Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel, I hope you're all good. Today we're gonna be talking about my summer TBR. I did this for spring and I think considering I didn't read like that many books, I think I actually read a fair few of the books. I poll my spring TBR which usually I make these lists and I don't but I felt I think I read at least half of them and I'm pretty happy with that considering I was so busy in spring. Now I'm not even about to be that busy in summer apart from with YouTube so I feel like I'm gonna be able to read most of these books. So I picked out the eight books I want to read most in summer. This is also I found a really useful way for me of making myself sit down, look at my books and figure out what I'm actually most excited for and actually most want to read. So yeah we're just gonna get into it, I'm really excited. A lot of these are new releases and let's just get into it. The first one isn't a new release but it is the most aptly titled so we're gonna go with it and it is Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno. Now this is set I believe in the summer. Something fun, something for the summertime. I've never been one to read by the seasons like oh I love to read summer's books in the summer but I feel like this is the best time to read this book. All I know about this one is that it's set on this island where strange things begin to happen. I know it's about twin sisters. I feel like one of them has a sapphic relationship in this but that I could be mixing stories up like I could not be right but I feel like it's sapphic. My main reason for wanting to read this is how obsessed I was with You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno that was one of my favorite books of last year. It was the perfect strangeness, weirdness, surrealism that I love in Young Adult. Like I've just become a little bit obsessed with it and I just want like oh the thing is do you ever get the urge to trot like a poony? I can't speak. The thing is this her writing is so charming whilst deadly, deadly at the same time. It has this amazing duality to it, her stories. I'm just so excited. I want that surrealism, weirdness, craziness and so many people have hyped this book up for me that I'm excited because I feel like you all know my taste and you've all said I'm gonna love it. Okay next is a new release and it's Fire Keeper's Daughter by Anjali Booli. I'm really really excited for this. My mum is actually currently reading it and she's been enjoying it. Where is she? Oh she's right at the end. This is how can you leave a book like that? Like on the last chapter. So this is a YA book but I've been told it's one of those books that kind of verges between Young Adult and Adult which I really enjoy. It's written by an Indigenous author following a young girl I believe 18 year old who is half Indigenous but I don't believe she's lived with her community so she feels definitely like an outsider and she witnesses a murder and she agrees to be part of this FBI operation into drug related deaths in the Indigenous community I think. And I haven't heard this is just so heavy hitting and really surprising. I think it's kind of like almost one book, this kind of slow book for the first 100 pages and then the murder happens and it switches gear completely and changes into a completely different book. It's a debut and I have heard it's like one of the best debuts ever. I'm just really really excited to read it. It's one that I keep eyeing up. It is a little bit longer so I feel like that has stopped me from picking up recently but I think I actually need to take the plunge and start it. Next is the the first book my mum read when I came home. I am her library. Is anyone else like this with their families? Like you just put books in front and then I'm like My mum when I come back home with 200 books and she had nothing to read whilst I was away. Thank god you're here. Where have you been bitch?  Project Tell Mary by Andy Weir. This is the author of The Martian. I loved The Martian when I read it. I love the film and I love the book. My mum really loved this. She said it was a page turner. I think she read it in like two days and it's 500 pages long I think almost. So this is about I think a guy who is the sole survivor on this mission. All of these crewmates are dead on this ship basically. I think he's the only one alive. My mum she said it's far-fetched like even more far-fetched than The Martian.  But she said it was a great writing super fast paced just a page turner. I feel like I haven't read enough sci-fi this year. Have I even read like any? I don't even know if I've read any sci-fi this year. I could I don't think I have. I can't think of something that's like major genre sci-fi that I've read this year and I just want to read a bit more. Like I really I do enjoy sci-fi when I read it so super excited to get to this especially because my mum loved it and she has very high standards. Then I feel like this is one people wouldn't expect me to put on this list but it's one I really want to get around to and it's Take a Hint Danny Brown by Talia Hibbert. So I read Get Life Chloe Brown earlier this year. I read it in February and I really really enjoyed it. I think only that book and Meet Cute Club by Jack Harbin are the only romance books I've really enjoyed. I have read a ton of them but I don't have an amazing success right? Look inside yourself! You must be the problem! So I'm really excited to get to this. So if you don't know this series is a romance series where we follow three sisters and their respective like relationships and them falling in love with these different guys. So this is Danny Brown and I think Danny is like the most career-driven of the sisters. Like the most headstrong. Like this is what I want.  I am just excited to try a bit more romance. Listen summer is the season of romance. I don't read a ton but I feel like I want to read this. At the very least I want to read this. It just feels like sunny and joyful and like a cute summer read. So I'm gonna give it a go. Hopefully I'll love it as much as I really enjoyed taking Danny Brown. Get a life coming Brown! I've got three mysteries left and a horror. There's quite a lot of mysteries on this list. So next is one of my favorite editions that I own and it is The Mystery of the Blue Trained by Agatha Christie. I am reading all the Urquiparo books in order. This is the this is the sixth Urquiparo book and I just love this edition. It's one of the most beautiful books I own. If you want to hear about all of my beautiful books go check out my last video. Well no it'll be my video before last where I check about all my most beautiful books but this is on there and I have read Murder on the Orient Express and I really really enjoyed it. I loved the train setting and how claustrophobic and trapped that is so I'm hoping this will give me similar vibes. I think Agatha Christie is great at what she does most of the time but she does have some dads. I'm hoping this won't be one of them. Does that sound like something you want? It is. But let me tell you you'll never get it. Agatha Christie is probably my most like polarized author. Yeah probably like the author I've read like five stars from and one stars from. Then next oh I'm so excited. You guys if you watched my most recent book haul there's quite a few of these on there and this is one of the ones I'm most excited for and it is In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfront. This I have talked about length recently but I am so excited for it. You guys don't understand. It is a Cluedo if you're in the UK or Clue mystery. So it's based on the game Cluedo or Clue and it's set at this US boarding school. It is YA and I have just heard such good things particularly from my books like why. The characters in it are all named after like the characters in the game so you've got one of them's called Mustard, one of them's called Scarlet, one of them's called Jermaine, they have nicknames and stuff after the characters in the game. I just love a good YA murder mystery that's got a bit of grit to it and that's why I feel like this does and I love campiness and basing the book off of Cluedo is campy. Like it's that's camp. That's it's so good. It's so good. I am so excited to read this. It's pretty short as well so I feel like it's one I can get to pretty soon. Like this is at the top of my list. I am so excited to read it. Two more. Let's do the other mystery and then we'll end with the horror. So the last mystery I really want to read is Girl in the Walls by AJ Genuse. I love the spread edges of this one. This is about a girl who lives in the walls. Can you believe it? I'm on again. So she is hiding in the walls of this house. I'm not sure if she's a ghost or if she is literally hiding in the walls of this house. I think there's some brothers living there and they are looking for her like they think that they can sense her. I don't really know. I've heard it's like I've heard it's a bit of like a slow mystery thriller a bit more suspenseful but I love the cover. I love spread edges and it's just a new thriller release that has really intrigued me. It's by a debut author and I'm just so excited. And then the horror that I really want to read has been on my TBR for such a long time but I'm really excited. When did I get this? I have no idea. Oh Christmas. I think I got it Christmas. Okay that's all that bad and it is The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. This was big last year but I'm just so excited. I keep looking at it and I'm like it's time. So this is about some friends, some guy friends who 10 years ago they shot an elk and now 10 years later they are being hunted. I've heard that this is so thrilling and suspenseful and keeps you on the edge and so imaginative in the way that it brings in nature and stuff. I'm just really really excited. I feel like I want to read more horror. It's another genre I haven't read enough of this year. This is one that I feel like maybe a lot of you have read. Let me know with any of these if you've read them but especially this one I want to hear about and oh my god I just I just look at it and I feel joy and that's what you want. All of these books are ones I look at and I get excited. So that is my summer TBR. Do we think I can do it? I think I can read all of these this summer. I can do it. I'm gonna read them all. Let me know down below what is on your summer TBR. I cannot wait to hear and yeah if you're going to the end of this video comment a flower emoji. I love flower emojis. I love seeing flower emojis. So comment any flower emoji if you've gotten to the end of this video and I will see you very very soon in another one. Bye!


Chris Tigan is speaking out. The entrepreneur has finally spoken on camera amid her cyberbullying scandal. In the video obtained by the network, Tigan admits that she is good when asked how she was doing. She then goes on to credit husband John Legend for helping her get through this time. She says that he's been everything. As for if there will be an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she did not say. Rather, she remained tight-lipped about the possibility. However, her victim, Courtney Sturden, revealed that she would consider doing a sit-down with Tigan after old DM's resurface where Tigan can be seen bullying her.


