Welcome to 8% virtual. As people are coming in, we've had over 10,000 agents register for this today. Live free virtual conference. Number one, okay, I wanna thank you as people are coming in, okay. I wanna thank you for being a part of this event.  The next two days are gonna put life back into you and the next two days we're gonna have a lasting effect that is gonna be unbelievable and take a precedence in your life in 2021, okay. The theme for the next two days is if you don't quit, you can't fail. And I really believe that if you do not quit, if you choose that, dude, hey, I'm not throwing in the towel this year, I guarantee you, you will have success in this industry and life will get really good. If you don't quit, you can't fail, all right. We are putting this virtual conference on because we decided that last year our first ever virtual was 8% 2020 virtual in April of last year, right.  The response that we got was life changing to us, okay. The positive feedback, the encouragement, people showing up and saying, man, I have eight pages of notes. Some people said, dude, I have 80 pages of notes. It was crazy, it changed my life forever. I can guarantee you we're leveling up and making it even better this year. I personally spent over $100,000 to make sure that this is the best event you've ever been to virtually. Now as good as it's gonna be, 8% 2021 live in Dallas is gonna be even better, okay. So the reason we started this is I wanted to have a lasting impact on agents all around the world. We've had agents register for this in the UK, in the Philippines, in Mexico, Puerto Rico, China, Australia, et cetera, et cetera and tons of agents in Canada as well. I can tell you that this is going to make a massive difference. We had unbelievable speakers and I want for this to change the game in your business. I care about you, I wanna see you succeed, I wanna see you win and we're doing this for free because we wanna help every insurance agent in the world. That's the theme, that's the why, that's the message, that's the mission. Question is, what's your mission, right? What is your mission in your business, in your life? What kind of legacy are you going to leave because I'm telling you, as amazing as this is, we are not stopping it, we aren't anywhere close to where all this will be, okay. So thank you for being a part of this. The number two virtual right now, March 5th and 6th, okay, it's gonna be amazing. Now we've got an unbelievable speaker lineup. I'm talking legendary speakers like Mr. Brian Tracy, who's had an unbelievable, I'm excited to interview him, because he's had an unbelievable, unbelievable impact on my personal life, my favorite sales book that I read as a kid was The Art of Closing the Cell by Brian Tracy. Unbelievable, right? Also, one of the best motivational speakers of all time, he also authored the speech in the Georgia Dome in front of 80,000 people called if you don't quit, you can't fail, right? It was called, which is one of my favorite, it ties in so well to that theme because it's one of my favorite titles I've ever heard, right? And that is that it's not over until I win. And the individual that spoke that message to 80,000 is gonna be alive with 10,000 the next couple of days. And his name is Mr. Les Brown, unbelievable motivational speaker. And I'm telling you, the dude is going to drop it like it's hot, don't miss it, okay, don't miss it. Also, Mr. Tom Hagna, insurance industry legend and influencer talking about life insurance and annuities and changing the game in your business, right? We've got amazing speakers, we've got another two dozen industry influencers. I've hand selected six, seven, and eight figure massive names who are crushing it, flat out killing it in the insurance business and they're gonna be spending two days with you. Okay, now, again, as great as this is gonna be, it's even better when we get in a room together when I shake your hand, when we give each other a hug and when you get impacted, there's something about getting in a room like going to April's Nation 2021 in Dallas at the Statler July 23rd and 24th, go to Aprilnation.com while we're on this to make sure you take advantage of your tickets for this year. Now, I got several announcements before we introduce our first speaker. I got several announcements I'm gonna go through right now. First, we are going to have special deals that you can take advantage of while you're on this virtual event. The link is kodiaskins.com forward slash deals. Kodiaskins.com forward slash deals, the E-A-L-S. I'm gonna release two deals right now. Okay, the first one is a private four week mentorship program with me. Where over four weeks I'm gonna impact and change your life for only $88, okay? That's the C-A deal. Now, the first 8% deal, okay? Cause we're gonna have three C-A deals and three 8% deals. The first C-A, the first 8% deal is VIP BOGO, two VIP tickets where you get a VIP seat to go to the VIP party. You get to be a part of 8% Nation Live in Dallas. Two VIP tickets for the cost of one BOGO to 8% Nation Live 2021, okay?  Those deals are only active and available while you are with me for the next two days. Okay, now also, outside of just the deals that you're going to wanna take advantage of, we're also gonna do some crazy, insane attention-getting something we've never done, but we're gonna try something new called flash sales. So when you hear this siren, that's when you want to make sure that you are ready. You're prepared because these flash sales, okay, here's how it's gonna work, okay? Pay attention, you're gonna wanna hear this. We're only gonna do a few flash sales during the whole conference, okay? And what that means is they're only gonna last for, you're gonna hear that siren. They're only gonna last for three minutes. It's an insane crazy deal that is better than any deal we've ever released and it's not even close.  