast that they're like, I'm struggling. I'm thinking about quitting. You know, I'm in my first three years. I'm not making any money. You know, what's some helpful tips or some motivation or something you can do to help that person? Yeah. So, I mean, when somebody's struggling, I said this is the last mastermind and everybody laughed. I think people get in the way of themselves. I think, I think mine sets a lot, but I also think that if you've tried a bunch of different things where other people have been successful, there's something that you need to address within yourself. You may not be cut out for this, but you could be cut out for this if you can just get past a certain hurdle in your mind. I mentioned therapy. I don't ever recommend it. I don't ever say some of the struggling agent that emails me or gets in touch with me, go to therapy. No, I don't say that, but there's things you can do. I mean, there's coaches. There's, there's so many different ways to overcome that because people want to be successful so bad I can hear it in their voices. And if they really want to be successful, there's obviously, I mean, if they haven't made it work within two to three years, maybe they haven't found the right platform. I might refer them to somebody who can make them successful. Or, you know, if I was having a conversation, I would probably bring up, you know, I'd probably dig in and be the therapist to them and say, hey, there's something blocking you, man, because it's a certain type of person that succeeds, that's any 8%. And right now you don't have that. You just, there's something blocking you there. And that's how I see things. I think everybody, most everybody has it within them to, to be successful in this business, but there's something there that's stopping them, you know, maybe they'll do the activity, maybe they're too scared to invest in themselves of leads. I don't know, but there's something there. It's typically the third one. Yeah, typically one of those two things you said, that's totally totally agree. Yeah. You know what, the power of like events and getting around people and being able to pick up knowledge and learn, we both, Trey Soar, who's in your Facebook group, we both met him, I believe, at insurance news in Chicago, right? That's right. Yeah. Crazy, the power of events, man. Yeah. It's good. Anything in closing you want to add anything you want to mention how, you know, if there's something you want to, any tips you want to give, how can they follow you? They can buy the book on Amazon. Any final thoughts? No, I mean, we post a lot in the digital, the Facebook group, so digital life insurance agent, tele-sales tech, online marketing. I'm a creeper, by the way. I'm a creeper. All good. I mean, ask questions. I mean, I'm there to answer questions in there. Everybody always emails me and everything and, you know, you're going to, you're going to get, there's a lot of successful agents in there that are creeping too. And they're just, you know, they will help. There's a lot of... Totally. Danny Ray? Danny Ray. I love that guy. He will always pay it forward. He doesn't even know it, but I'm like his biggest fan. I love him. Well, you're going to see him in San Diego if you come out to the next one. I'll be there. Yeah. But there's a lot of guys that just will pay it forward and they're waiting to help somebody because they were all in that position at one point too. And so, yeah, I'd say the Facebook group, if you're just kind of interested, you know, in tele-sales, I would start there, you know, and then there's a lot of different routes you can go, but, you know, you need to know the situation. Totally. That's good, man. Dude, you are an absolute influencer and thank you so much for being on, brother. I appreciate you, Cody. You got it, man. Hey, thanks for watching Interns Influencers where we bring along someone every single week that is influencing and helping our industry so that more agents can be a part of the 8%. My good buddy, Jeff Fruit, go follow him. Join his Facebook group, grab his book, The Digital Life Insurance Agent on Amazon. And I always listen to his podcast, The Modern Life Insurance Selling Podcast. Have a great issue day. Appreciate you, buddy. 92% of people fell out of this business, which is insane. You believe there's four reasons why you believe the first reason is a lack of training? Yes. Yes. Explain that. So here's the thing. Again, just one man's opinion. There is an overemphasis on recruiting. What you should be doing as a new agent is learning