Hello, how are you? Can you hear me? Hello babe, what's up? What are you doing? Hello? My name is Moose Abubu Dimidala. I am here because of this police agency. We are here temporarily. It's not our village now. We left our village in Gamma. Boko Haram was crossing the area. We attacked some villages near our village. That is the reason why we carry our property and own and bring it here. We are living here for more than one year, six months. Our situation now is very difficult. I have a lot of family. I have two wives and seven children. This assistant that we receive is very, very important for us. You know, everybody here, but the number of the people, they are registered. We ask you, where are you from? Who are you? What reason to come here? Or do we are doing everything together? The hard situation of millions of interneted displaced people has been real bad. Our friends that were actually affected by insurgency too. Seeing this very close to us from hearing from the news, the TV and seeing them hungry with the plight of an increased number of people in need of food and help. And seeing how many Nigerians are trying to respond to actually support. And seeing the cry for the humanitarian organizations and government bodies. It was only natural to respond. My name is Adeen Katimose, a VAM officer that is vulnerability analysis and mapping. VAM unit is actually responsible for providing the general overview of food security situation in Nigeria or the region. When we go to hard to reach places where accessibility is a problem for us. I followed the trends of commodities in the market. We have a device, an Android phone, and in it we have what we call the ODK, the open data kit. It's an electronic data capturing questionnaire.  We get prizes on yam, onions, milk. So we collect those data using the ODK. Then we actually send it via the internet from these who are able to understand the price trend. If there is a change in price, what was the reason for this change in price? Maybe due to transport costs, scarcity. So it helps us know when these things increase, you may find people do not have enough food. That means we are having a serious problem for security. That means they need, by the day, the needs are actually growing. So there is a general overview where information and data are key. Data collection has improved a lot over the past decade or decade and a half. Back in the day, you would only have an access database or an Excel and money with a type. We are now in a period where we are able to use ODKs to be able to generate the data automatically that goes straight into the databases. My name is Henry Quinn, engineer. I'm the DTM Program Manager for Nigeria. Basically, DTM collects systematic data of displaced persons and we regularly share this information with the manager and partners in the government to assist on how best to support people who have been displaced in the crisis in the country. Numbers alone don't tell the whole story. We do have to make meaning to just have a better understanding of what the numbers tell us. Just say 20,000 people are displaced. What are the needs? It could be food, it could be shelter. Now, you cannot work based on guesswork. The best way to get this information in real time is through the use of cell phones. Considering that we don't have cellular networks everywhere, security is not the same in every location. Some places are tougher to reach. It's really difficult to make any form of assumption or deduction from that area. What do you do? How do you work on this? Satellite imagery also definitely has helped a lot in trying to easily map out these locations and show where we can and cannot go, where you're able to understand the quantity or the percentage of people who may not even be able to make it to the distribution site. And this trend allows you to see how bad the situation was and how much it's improved. We do share information with HDX of Occia, with other organizations who are into humanitarian work. We're looking at connecting all the dots together to give even predictive analysis of what is likely to happen in a place which better informs responses to be able to be prepared. This is something you couldn't have done a few years ago and that is quite important. We're able to work with certain partners on the ground who are already there, community leaders, faith-based leaders, NGOs or whoever is already providing assistance and ensure that we have made a better use of the resources. So in a nutshell, data becomes a very imperative aspect of the work that we do. My name is Maxa Fili. I'm a retired nurse. I came from Chupok. And the time that they abducted the Chupok girls, they employed 15 of us and trained us as social workers. That's where we started. When we started having all these camps around, they decided to bring us here to offer the same help to the people here. We want to see that these people are integrated into their communities and they have started developing resilience. And at the end of the day, they will be strong. It's through the activities that we carry out that we get the data collection like how much counseling we have done on what, how many female attendants to, how many male attendants to use, attendants to we take the data. When I see these numbers, I know that what we give them is not enough. So if we have all the data collected, we have seen improvement. So it's really helping. When we've been able to access these communities, I can tell you you could actually see how the litter that was brought for these people meant a great deal. When I look at the numbers, I see thousands, millions of households in severe need of food assistance, severe need of restoration of livelihood. I like the fact that I'm able to guide them and give more room for interventions from other humanitarian actors and United Nations. So data, it's actually key for us.


Either this is Vlad from the Insurance Sales Lab. In this video, we're going to go over five automations that agency Zoom subscribers should use. If you're an insurance agent who is looking to grow their business, you're going to absolutely love this video because I've invited Mariah Gates, who's a farmers insurance agent out of Idaho, who has built automations for her agency, but also has done that for countless of other agents across the country. So this is not someone who has heard about good ideas and is going to be sharing these today. This is someone who has been doing that for her agency, and it has also done that for countless of others. So Mariah, thank you so much for being willing to do this today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to go over some of the highlights of agency Zoom. Yeah, I know that by the time that we're done with this, a lot of the agency owners who are going to be watching this video will say, Man, I wish I would have known about these sooner. So let's go ahead and jump right into it. Before you go into each one of those strategies and automations, I did want to ask how did you first come across automation and agency Zoom? You've been an agent for about seven years, but you just started using this a few years ago. Walk us through what happened there, and then we'll jump into the actual strategies. Yeah, definitely. So as a farmer's agent, we didn't really have a good sales program within our own systems. And I've always been a very system driven agent. I always had my own Excel sheets and different outside systems I would use, and I had to use a lot of different systems to be able to run my agency through a marketing program that I was part of. I actually was recommended to look at agency Zoom, took a look, and just fell in love with the entire idea. Two years ago, it didn't look anything like it looks today. So it's so much better today. But even back then, it was just a really attractive product for so many reasons. But really, we just lose so many opportunities in the insurance world because we aren't very well organized. When it comes to our leads, a lot of agents, including myself, we were doing a lot of marketing or spending a lot of money on leads, but really not maximizing them. So when I saw this tool, I saw a huge opportunity to be able to do a lot less marketing, spend a lot less money, and still get the same results. So I was really excited about the fact that it was a system and definitely spent the first year just bugging agency Zoom like crazy and asking lots of questions. And that's kind of how I became kind of an expert in it. Yeah, I was hosting a workshop for a group of agents not long ago, and I asked them how they managed their leads. So when a lead comes in from EverQuote, QuoteWizard, Smart Financial, any one of the lead vendors, how they worked the leads. And what shocked me was they would say, well, when a lead comes in, we just kind of forward the leads to different producers in a rotation. And which is mind boggling that agents still refuse to use lead management systems like agency Zoom. But once you do have a lead management system like agency Zoom, there's so many different things that you can do with it. What we'd like to do in this video is just boil it down to five main strategies that agents can go ahead and implement today. And if anybody wants to learn more about how to take these strategies and implement them or their agency learn more strategies from you, they can reach out to you directly. So let's go ahead and dive into the first strategy that you want to demonstrate to the agents. And we'll just go through them one by one. Is that fair? Sounds good. Cool. So the first section would be lead management automation. Of course, if we're not writing policies, then our businesses are shrinking. So we have to be writing new policies that's most of our days. Of course, we also service our book, but this is for leads. So the strategy here would be to have different pipelines, as well as different automations that specifically speak to the reason why that lead reached out to you. So for example, if you get a lead from a mortgage lender that you work with or a realtor, that's a very different set of templates for texting and emailing than if you were working an internet lead or a live transfer lead or anything else that you might have received into your agency. So really dialing in where your business is coming from and having automation to specifically speak to those leads. I do different pipelines for personal lines and commercial because of course those sales processes are very different. So in a personal line sales process, it's pretty quick. Whereas with commercial, we have multiple stages. We have to deal with underwriters. So we actually can not only automate reaching out to the prospect, but also automate and have a set sales process for our staff and the new employees that we hire. So it makes training them much easier. For example, if you have a commercial producer come in, you can clearly tell them that you are going to follow these steps. So they're going to have new leads, contacted applications underwriting, so on and so forth. So they are going to move them through that sales process. Huge advantage when trying to maximize the time that your producers are spending in their agencies. Okay. I'd like to know for me if I'm buying internet leads, what's the automation that you've built out for agents who are buying new internet leads? Yeah. So for internet leads, when the lead comes in, so a really big benefit of agency zoom is integrations as well. So you can have your leads directly integrated into agency zoom. So when they're assigned to you, they'll show up as a new lead in your system. And immediately, that lead will receive an email and a text