Okay, now, it's also, not only is it only gonna last for three minutes, but it's only gonna be available to a select so many people during those three minutes and it's gone, it vanishes forever, okay? So when you hear that siren, you wanna stop and you wanna take action now.  They got my attention and I know they're going to get yours. Also, okay, also, for those that are here and who's on thinking, okay, dude, I want to get and win some random giveaways. I wanna win some free stuff during the next two days, okay, there's some opportunity for four to five people to win some free stuff during this event. We're also gonna be doing, in addition to those four or five people, we're gonna be doing live trivia through the whole event and giving away some free stuff in chat. Now, we're gonna be looking for, here's what we're looking for, here's the qualifications. Okay, write this down, take some notes with me, okay? What we're looking for is we're looking for individuals that have the most watch time. Who's on the whole time? Who got started when the pre-show started an hour early and who stayed on the whole two days? Most watch time. Second, most engaged. Who's the most engaged in what's going on, okay? Third, who's most active in chat? Are you active in chat? Are you responding when the speakers are talking? For example, I'm gonna go ahead and see who's most active in chat right now and I ask you a question, where are you watching this from? I want you to stop and I want you to flood chat with the city and the state or the country of where you are representing during this virtual conference. I'll start, we're here in Springfield, Missouri, live in our studio here at the CA headquarters. Okay, now I want you to throw in where you're from. Okay, amazing. Wow, tons and tons of feedback, okay? I love it. Tons of Florida, tons of Texas, California. We've got some outside the country, unbelievable, okay? Unbelievable, most active in chat. Okay, we'll see if that's you. Okay, also, who invites the most people and sends this out and shares this the most on social and gets the most people into this that aren't currently in it for free, okay? Who invites the most? Who shares this out on social? I want you to tag me on Instagram, okay? At Cody.askins, okay? I want you to tag me on Facebook, send us a picture of what you're doing, how your setup looks, while you're watching on our Facebook at Codyaskins. Okay, now, for those that are joining, here's what I want you to do, okay? I want you to show up early. I want you to stay the whole time. I want you to take notes. And here's the guarantee from me to you. If you do these things, when you do these things, life is going to change. Life is gonna get really good, okay? You have greatness inside of you and these speakers are about to bring it out, okay? So before I get to our first speaker, who's ready? Who's excited? And who's ready to dominate 2021, okay? Welcome to 8% Virtual 2021. I'm excited to spend a couple of days with you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Now, don't forget about Codyaskins.com forward slash deals, the flash sales and the random giveaways. Now, it's time to introduce our first speaker, who is a marketing legend in this space, okay? Marketing legend. He just finished his first book that he's about to be releasing. I've had the privilege of partnering with this individual over the last two years. I've known him for the last several years and I'm telling you, he is the best marketer. Stay with me. He's the best marketer in the insurance industry, period, bar none. And I'll tell you a secret. It's not even close, okay? So get ready for the best market the interest industry's ever seen. And my business partner of secure agent marketing, bring a thunderous virtual applause, get ready, take some notes, soak it in. And if you win, you apply what he's about to teach you. Life's gonna get really good. Please welcome our first virtual speaker, the marketing legend, my good buddy, friend, and business partner, Landon McCarter. Welcome in. Welcome 8% virtual. I'm really, really, really excited to be with you guys to hang out, do a little education. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Landon McCarter. I am Codyaskins business partner. Tim and I own Secure Agent Marketing together. Secure Agent Marketing is a full service digital marketing agency that really specializes in insurance, you know, lead development, marketing, digital marketing, all of the above. I've been honored and blessed to be kind of able to sort of turn what Secure Agent Leads was into Secure Agent Leads, along with Secure Agent Marketing. With between Secure Agent Leads and Secure Agent Marketing, we spend about a million dollars a month of digital marketing spend on Instagram, YouTube, Google, YouTube, these digital products to generate insurance, digital marketing campaigns, along with insurance, digital marketing, lead development, et cetera. So what I'm gonna do today is really break out what I feel like is a key component of what I've learned spending a million dollars a month. And that would be something along the lines of just synergizing all of your marketing efforts to one