message to connect with that person. Obviously, the internet leads, we all know that time to connect and first to quote is extremely important. So this way, that individual prospect has a text and an email from you, usually before your producers ever had a chance to pick up the phone. And that way, when you are calling, it's a familiar number. They know who you are and you have a better chance of them answering the call. With a text message that goes out, what's the general idea of the message? Is it to get someone on the phone or what does the message say? Yeah. So the text message that we've been using, we've used a couple of different variants, obviously, because automation is kind of a living, breathing thing. You want to try new stuff and see what works the best. The one that we've had the best success with is a text message that goes out with the leads name in it says, thank you for requesting a quote. How much are you currently being charged for your insurance? So that one, we used to say, how much are you paying for your insurance? But of course, after going through the insurance sales lab, we started asking people what they were being charged for their insurance, and that has definitely worked the best. They'll reply back with the amount and then we can get them on the phone. Awesome. Very good. And once you put in that it's coming from farmers insurance in the text message or you keep it there. It has the name of the producer as well as the name of the office plugged into that. Okay. Okay. Awesome. So new lead comes in, it hits the new pipeline. I call the lead. They don't answer. Do they sit in the new or do they go to contact it? How do you work that? Yeah, good question. So new is that stage is completely designed for trying to connect with that lead. So it's going to continue to send out automations as long as they sit into the new stage. And you or your producer is also going to receive notifications in your tasks to continue to call. So we call a really twice. We call right back if they don't answer. And then we send them a text that we left them a message asking when we should call back. So it really, we reach out several times because we really want to be the first person to connect with them to increase that likelihood of quote and close. But if they do not respond and we've called multiple times throughout the day, then on the next day, they would receive another set of automations. So it continues to run. It actually runs for 14 business days. You would be surprised that we actually get quite a few responses in day 10, day 12, because sometimes they're being bombarded. So you have to continue to follow up consistently to get that opportunity after after you speak with them. So if they reply to a text or an email, or you talk to them on the phone, that's when they go into contacted. Contacted is just kind of the placeholder where you might be finishing up the quote or gathering some missing information. It's the placeholder between the first conversation and when the quote is delivered. So sometimes we skip it all together if we quote them on the phone at that moment. Okay, first conversation of the time that a quote has been delivered. So if I call you and you tell me, hey, give me a call back after five o'clock today, I can't go through the full quote today. Or right now, they get moved into contacted, right? Or not? Yes. Okay. Yes, they'd be in contact. You've had some kind of communication with them. Okay. And then once we get on the phone, and I go through your home and auto policy, and I give you the price, then they go to quote it. Correct. Okay. And they live there until we close them or we do what? So in the quoted section, the day after they've been moved to quoted, they'll start receiving automation texts and emails, and you'll get call reminders as well to follow up to get a decision on that quote. Of course, we're trying to get them to say yes to purchase the policy. So that process, we run also for two weeks. And after the two weeks or after we've received a decision from them, it's either going to go to sold. So we're going to move it over to the sold stage, or we're going to actually recycle this lead. So the smart cycle is another really large advantage of Agency Zoom, because every person that we, every lead that comes in, whether we quote them or not, we actually recycle them every six months. In my agency, we do it four times. So we reach out and try to sell to that person four additional times. I know some agents who have cloned out those recycles, and they'll do it every six months for 10 different cycles. So it really allows you to stay in contact and maximize the sale opportunity, even if today was a no, doesn't mean that tomorrow will be a no.  How do you decide when you follow up with them? Yeah, great question. So that is definitely depending on the lead, right? So if we aren't able to get them on the phone to give a decision and they respond through a text or something like that, we may or may not have a cancellation date and exit. If we don't have an exit, then they'll recycle them out either six or 12 months kind of depending on the policy. It's a home insurance policy, they might do 12 months. If it's a auto insurance policy, they might do six. If we know when an accident falls off or a ticket falls off, then we definitely want to smart cycle right after or right before that date when that happens. So if you put an accident falls off, you have full control of when you are going to try to sell to this person again. So you can pick a year out, you can pick right before their X date or right before or after a ticket falls off. So you have the choice. And then all you have to do is select the pipeline that it will go into, which is your quotes not closed, and they'll receive a whole new set of automation when they go through that pipeline. And the messages that they receive from the day that you smart cycle them and the day that they reappear in your pipeline, they are messages that you have pre-built text messages and emails to stay engaged with the prospects. So if they choose to reach out to you beforehand, they're able to do so. Is that right? Correct. So drip campaigns are tricky because with every single email marketing campaign out there, we're all fighting against all of the spam filters.  So it's a delicate balance of staying in touch, but also not sending too many messages. So we do have a drip campaign that goes out while they're in the smart cycle that will keep them in touch. And we use it as kind of an education base. So things like what to expect when you have a claim. And there's some standard information in there. If you have questions, please respond to us. There's some steps in there about some vital coverages that everyone should have in their policies to kind of bring awareness to them and ask them to respond if they have questions. So we do have that. I will say some agents I work with choose to have a drip campaign. Others do not and they don't reach back out until the lead is recycled. Okay. And then when the lead goes into the quote not closed, what part of the deal stage do you put him into? Or where in the pipeline do they go? Yeah. So there's a separate pipeline for that. So this pipeline is for brand new leads and then under quotes not closed, that is a separate pipeline. So each of these stages here is an additional attempt to reach out. So each stage represents a new six month period that we're reaching out to them and trying to connect. So it goes through this pipeline. And that is so that all leads, no matter where they came from, no matter what their source is, they can all receive an automation that speaks to the fact that we quoted them in the past, our rates are now more competitive and we want to try again. Okay. As a producer, whose main role is to sell, how do I know what leads to work first, second, and third when I show up with the office every morning? Yeah. So the producer works through the task list. So you'll have a list of tasks that are assigned based on the automations that have come in. So I would say this is where they are going to spend some of their time going through this list. But also as far as priority, that is why we have the pipelines listed one, two, and three, because obviously brand new leads are going to be a much higher conversion rate versus someone that we've maybe reached out to for two years that we never ever quoted. So those will still recycle through, but we don't want our producer spending a lot of time there. Now, what you'll see on the pipeline is these tags. So the tags bring attention to the leads. So like this one says lender referral. For us in our office, that's a top priority. If you have a lender referral that's new, you're dropping everything and calling that person first because those referral partnerships are very important. Cross sells, of course, that's our existing clients. And we all know that it costs a lot more money to acquire a new customer than it does to keep our existing ones. So we also prioritize our existing customers. So those tags that we add for all different kinds of reasons will help us prioritize our day as well when looking through the pipeline view. Okay, awesome. Anything else in the pipeline that you want to go over? Because I have a few follow up questions on servicing. So once you do get a client, and you're ready to onboard them, then once you have onboard them with servicing, I'd like to ask a few questions on that. But on the new lead side, when you're working new leads, anything else the agents should know about?  But one of my, one of the things I always really encourage every agent to take advantage of is the opportunities and quote section. So this is really important opportunities is where you can document the insurance that they currently have. So the current carrier, the product and the premium, if you are able to gather that. And then the quote section is your product, carrier and premium that you provided. And we attach the PDF version of the quote, the benefit to this is that if we do not close this client and we call him in six months, we can pull up in one place exactly what they had last time, what we quoted last time, and the all the details of the quote.  Great. You know, is you and Mrs. Smith so the only drivers in the household? Perfect. So it looks like last time you were paying $150 a month of a state farm, we're now down to $120 a month. Let's get that policy started. Be sir, Mastercard, right? So that way it's very easy. It doesn't take a lot of time to go back and work your re-quotes.  And I know we're blurring out some of the information to protect the data here of your clients and prospects. But what I love about just a look at this at a glance, I can see how much opportunity I have in terms of premium on the new leads that just came in, also from the contact and how many people we've quoted. It's just so easy to see at a quick glance at the very top, what kind of premium we're working with that month. So I love that. Another way to prioritize. So for example, once you've quoted them and you put in that premium, when you go through your quotes, not closed list, and you can clearly see premium, right, where this particular lead had $3,800 of the premium quoted last time, and this one only had 960. Probably going to prioritize the higher premium client and get a call out to them as soon as possible. So it's another metric you can use for prioritization. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So let's say you close a deal. Where do we go from there? Yeah. So onboarding would be next. This is really the best way to show onboarding. So now we're kind of over here in this lifecycle automation piece. This is where all the automation is built, and you can customize it and everything. So there's prospecting automation, which we already talked about a little bit, and then onboarding. So that happens as soon as they become a client. And the onboarding runs for their first year as a client. After they've been a client for 12 months, they actually roll into a retain campaign. So it's a little bit different. But onboarding for us is a great opportunity to help our customers understand how to best interact with our agencies. When I was an agent, prior to this particular office I'm in now in Idaho, I only ever had one staff member, and customers would ask for me like crazy. And that's very disruptive. It can make it very hard for us as agency owners to focus on what we need to do to drive our businesses forward instead of responding to customer requests. And I hear this in offices, but I talk to you all the time. So we use this as a way for them to know this is who you're going to speak with going forward in a very warm way. One of the benefits of using agency Zoom over a lot of the competitor CRMs is that you can embed images, gifts and videos right into your automation and your emails. So this actually warm introduces my office manager and lets our customers know that she is their first point of contact when they need help with their policy. So it takes it off of my producer. They know not to reach out to the producer and they're not reaching out to me. This is really helpful. We also do a lot of other things within our onboarding, including cross sell. So we cross sell on additional like life insurance, for example, additional endorsements that can be added to home policies. We offer umbrella policies, we ask for referrals, all of that is done in here. And there's lots of agents out there that do other things as well. For example, agents in California, they're recommending earthquake insurance to every person that they sell a home policy to. Some areas of the country, they're recommending flood insurance.  But you don't always have the time to get to all of those pieces with every customer. Yeah. So someone who might be seen this for the first time, it seems like a lot of information to digest because there's so much new things on the screen. But what would you say an agent who is maybe just starting to use agency Zoom or considering using the platform as far as advice of what to incorporate first when you first start using the platform and then what layers to add on over time? Yeah. So I think it depends on your greatest need. So if you are having a difficult time writing new business and that is your biggest need, then I would really focus on your prospecting automations and getting that pipeline working very well. If you are in an agency where you are writing a lot of business, but your retention is very poor, then I would focus on your onboarding piece and your retain automations to stay in contact with your customers. There's also agencies where a lot of their day is pulled away because they're servicing clients and they're reactively servicing clients not being proactive. The next section we're going to cover is the service center and that can be very helpful as well. Now at the same time, agency Zoom does have three different tiers of their system and they are priced for different, there's three different priced tiers I guess I should say. So the service center that we're going to cover max is only available in the pro version, but as far as prospecting and onboarding automation that is available in any of their accounts. Okay. So as part of a new client onboarding process, is that where you get the Google review or is that part of the service? Yeah, that's where we get the Google review. So you'll see in here that I actually do a Google review drawing. So mine says that there's a $50 gift card drawing that they can get, but all of there is a general template that comes with agency Zoom, but basically you want to send out this email or you can send it a text. Only the emails will filter the reviews though. So for my agency, we allow any five or four star review to post to our page. But this rate, my agency will actually show five stars on the email itself and the customer will click the number of stars. If they click four or five, it will then direct them to the Google page for them to post their review. So that's how the filters work. But you can send this review request out as many times as you want. We send it out twice. Once it's sent out one time, agency Zoom will send it out every six months until they give you a review. That's super cool. I know just recently looking at your Google page for your farmer's agency, you were over a hundred reviews, right? This is the review section in agency Zoom. We're at 101 right now. And yeah, I mean, I think we had like 15 when I got agency Zoom two years ago. So it is so helpful. And we get a lot of call ins from Google. And as a captive agent, we really want customers that are looking for great customer service because that's our advantage because we know our carrier so well and can provide that really great service. So people that are searching on Google are looking for really good customer service. They call you because of your reviews. And in my town, I've had this agency for not even three years yet. Just almost three years. And in my city, I have the third highest Google reviews of any insurance agent in my city. The other two have been agents for over 20 years and we're going to catch them this year. So if you're not doing this, which most agents I talk to are not doing this, it is a huge miss because you want people calling in and these are motivated buyers to buy based on your reputation. What do you need to have as far as reviews to be number one? Yeah. So for my area, we have to get to 200 reviews to be able to be number one in our area. So what we're doing is, of course, asking our new customers. And we uploaded a list of our existing clients as well. So they've been receiving requests for reviews. But every day, my office manager is talking to, you know, member or customers of ours all the time. And every time she talks to one of those customers, she's asking them if they're satisfied with the service that she's provided. And when they say yes, she's asking them for a Google review. We actually were able to create our own service pipeline in the service center to actually automate follow up, we call them asks. And there's a few different things that we have, but one of them is Google reviews. So every time she asks someone for a Google review, she'll send them a text with our link. And then we actually add them as a service request inside of our agency zoom. And that particular client will receive automated follow ups and reminders to complete that Google review. So we continue to ask, even though my staff does not have to do any of that follow up, we've automated all of it. That's so great, because a lot of agents who ask for a Google review, their clients say yes, I'll do that. But then the client doesn't know where to go to find the right place to leave a review. Whereas what you're doing is you're sending a direct link of where the prospect could just click and leave a review that removes all the friction from the process. That's great. And that's actually why we came out with the drawing because our follow ups that are very, are a very nice warm drawing that we want to remind them, we don't want them to miss the opportunity to be involved in the drawing that we do monthly. And we send them the link and remind them to do the review. So that's, that was part of the reason we created that. Cool. All right. Just so everybody's clear, these automations, you don't need to have all of them. But if you do want all the ones that Mariah has, you can reach out to her and she can tell you more about how that can be built out in your agency, because every agency runs a little differently. And that's something you've been doing for agents for quite some time, right, Mariah? You've been able to- So I've been setting up agents for a year. Agency Zoom asked me a couple of times and I turned them down a few times at first. And then kind of got started really slowly. And then it kind of took off after that. So I've helped 127 agents so far, captive, independent, all over the country in the last year setting up their Agency Zoom. I tell every single agent, you guys don't need me. You really don't. Agency Zoom is an amazing platform. But the people that hire me to help them, it's just because it's time consuming. So if you want to be able to spend time working in your agency and selling policies and helping your team in marketing and not building automation, I can do that for you. So we get the systems built out in a week. Took me several months as a new agent, playing around and learning it. So I really shortened the learning curve and then have a support group as well to help people learn this very robust tool. Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. Okay. In regards to service automations, I want to know if I have an agency, 500,000, 10,000 policies, how do I go about using Agency Zoom and being very effective with it? Is there a simple way where I can upload a list of clients and start using this? How would you recommend going about that? Yeah. So if you are an independent agent and there is integrations with AMS systems. So Agency Zoom is now owned by Vortifor. They have QQ Catalyst as their AMS. So that is the strongest integration. But you also can integrate with EasyLinks. Now it starts all the ones listed here. So that, if you are an independent agent, is the easiest way to get your book of business in here. They also now do have the PL Raider integration as well. If you are a captive agent, you need to get your customers into an Excel sheet and then you can upload them. So in the customer tab, there's an upload option right here under actions and you have to import them. But the fastest way is to put the data into an Excel sheet first and then upload. If you're going to do them individually, this time consuming, the largest agent that I've worked with that was making the change has 10,000 policies and they're putting people in as they go with servicing and through renewal reminders as well. So if you're captive, it's a little harder unless your particular captive company allows any kind of export of data. My captive company does not. Yeah. All right. Okay. Anything else on the servicing side of things that you want to point out that would be helpful for agents to know? Yeah. So service pipelines are so helpful. So we all know that our customers are supposed to take care of their documents and their payments, but we all know that doesn't always happen. So we are always left with this decision. Do we want to just let those customers go that need a lot more servicing or do we want to spend the time on servicing those customers? It's that 80-20 rule that 20% of your customers take up 80% of your time. So we want to provide a high level touch service, but at the same time, we want to focus on other more important things in our agency. So with automating our service follow-ups, it allows the best of both worlds. So when we have a client who didn't pay their bill on time, all we have to do is open a service request and I'll use myself as the example here. We'll type in the customer's name. It'll find the customer and the related policy. Fill this out. Maybe takes 10 seconds. Click Save. And now that customer is going to receive text and email reminders that their bill is late and we want to prevent cancellation. There's this is just one example. Document