particular goal. So what I'm gonna do today is I'm really gonna try and teach you guys a little bit on how this thing should look so that you're able to really synergize all of your marketing efforts, whatever you're doing, and then use all of your different marketing efforts to get one specific strategy with one specific goal at the end of this whole deal. And I'm gonna kind of break out these pieces. So without further ado, I'm just gonna get into it. So what I'm gonna talk on first is, you know, one of the biggest mistakes that I see our industry making is creating independent and disjointed marketing strategies that may work, but could be so much better by just connecting them with one overarching strategy, synergizing the pieces. So I'm gonna just jump right into my first example. And that is just, you know, overall, you've got, you know, 95% of marketing budgets are spent on some form and mix of direct mail marketing, seminar marketing, digital lead development, some traditional media, grassroots effort, telemarketed leads, but this is where really most of our budgets are spent in our particular industry. And those are all great places to spend your money, depending on the market, depending on the county, you know, depending on where you're at, there's different little niches and ways there isn't one size fits all with the marketing game. I know some clients that spend, you know, $150,000 a year on traditional TV ads and kill it. I know some people that don't touch TV ads and do everything with direct mail. I know some people that are all in with digital. I know some people that, you know, there's just not one size fits all. But one of the things that I've been blessed with is be able to work with really some of the biggest names in the insurance industry. And because I'm able to work with these individuals, I'm able to understand what they're doing and really connect the dots. What I'm gonna try to do is I'm gonna try to take like what I see across the industry with working with all these really large players in the industry and try and break it down into like a actual strategy that you can implement on your own, okay? So let me show you an example of what I feel is a low hanging fruit way to synergize your an existing marketing project with a digital component to just squeeze out value and save some money, okay? So here's an example. Let's just say that you're doing a direct mail drop. Let's just use Medicare, for instance. There's a particular, you know, area you wanna do a turning 65, let's just say mail drop, for instance, okay?   That response is, you know, getting less and less as we continue to go into this traditional media as kind of like lacking compared to what it used to be.  A lot of direct mail drops are under 1% return now and starting to get to the point where it's somewhat, you know, unsustainable. Now there's some areas that are just killing it but the problem with direct mail, especially with like turning 65 as an example is is if three other companies just dropped the same list you did with people turning 65 in that area, then you're the third piece of mail that that person got in their mailbox. It's just you're in a noisy space. So one of the things that you can do that to synergize your marketing efforts to get more return investment off the existing spend is something super easy, right? So just put a URL on that direct mail drop that is sent, right? That URL will take them to one of the pages of your website that is built to educate the prospect regarding what the purpose of the direct mail was in the first place. So, you know, we as consumers are being conditioned to educate ourselves before we make purchasing decisions because we have all these educational tools at our fingertips, you will get a percentage of those individuals that are gonna go to that URL to look for further information. If that website page has a video of you talking three, five minutes educating some content that extrapolates the purpose of that direct mail in the first place out a little bit and, you know, a lead form to try and capture a potential first name, last name, email address, phone number, birth date, you know, county that they're in, whatever that is, then you will, you're already paying to reach those 10,000 people that you direct mail. There will be a percentage of those individuals that go to that URL for more information. And if you have a phone number on that site as well, you will get calls and you will get, you know, online leads as for free, basically. So you're already paying to reach the audience. Why not give the people what they want, which is a point of education to then do further education on their actual, like purpose before they take action. Some people will just take action on that direct mail and that's fantastic, but there's gonna be a percentage of individuals that are gonna want more research, okay? So give them that research. That's just, you know, how you synergize with marketing. That's a simple, simple example, right? So, you know, a lot of times what I feel like people do is they end up having, you know, they do a direct mail drop, maybe one or two or five or 10, who knows? So it's kind of what I feel like this year. Then I'm gonna maybe get into some seminars maybe. And I think I'm gonna do five this year, but I could do two, but I could go 10, you know, who knows exactly, but I'm gonna have, you know, I'm gonna do seminars this year, you know, or I'm gonna do some traditional media and get some billboards and all of that, which is all fantastic. These are all good things. Or I need, I know I need to do a blog. So I need a blog or I'm gonna put together like a YouTube content and educate with video. Cause I know that this guy, Cody Askins, he's telling me to do video content, and so what happens is it becomes this overwhelming mess of task lists of things to do. And if you don't really see quick results or quick bumps in all this stuff, you're just gonna go back to your old ways, which is just like working your referrals, doing whatever you did before to get some initial success. But what I'm trying to do is elevate to where you can get a systematic, controllable, scalable marketing system to be able to control lead flow, to then be able to hire and grow your agency based on your controllable lead flow.  