follow-up, inspection follow-up, claims follow-ups, reinstatements. All of that can be automated through Service Center. So and you get reports for all of this information, but that way your team can focus on more important priorities in the agency, but your customers still get that great customer service from you. Just that alone could be such a time saver. I'm thinking the number of times that service team members have to remind themselves in their calendar or whatever method they use to remind themselves to send out manual emails. Now they don't have to do any of that. The system does it. You just build it out once and depending on what it is that they need to do, whether it's submit a document or pay their bill, they'll be reminded by the system, not the CSR. Yeah. And it's great because it comes from your phone numbers. Like for a captive agent like us, our company will send the carrier, will send out information, of course, but it's obviously not from our agency. It's from farmers or from travelers or safeco, but these will come from the same phone numbers that your customers will call and interact with your staff on. So they're really great. They work really well. And their sky's kind of the limit. Like I have that agent I mentioned that has a very large agency. He said that agencies and automations saves him a 40-hour employee. So that's how much automation he has. And you can continue to take away at it. I mean, even agents that are selling health insurance and Medicare supplements, you can automate those processes through this. All right. Cool. So we covered the sales side. We covered some automations and things that we can do on the onboarding. We covered the service side. What else should agents know about when it comes to using a platform like AgencyZoom?  So if you are an agent like I was in the beginning, you probably could potentially maybe not know where your business comes from or you don't know where your good business comes from, where your ROI is in your marketing, all of that. Those are numbers that we all need to have, but they can be extremely time consuming to track or to put together in general. In AgencyZoom, as long as you set it up properly and you're tracking your elite sources, where your business comes from and your marketing, as your staff does their normal daily sales, all of those reports are compiled for you. Like you don't have to do anything. So you can just go into them. So right here, you're looking at conversion by lead source. You can see the number of leads that have run through my system and from brand new lead opportunity to sold. So not even quoted to sold, just new lead to sold. We have a 31.3% conversion rate. So if we get the lead, we have a 31% chance we're going to sell that lead a policy. And then I can also go in and look at from quoted to sold or any other mixes of information I want. But this helps me to decide what marketing worked, what didn't work. And it doesn't take me any time. I don't have to fill out Excel sheets and I don't have to do complicated math. It's very easy. So lots of reports. We can even see our new business sales by zip code. So we can know where are we're actually writing policies, what zip codes and we can target those zip codes for marketing. So so many reports, also reports to keep track of your sales team and their activity. All of our calls are logged through agency zoom. So every single call that's placed shows up in the history activity for that lead, but I also have a report so I can see how many dials my producers made, how long they were on the phone, how many texts they sent, how many emails they sent. And I can look at all of this anywhere that I am, whether I'm in the office or anywhere I have a computer. The other great benefit of agency zoom is they're the only CRM with an app. So while I'm on the go or on vacation, my app will actually send me a push notification that we've sold the policy. And I can access all of my leads and customers as well. So the ability to manage your agency with the data that's in agency zoom is huge. Yeah, I remember the first time I got on the phone with you and I asked you where your business is coming from. You said, well, I have these six different categories. And from events, we close this percentage from baseball, we close this percentage, win backs, we close this percentage, cross sell this percentage. You knew to the exact numbers of close rate for each one of the different lead sources, which is not common. Very few agents to know what their general close rate is. You knew for each category what the close rate is because you're using this tool in that way. That's really cool. Yeah, definitely changes the way that you look at your agency because there was marketing that I thought was really beneficial that was kind of hard to swallow that, but glad that I have the data now and I know better. Yeah, cool. All right. What else should agents know when it comes to utilizing agency zoom as far as automation? I think we covered the big points, but to close out here, is there anything else that you feel like is a must use strategy for agents who are already using agency zoom or considering getting set up with agency zoom? So strategies, we've went over some strategies. There is so much that we can talk about around cross sell, winning cancellations back.  We have relationship pipelines and I use that to keep organized on who my referral partners are when I last spoke with them, scheduling myself reminders to stay in contact with them. Gosh, I haven't had lunch with this person in a while, reminders in there to do that. There's a lot, but some things you need to know if you're considering agency zoom is that agency zoom CRM has a lot of integrations and you have to integrate your own email provider and phone provider. So it doesn't come with the texting or the calls built in. These are the different providers you can integrate with. If you don't want to use a full blown phone service, you can use Twilio just for text and call. Very cheap and easy to use, but that sometimes trips up agents because every CRM is a little different. There are some out there that they own the phone numbers that the messages come from and how you communicate with the leads and the customers with agency zoom. You own your phone system and you simply need to integrate it. So that's something to really keep in mind.  So just be aware.  So we actually do have a link. So when you put the information into agency zoom, the prospects information, you can click one button and it loads your close screen. So it eliminates double entry, but if you're independent, you're going to get the elimination of double entry if you have PL reader. Yeah, that's a huge time saver. Just using the insure bot, click on that and all the information that was provided as part of the lead goes right into the coding system. Yeah, hugely beneficial, especially when getting buy-in for your team to use it, because anytime you're asking to do extra work, it can be a little bit of a struggle. Yeah, Mariah, thank you so much for being willing to do this. I know you have so much more to share when it comes to this. If agents want help with getting these automations implemented in their agency, how do you want them to reach out to you? Yeah, so I have a website. I'll pull it up here. It's kind of long, but it's azimplementationconsultant.com. So this is my website. There is a full demo of agency zoom on here. And then on the services page are the services I provide. And there's different tiers. The elite package is going to be full-blown, everything built, as well as weekly calls Wednesdays and Fridays with me live for help and access to my private Facebook group. And then because of demand, I have also started offering all the cards. So for agents that are maybe smaller agencies are new that just want help with a couple of automation workflows, I will now offer that as well. So much cheaper, easier, and we can get you started a little bit faster. But that's how you would reach out. If you have questions about my service, since we didn't talk about that much on the Contact Us page, I do host a call twice a week for any agent that has a question on agency zoom or how I can help them with it. So you can jump on the call. I always want to make sure everyone that hires me is 100% informed and completely 100% informed, as well as confident in their decision to work with me. So that's why I do those Q&A questions. Awesome. I love that there is ongoing support besides just the initial setup because that's ultimately what agents need. It's not just it to be set up, but then you know how it's set up and how they can continue to use it. Well, I appreciate it. Hopefully, we can do this again soon. I'll post this in our Facebook group, see what additional questions people have. And maybe we can do this again here in the near future. And I'll ask you some of the questions that agents will ask as part of us post in this video. Thank you again so much. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.


What was different about his stuff tonight that allowed you to get to him? Just got some good pictures to hit that didn't miss. I watched a lot of video on him. I had a lot of bats against him. When we got some pictures, there were the plate and we were able to do some damage on him. We worked, I think we got a head O2 that first had bat and then made some good pictures down in the zone. And we don't swing at those, you just get another opportunity. So that's what I was able to do. Yeah, I'm feeling good with the leg kick. So I just wanted to keep that rolling instead of having the no stride just something I want to go to. You know, when a leg kick ain't feeling too good, but when the leg kick's feeling good, you know, just roll with it. You know, I made a couple adjustments in my stance, but other than that, you know, just try to keep everything else the same. Are you making some of those games, some of the changes in the game? Yeah, that was, was that our last game? Yeah. Yeah, after that, after that game, you just watch a lot of video and just, you know, see some differences and see some things that, you know, I was doing last year in the playoffs and I wasn't doing it. So just makes a couple adjustments. Sometimes some of the miscues that you see, you know, can cost you a game, but you get out of here with the wind and I have good that feel. That feels good.  You know, it's huge for Frazier to come up big for us right there.  You know, he's, he comes up in big moments for us. So that's why, you know, I'm excited to have him up here. Aaron, this is back to back games. All of your runs have been scored on home runs. Are you guys good with that?  Well, I think, I think one of the ones I had today, we had runners in scoring position. So I think if you hit a single or you hit a home or you're still driving guys in and running in scoring position, so it really doesn't matter if it's a single or a homer, just get some runs on the board. That's about it. Could you talk about the interest you got from Vandy? Did you guess right or was it just you want to drive it hard? I usually don't guess, but just try to hit something out over the middle of the plate. I know he likes to, you know, pass a couple of starts. He really just tries to attack me and get ahead early.  That's the type of picture he is. He's got good stuff. He's going to, he's going to put out on the line.  Did you watch the film yesterday on the off day or after the last game and how much, how much time did you spend on that? It's just normal, normal stuff.  It's just normal routine stuff that didn't off day and then did a little bit today and that was it.


Hi everybody, welcome to Mindset Mondays. We're Roseanne and Jenny. I am Roseanne and I'm from Yuma, Arizona and I'm an enrollment and client journey coach inside one of our alcohol-free lifestyle programs called Project 90. And I'm Jenny and I'm in Northern Ireland and I'm the community manager for the 30-day New Alcohol Challenge Program. Hi Jenny, welcome. I'm welcome, it's just like our thing, right? It's our date on Mondays. So it's nice to have a date with you every Monday. It's the closest thing to a date I ever get, Roseanne. Anyway, we're broadcasting this on Facebook Live across a multiple of public and private platforms and we're also recording this for our podcast listeners who will be listening to it next Monday. If you're listening to our podcast, make sure that you know that you can access these Facebook Lives through one of our Facebook pages that is open and not private called Alcohol-Free Lifestyle. If you'd like to know more about Jenny or me, please feel free to tune into our alcohol-free podcast available on iTunes and Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and YouTube. My stories can be found on episode 19 and Jenny's is on episode 39. There's also a multitude of stories and interviews there for you to be inspired.  This resource will be available below in the chat for those of you watching on Facebook Live broadcasts and if you're listening to us on the podcast, there'll be instructions about how to gain access to that guide after the show is over. Today, I am going to hand this over to my friend Jenny who is nine months alcohol-free today. Woo-hoo, we have clappers. I've got my Union Jack in pieces. This will get a special way for any time someone's watching from the UK. Wow, UK, we need to recruit from the UK. We actually have a lot of people in our programs from the UK, but we haven't found them on Facebook Live yet. Anyway, Jenny today is gonna be talking about how to fill the void when you go alcohol-free. Thank you to Marta for opposing this question. We really appreciate our listeners just pinging in. Us and giving us content. That's really the most valuable way for us to engage with you.  Thank you, Roseanne. Yes, thank you, Marta, for this question. It's a really good one. I think especially at the moment when a lot of us are in lockdown, it's quite easy to get that boredom love kind of feeling. You know, when you stop drinking, it actually takes a little bit of time to bring all the life to start filling that void as we call it. But when you think about it, actually what is more boring than staying on the TV drinking yourself into oblivion and then not having the energy or the focus to do anything the next day? Really what's more boring than nursing a hangover? I don't know about you, Roseanne, but since I've been alcohol-free, I have just had so much more time to watch more energy. You know, in the last nine months, I've set up a business. I've started volunteering. I've got involved in the 30-day community. I've completely redecorated my bedroom. I've upcycled some furniture. I mean, I've just had the energy to do things. If you're looking at the bags under my eyes, you can tell that I would give my right arm for a bit of boredom at the minute.  What have you done in the last year? And what do you see people doing on Project 90? Because that's where you see big changes. Yeah, it's interesting because this topic has been coming up a lot inside Project 90, the boredom aspect. And I can share with you on that, but it made me reflect on my own journey. In my own journey, well, let's just talk about when I was drinking because it used to start every night at six, seven o'clock at night and I'd turn on the TV and pour my wine and so it would begin all night in front of the TV every night. As a matter of fact, I have, oh, my phone's not by me, but I can quote by memory, the time that I spent drinking on the app that I'm tracking, I'm almost on my year tomorrow, yay. But I have saved just drinking, not recovering from hangovers, just drinking time, 1,020 hours over that year. So anyway, just reflecting on that thing. So I used to sit in front of the TV and I don't know, I must have started doing other things because now I barely get to watch TV an hour a week. I actually have to force myself to put on the news to just get some, you know, some form of entertainment. So I've definitely filled it up with reading, cleaning the kitchen, calling friends, making plans for the next day. Yeah, I don't even know. All I know is my life looks a lot like yours. It's filled up during COVID, which is interesting too. I feel just complete other than dying and wanting to get out of the house due to COVID, but yeah, filled up lots of time. Do you want me to go on to the Project 90 stuff? Yeah, please, please. Yeah, some of the things I've heard about in Project 90 that people do, we have a young man in there and I thought this was very sweet. When he first started his journey, he said he was really bored. So he decided to start cooking dinner for his wife. That sounds like a really great thing. So yeah, that's how he solved his. A lot of people take up exercise because we're drinking a lot, we're just unmotivated. So, you know, whether it's a morning walk or an afternoon walk, just doing anything to take away that time. What other things? My sister, actually, I remember this, she quit smoking, oh God, decades ago. She used to do jumping jacks. Like, I suppose that's a, you know, anything to take away from the focus of the drinking, right? Some people that used to maybe refinished furniture, start painting. Some people are taking up an instrument, playing more with their kids. I mean, it's kind of endless, right? Volunteering, I volunteer more. I definitely volunteer more. So, yeah, I actually look for my self-care time more now. Definitely not bored, but.  I think for me, part of the whole drinking, nursing, the hangover cycle was I just couldn't be, there were plenty of things that I could be doing and should be doing. I just couldn't be bothered. And then I wondered why I was bored. But, you know, Rosanna, I was thinking about the other side of the equation, which is sometimes a bit of boredom is not a bad thing. If you look at lots of psychology research, you will say that boredom is, it's actually quite important in terms of your creativity. It's important in terms of your mental health and your wellbeing. Actually, daydreaming is a really, really healthy activity.  So there are high notes and we all know there are low notes, but there are pauses and that's all part of the cadence. And, you know, sometimes, and I think it was the wonderful Danny from Project 90, he said, sometimes just being is doing.  And, you know, any great creative person ever will tell you that boredom is an essential part of creative process. Put a little bit of wordsworth here.   And sometimes just that moment of boredom, that moment of nothingness is what gives us a little break and a little respite and then ready to move on to the next thing. So I wouldn't not boredom in and of itself. And I think it's really good for us to take time for ourselves and I think any of us who are going through this alphabetical journey really start to understand the importance of self-care. You'd agree with that with me, Roseanne.  Yeah, no, I never used to do because, you know, again, I quit during the height of COVID and March 9th of last year and, you know, being inside by yourself, it's kind of tough. But just learning to sit, I think I accomplished a lot of things at once sometimes when I even do the bath because I listen to audible. And so I'm kind of listening and filling my mind with something and learning something. I'm relaxing. I feel it costs no money. Yeah, I feel like I'm taking care of myself. And I just think for those that are parents and running a business or working, there's just, you're always running to something else. And when you free up those hours, that's why it is a big question. I mean, in the enrollment calls, you're like, when am I gonna find the time to even do this? I go, oh, trust me, you're gonna have so much more time in your day. And that's kind of what happens as we develop more time in our day. I mean, I remember when I was in Project 90, I basically went on, because I knew I needed that level of support. I went on every single call.  No, where in the name of goodness would I have time to do that had I still been thinking? And yet I was able to carve out quite a lot of hours every week, just because I have the space to do it. So yeah, there's just amazing how much time it brings up. And I do think it's really important that quite a lot of that time, especially in the early days, is spent on self-care, because I think when you're drinking, not only are you not looking after yourself, but you tend to put yourself right at the bottom of the pile, maybe because you feel a bit guilty, you feel a bit ashamed, you don't like yourself very much. I certainly find out. And I think what we're, excuse me, one of the upshots of that is you just don't look after yourself, you'll stop. I'm just having the time to do that. I'm taking the time to do that, is really, really important. All right. And I'm thinking out loud here because our conversation has sparked some thought for myself. Do you think there's a difference between how you keep busy in the front end, the first two weeks to a month versus how you keep busy after? Because, and the reason I ask that is when we stop and we sit and we will reflect and we're calm, sometimes we're with those thoughts that we were trying to avoid. And that's the reason we drank. And I don't know the answer to this. So I'm asking you, here's where I'm leaning. In the beginning, I'm thinking busyness is good. Distraction, exercise, cook, dinner, whatever, because you need to just keep that busyness going while your body is detoxing. And then you focus on the things that the stress and the triggers and then doing, what do you think about that? I completely agree. I think that's a brilliant point. I think the first few weeks, actually, yeah, keep yourself busy. Exercise, treats, being good to yourself. Distractions, whether that's reading, audio or books. Sugar. Sugar and chocolate. It doesn't matter just, yeah, keep yourself busy in the first few weeks. And don't worry about the bigger thoughts. If you can, all you need to do in the first few weeks in particular is not pick up a glass and do whatever it takes to achieve that. And then you'll find as that starts, I certainly find as it starts, that starts to become a bit easier. Yeah. What happens? The feelings start to come, because when you're drinking, you're numbing the bad feelings as well as the good feeling. That's why a lot of the strength in the first place, I certainly was drinking the technique of the pain around my husband's illness and so on. So those feelings start to come to the surface in a much more raw way. And the time will come when you have to deal with those. But in the early days, my mantra for everyone in the early days is just be kind to yourself.  