So let's keep going. Okay, so here's a few more common mistakes that I see. Okay, so let's just say you're doing seminar marketing.    They might check you out online after they make a purchase decision. I'm not saying that this is a required step for people to buy from you, but I'm telling you that we're in the days of educational selling and if people work with the people that educate them and if your website sources the foundational hub of your constant information and you're sitting in the seminar and you're educating them on the seminar and all of a sudden you're like, they're like, oh my gosh, this guy's really like going to great lengths to educate me and he's sitting here at front teaching me like you get so much more buy-in with people because I believe the psychology behind that personally, I've been thinking about this a lot. We're conditioned from the time we were kids to respect the person at the front of the room that's teaching us this thing.  And because we are able to, this is just conditioned to us as humans, if we can put ourselves in that position of education, you just get first crack at that business, right? Another example is any traditional media that you buy will have a URL, you know, are you educating them when they check you out? So like if you look at TV or radio ads, well, more TV than anything, my place a lot of TV for clients and what's gonna happen is is you're gonna have a phone number on the TV ad, you're also gonna have a website on that TV ad. When people go to your site, you will see a spike, you know a lot like this spike that I forgot to point out in my previous slide, this, how do I get here? I can't do that. How about this? This, oh, I can't do that either. The little graph on there is the Google Analytics account. Once we do that direct mail drop, you'll see this spike of online conversions after you do your direct mail. It's the same thing with TV, right?  They have to go somewhere, they're gonna go somewhere on a certain percentage of basis to look you up and check you out and see what you got going on, right? So you just need to understand that that's happening. Now, when you're paying to reach all these people, not everybody that's going to your website is ready to buy, okay? Are you capturing IP addresses and remarketing to them on YouTube, Google, Instagram and Facebook or building a warm audience? What that means is, is that all those tools that I just laid out have the ability to capture the device, the cell phone, the mobile device, the tablet, the computer, the desktop, whatever it is that that individual used to go to your website to do research on you, you can capture that IP address and remarket them on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Google, et cetera. So what can happen is you're building what's called a warm audience. So someone is more likely to do business with you. If you're doing TV ads, they went to your site, they checked you out, you got the email address, then you show them a Facebook ad, then they're going to take action on that. That's called building a brand, right? Now, you will be able to get leads that way. But if you're not capturing IP addresses with remarketing or called like remarketing pixels, Google has one, Facebook has one. They're a tool that's built to put on your website to then capture the IP addresses to then choose that as an audience later to remarket to them. You're missing out on opportunity. These are warm audiences that have already been touched by you one time. They're more likely to convert the next time, right? If that makes sense. So another thing that I see people do is are you using Facebook only to develop leads? Are you developing leads with your own brand, creating a warm audience and then creating lookalikes and maximizing that budget? I know a lot of people that buy Facebook leads from lead vendors. So Secure Agent Leads is a Facebook lead vendor. If you have a too small of a budget to really break off a marketing campaign, you can just buy leads. But a better way to do it is to build out a campaign on Facebook that's under your brand. That's using your brand to reach the audience to get the lead out of that audience, especially if you're trying to build an audience in a local area. Because we're paying Facebook for impressions. We're also trying to get leads that are coming out of it. But like, wouldn't it make sense to reach the 10,000 people that it takes to reach to get X amount of leads from that system? Wouldn't it make sense to reach them with your brand instead of the Facebook lead vendors, random brand that they've created and haven't given you any single bit of... Like, if you work with a lead vendor, they're running those campaigns from their Facebook pages and then giving you the