Do anything and everything to stop it getting squished. Just protect, protect, protect. And the bigger stuff will come in due course. Right. No, I agree. I, it's knowing that that habit. I was, I did a, I did a Marco Polo on Project 90. And I'm a very, for those of you watching, I'm gonna do something. And just like more flowcharty because that's kind of how I get things. So you start, I'm starting my finger at the top trigger then I move here, thought, then I move there, drink. Trigger, thought, drink, trigger, thought, drink. So I'm just moving my finger from left to right to left. But what I'm trying to do when I engage in something else is trigger, thought, do something different. I imagine a straight line I guess instead of a zigzag line. So it's developing that neuro pathway that gets to me more and more comfortable in what I was trying to tell people in Marco Polo. You know, you're at nine months, almost a year. It works. I couldn't imagine. I just couldn't imagine going to a party, having my friends, going to Vegas, doing a river trip without alcohol, because that's what it, and now I can't wait to do it without. It's crazy when you can adjust your, when you can adjust your frame of mind and know that this isn't a character flaw, it's a habit that needs to be worked on and broken. So. It takes a little bit of time. And you know, I see people in the 30 days in the 30 day community, you know, all the time, start struggling with the early days because it's not easy because you were trying to change a very, very, very ingrained habit. Gordon just posted a comment to say, he's envious. And you know, if anyone is envious that we're sitting here on nine months, I'll go free Rosanna's a year after all three. Come on board. Come on board. It will come on me. You know, the first thing. I have to arrest you. I'm gonna answer for you. Because the stiff upper lip girl is now having fun. Like you were joking just a little bit. I gotta wave my flag again. Just because I can. No, it just, it gives you, it does, it gives you this freedom to just be yourself and not be embarrassed or worry about who it was. But you know, yeah, I just, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I interrupted you, but I just thought it was cute how you're just having more and more fun. And you can definitely see that it's just freeing. You know, it's just freeing. Do you agree? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the thing is that the first, the first few weeks are the hardest. And what is heartbreaking is to see people I can say this because this was me going back to day one again and again and again and it stays one, two, three, four, five, six, 25 that are the hardest. Once you break through that barrier, it just starts to open up and I suppose because you are reaching your brain it starts to get easier. I've been asking any tips or tricks to avoid missing, missing my habit of being drunk again. That's a really good question, Ivan. Thank you.  We felt we were getting something out of it. And sure, maybe that first drink, the first couple of drinks you start to get that little warm, fuzzy feeling.  But I would just always say to people, play the video through to the end. So it might be okay for half an hour and then what happens? You have another drink, you have another one, you have another one. I'm speaking completely from personal experience. You know, I'm someone for whom one was too many and 10 wasn't enough. So I couldn't stop once I'd started and then end of the night, wretched, next day wretched. So just play that video through to the end. Watch yourself to see what the outcome of that initial drink is going to be. Just try and see that bigger picture. I'm gonna approach it a different way and just add to it, I guess. Add to what you're saying, because I agree playing that video to the end is probably one of the most important points before you make that decision point. But the other things I can add for Ivan is one, do you wanna continue doing what you're doing as the friendship important because James always talks about the attitude you're going in with. Like, I wanna have fun. Don't go, oh, I'm not drinking, I can't drink. Like, you know, it's, I forgot what percentage he says. It's 60 or 70% of how you say it. Hey, I'm giving it a break. Man, I'm here, I'm having fun. Like, you know, fake it till you feel it because you will feel it. At first it's uncomfortable, but hey, just, I'm just giving this a shot for 90 days. See how it feels. Like, go for it, I'll be designated driver. Like, woohoo, like, isn't that cool? And it's really about your attitude shift and just forcing it and forcing it because you can't be a wet rag. Otherwise that's how you're gonna feel. Because remember it's a mindset shift and it does happen with practice. And to be honest with that, anyone who's Sonia, hey, Tuesday morning to you. Sonia is doing so well, alcohol-free. I can't actually keep up with her day kind of thing. She's just rocking it. But yeah, you know, I've completely forgotten what I was gonna say. That's the trouble when you pick up people's comments. It destroys your train of thought. Sonia's on day 52, well, you know, there you go. And once you get through the first few weeks, it just gets easier and easier because as we keep saying, you're retraining your mind and it is about attitude. It's so much about attitude. And you know what, alcohol hasn't been serving you. Anyone who's watching this, anyone who's part of any of our programs is there because they have realized that alcohol in one way, shape or form, hasn't been serving them. So why not give the alternative a go? Give it 30 days, give it 60 days, give it 90 days. Am I to promise you, as you know, all too well as well as I am, what you see on the other side is just more than you can probably imagine at this particular point. And Cora is on 10 days of our go.  That's fabulous, keep going. You've done the tough stuff. I'm gonna add one more thought to Ivan's question and then we can close it down too because we are running out of time. But the other thing, Ivan, that you can consider is two different strategies. One is to avoid those triggers for you in the first part of your journey, whether that's two weeks, three weeks a month and build up that mental mindset and feel and experience the power and how you're feeling without drinking. So get those triggers out of your life and then introduce them with positivity. And that will help you kind of go longer term. So any final thoughts? Thank you, Victor. Victor is motivated by being alcohol-free. Good, that's what we want more people to motivate. Yeah, and I love the fact, I mean, I see pictures coming in from people that are very young and I just love it that the younger people are realizing this isn't the way to live life. Danny says, intuition and insight. Oops, sorry, Danny, I lost you. Okay, intuition and insight comes from the quieter, wiser, loose guy place of our thinking. I think that's absolutely right. I think we have to just sometimes have time to be, not even to be thinking specifically about anything. That, for me, is when the good ideas come through. So yeah, boredom doesn't have to be a bad thing, but in the early days, keep yourself busy and distract yourself and be very, very kind to yourself. Yeah, I agree. Well, Jenny, for this week, I am going to congratulate you as Cassandra is too, nine months off the hallway today, whoo-hoo. I wanna thank everyone for coming in and remind you that we need questions for content. We can always make questions up. We're pretty good at that. I mean, we can, but it's a much better coming from you all. So anyway, if you have any more interest in talking about Project 90 and how we help people change their relationship with alcohol over 90 days, Melanie is on the side and she's posting a link to get on my schedule. Also, if you're listening to the podcast, you'll hear a commercial that gives you access to the link and how to book a call and make an appointment. Anyway, we have some wonderful coaches waiting for you to talk to you how you can change your life for the positive. And Jenny and I are here to vouch for it, right? So, all right, everybody, until next week. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. I wanna load you up with some free stuff right now. So, if you wanna go to jameswanick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide, which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals reduce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222 if you're in the US, of course. It doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US. But if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide, text the word quit guide to the number 44222 or you can go to jameswanick.com slash guide. If you'd like to schedule a free 15-minute call with one of my top coaches, just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you, then you can go to jameswanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90 to the number 44222 if you're listening in the US on a mobile phone. That's jameswanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90, that's one word, project 90, to the number 44222. Feel free to send me a direct message over on my Instagram account, which is at jameswanick. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is jameswanick1 or you can direct message me on Facebook at jameswanickofficial. And finally, a request. Would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer? Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners, potentially transforming someone's life. You can rate and review the show inside of your Apple podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop. Thank you so much and I'll catch you next time.


What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And I wanted to discuss a brand new video that Vice uploaded over to their channel. And it's about the heroin epidemic in Denmark and in Sweden. All right, so we're going to be discussing that in this video, because there's some topics that also pertain to not only the United States, but other countries throughout the world, because a lot of people are looking to places that are implementing what's called safe injection size, which I'll explain pretty soon here. But a lot of people are wondering if they should do it, because they're a little bit controversial. All right, those of you who don't know me, one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this subject is because I am a recovering opioid addict. I haven't picked up a drink or a drug in seven and a half years, which is pretty crazy, because I live in Las Vegas, where drugs are a plenty. All right, but I have worked in treatment, and I try to keep up to date with all this and try to see what other places in the world are doing to curb this current epidemic. All right, so I'm going to be talking about this Vice video, I'm not going to be using any clips, because Vice will hit me with a copyright strike with the quickness, but I might be throwing up some screenshots here or there. So a few things that we're going to be talking about, one thing we're going to be kind of summarizing what was going on in that Vice documentary. All right, we're going to be talking about the pros and cons of safe injection sites. But then I also want to ask some questions that I had after watching this Vice video, right? Like how many addicts are in total in both these countries? What's a process for getting treatment like in these countries? And how many people actually get treated? All right, so anyways, the Vice video kind of goes like this. A lot of people from Sweden who are addicted to heroin are actually going to Denmark, right? So Denmark is getting this influx in heroin addicts coming over there. And the reason for this being is Sweden isn't as lenient with the decriminalization of drugs, like they lock a lot of people up for drug use. So Denmark, they're taking the harm reduction route. That's why so many addicts are going there. So they have set up safe injection sites. So around these safe injection sites, it's kind of like a free zone.  Okay, so a safe injection site.  And they also give you needles. Okay, so one of the one of the things about these injection sites is currently there have been no overdose deaths. Absolutely no overdose deaths in these safe injection sites. All right, one of the reason being is you have a staff there and there's a life saving drug called naloxone sometimes referred to as Narcan, which reverses overdoses. So if people are shooting up in a safe place, there's a pretty much no chance they're gonna die unless they did like a massive dose. Like I have known people who have overdosed and they've been hit like three, four, five times with Narcan and they still ended up passing away. All right, so these safe injection sites, obviously they don't have them in Sweden, but what about the rest of the world? Canada actually has safe injection sites, all right? And I was just doing some research right before this video and they saw a slight decrease in the amount of overdose deaths. They had on average about 4,100 per year and now it's dropped to about 3,800 but a decrease in overdose deaths is pretty good. Okay, now something you should know is this has been a topic of debate in the United States for a while because of our heroin epidemic. So although safe injection sites are not legal in the United States as of yet, there are many cities that have applied to have safe injection sites. Some of them include San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, and New York City, all right? So which one is the best option? Who's doing it right? Sweden or Denmark? Safe injection sites. So let's talk about the pros and cons and these are from my point of view. I would love to know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below. All right, so the benefits, the pros, okay? One of them is, again, nobody's ever died in one. That's a pretty good thing. Second one is it's better for the community at large because since these places are distributing clean needles, there's not really as much of a risk for spreading infectious diseases like AIDS or hepatitis, all right? So that was one of the reasons that they decided to open up these safe injection sites is because there was this massive spread of infectious diseases. So it's better for the community in that aspect, all right? Next one is less of a stigma, okay? This is something that I talk about a lot, like the war on drugs in the United States, it hasn't worked pretty much since it got implemented. My personal belief is that we need to provide treatment rather than locking people up. Locking people up often just gets them back into the cycle of using because they have it on their record. It's hard for them to get their job, they get depressed, they turn back to using, okay? The next benefit is less overdoses overall, okay? So Denmark compared to Sweden has seen a drop in their overdose rates. So now let's talk about the cons, okay? These are reasons people don't like these safe injection sites. Some of these are my opinions as well. So one of the things that we have to think about is they're not helping people get clean, okay? So I believe in Canada, there are some safe injection sites where people who come in there, like they really try to get people clean, right? Like when they come in there, they're given like resources to go to treatment and all these other things, like they're trying to get people to only come in there and be safe, but they know that treatment is an option. But from what it looks like with Denmark is that they're not really offering people or trying to push people towards treatment, okay? The next con on the list is it's not really helping the community when these people aren't getting clean. So one of the stories that they showed in there, and I think both the guys they interviewed, but these guys are homeless, right?  So this dude is sitting here talking about how he still commits crimes in order to get his drugs, right? So in the United States, even though we don't have safe injection sites, we do have methadone clinics. And one of the reasons people want methadone clinics is because there are decreases in crimes. People are getting methadone for free. So they don't have to worry about, you know, people getting robbed to fuel that addiction. Now, one of the reasons that I personally don't agree with because there's no data to really back it up is people don't want safe injection sites or even methadone clinics in their area because they feel it will bring crime to their area because of that stigma of addicts. But research shows that areas that have methadone clinics actually have less crime because again, the drug addicts aren't going out there robbing people, all right? So those are some of the pros and cons. But like I said, I wanted to ask some questions because after I watched that Vice video, there were a lot of questions that weren't really answered, all right? From the dialogue and kind of the way the video was, it seemed like Vice was trying to be like, yo, Denmark is the way to go. The interviewer, like the journalists in there, he actually interviews a dude from Sweden, like one of the people in the government who makes laws and stuff like that. Like he interviewed him and he was kind of like given the dude a hard time. So I had some questions because I want a more balanced view on this. So again, the three questions we're going to be asking are how many addicts are there in total? What's the process like to get treatment in Denmark and Sweden? And how many people actually get treatment? Okay? So I was able to find some of these answers at the website for the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Addiction. All right? So the first question, how many addicts total? All right? So I had this question because even though Denmark has less overdoses, do they have less addicts? Right? Because when you're providing a safe injection site without really offering treatment, what's that doing to the community as a whole of people who are actually struggling with addiction? Are they getting clean? Now, unfortunately, which is really weird, looking at this website who has a ton of statistics, but the only drugs that they track for how many people are using are weed, cocaine, MDMA, and amphetamines. All right? So the next best thing that I was able to find was how many people go to treatment. But we got to realize that this isn't covering the full scope because a lot of people who are struggling with addiction don't go to treatment. All right? The disease of addiction is very powerful and it makes us have any excuse we can to not get clean. All right? So here on the left, you're looking at Sweden. On the right, you're looking at Denmark. All right? So in Sweden, 24% of all people who go to treatment are going there for opioids. In Denmark, only 5% of people are going to treatment for heroin. Now, real quick, something that we need to realize too, Sweden's statistics covers opioids in general. Denmark's statistics only says heroin. So it's not taking into account prescription opioids. Like that was my drug of choice. So I'd be curious what that's all about. Now, real quick, real quick, looking at these numbers, like Denmark has 63% of all drug treatment admissions for marijuana, for cannabis. Like, I don't know. Now I want to research that and see what the heck is going on over there. All right? But getting back to the heroin topic, vice didn't cover this. But we can safely assume that in Sweden, even though they are criminalizing heroin more strictly, even though they don't have safe injection sites, more people in Sweden are actually getting help to get clean. So the next question is, how accessible is treatment? And I think there's a very important topic because we have this as a topic of debate. Like, if you've been watching the debates, people have been talking all the time for these 2020 elections, like, should we have a single payer healthcare system, like they do in places like Sweden and like Denmark, you know what I mean? So when you hear people talking about Medicare for all, that's what they're talking about. So those who argue against Medicare for all, right? And when they talk about these other countries that have it, their primary argument is the long wait time. And personally, I think that's a pretty bogus reason not to implement that. So let's look at the treatment process for Denmark first. Access to drug treatment within 14 days of the first contact or request is guaranteed for drug users over the age of 18, and in some cases for users who are under 18. People who are entitled to treatment may choose between public and private treatment programs within the framework of a prescribed treatment plan, which is free of charge to the client. Drug treatment includes medical and social interventions and is delivered with close cooperation between the health and social sectors.  Time out, time out. So in Denmark, they're guaranteed treatment within 14 days, but people in the United States arguing against Medicare for all are saying long wait times. Let me make this very clear to you as somebody who's been working in the addiction field for a long time. Currently, if you don't have insurance and you're going to a government-funded facility, those wait lists can take months. I have known people who went on wait lists just for detox that was a month, two months out. That is insane. So clearly they're doing something right if they can guarantee you treatment within 14 days. All right, so let's look at what the admission process is like for Sweden. The treatment related objectives of the comprehensive strategy for alcohol, narcotics, doping, and tobacco, 2016 to 20, place an emphasis on enhancing the access and quality of care based on a client-centered approach. In Sweden, drug treatment is organized by social services in local communities, specialized outpatient clinics, hospitals providing detoxification and residential treatment facilities, compulsory treatment for up to a maximum of six months is possible in Sweden, which is provided by the National Board of Institutional Care. So again, time out six months. It's free and six months. I always want to know when I'm watching the people debate against Medicare for all when they're like, some people like their private insurance. I'm like, who likes their private insurance? Because I'll tell you this, working in drug treatment, you are lucky. You are very lucky if your private insurance that people love so much covers you for 30 to 45 days. But in Sweden, you can get six months of inpatient treatment for no cost. Think about that for a second. Lastly, how many people are getting treatment in Sweden versus Denmark? All right. Now keep in mind, keep in mind Sweden has a little over 10 million people living there. Denmark has about 5.6 million. Okay, so keep that in mind as we look at these numbers. All right. So what is this telling us about safe injection sites? Less people are trying to get clean. And like we talked about earlier, with no incentive to really get clean, people are still committing crimes to get heroin. And to kind of wrap this video up, speaking as a recovering drug addict myself, like I understand that safe injection sites save lives. And that is awesome. You know what I mean? But here's a thing. Like for me, living in my active addiction was no life. It was no life worth living. Every single day, the only thing on my mind was how do I get more and how do I use more? All right. I was a slave to these drugs. So although I do think safe injection sites are a good thing, I think methadone clinics are a good thing. I think all of these programs need to really push people towards getting help. Okay. That's just my opinion. All right. That's just me. All right. But now with all the information, let me know what your thoughts are down in the comments below. If you're from Denmark or Sweden, let me know your thoughts about what's going on in your country. Let me know down in the comments below. I want to kind of like talk about more places. I was looking into Canada. I couldn't find much information. So if you or someone you know works in the Canadian like healthcare realm, hit me up. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at the rewired soul. All right. But anyways, but anyways, if you stuck around this long, I appreciate you. And if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell.  All right. But anyways, thanks again for watching and I'll see you next time.