leads. Why not run the campaign under your own Facebook page and get your own leads for cheaper, but also the fact that you're building this name recognition in the local market with your particular brand to get the lead is better anyways. And you're gonna get messages that are gonna come from that page because if you're paying to reach thousands of people, if you have a healthy enough budget, you're gonna get more than just the leads that come out of that particular lead campaign. You're gonna get direct messages and all things like that, right? So that will also keep you from getting your ad account disabled a lot of times. So I don't wanna get too far into this because this was kind of a little bit of a rabbit trail and part of a bigger discussion. But in the insurance industry, Facebook is really cracking down on particular audiences being not misled because they're not misled, but the way that Facebook's algorithm is like built is if you have to have positive interactions for every negative interaction that you get on your site. Well, since we're working with an older senior market typically, they don't exactly know how to use Facebook as well.  It just doesn't even make sense what some of these people are saying. But that doesn't matter to Facebook's algorithm. They're going to flag you, right? So if you're running this from your brand and putting positive information into the algorithm as well as using their platform to pull leads out of, you're less likely to get your ad account flag disabled. So, you know, I also see a lot of times people have like independent digital strategies in play with no real synergies. Like as an example, organic social media, you know, they have their social media managers sending posts about the birthdays in the office. Nobody cares about the person's staff member's birthday. Like they may care a minute, but like they're gonna care very little compared to the educational content you can get on how to lower your car insurance premium every single quarter. If you're trying to build out a PNC sort of audience that's looking to you as a thought leader in the space if that makes sense, right? So having like, for instance, like maybe a video campaign or an email campaign or a texting campaign, right? You have all these different things that you're trying to actually do digitally because you think you need to do but they're not connected into one particular strategy. So what I'm gonna do is kind of show you what this should look like so that you're able to exactly see, you know, what I'm talking about, all right? So the first thing you need to do is understand, okay, when are my direct mail drops? When are my seminars? What is my content schedule? Now, this content schedule is important because this is gonna be all the pieces to the puzzle with one particular goal in mind which is to generate leads by educating your particular prospects and establishing your thought leadership in the space, okay? So you're gonna create four pieces of anchor content. You do that by just creating one a week. It's it, right? One a month, that means four videos, okay?  It's not hard to stand up a YouTube channel. Take your best email, I'm sorry, your best video of those four and email it to your database, your customers, et cetera, educate them, right? And then host those videos on your website, host those videos on your YouTube channel, right? And then bite size out the content for social. So once you host that video on your website, it's easy, the easiest thing to do is like write a blog, a worded blog around that so that you have like a blog post and a video on that same page. So that way you're able to have a video and a blog post. So that way you have two really valuable social posts that you can make on Facebook and then two on Instagram. So you can take your video link and share it with a little blurb. You can take your blog post and share it with a little blurb. You can take your, and then do that same thing on Instagram. So that you just created four like social posts with one piece of content. You see what I'm saying? You created one video and wrote one blog and created four pieces of content, right? Once you kind of understand how to get that schedule, you'll start to see how it goes. Cody and I shoot for 60 pieces of content a day, including all of our stories and TikToks and everything that we do, right? We do that because we've seen the power of content marketing and what it means. We rarely, like the value of content marketing for us is paramount. Like we are trying to be the ones that are educating the market, not because we only want to take business from the market. It's no, it's like people work with the people that educate them. If we can truly, we are in a unique position because of our purview of all the different clients that we work with and all across the country. We have the opportunity to bring some value to a lot of agents that are on their own island in Mississippi or whatever. So we are in a unique position to be able to educate the market. By educating the market, people trust us, by trusting us to do business with us, by doing business as we grow and scale. It's that simple, okay? The next thing you wanna do is figure out your goals, right? What's your actual goal of what we're trying to accomplish with our budget? Some goals that are popular are return on ad spend, which is really just a percentage dollar for every dollar you spend on digital. So if I spend $1 on Facebook and get $4 back in premium, that means that I've got a four to one return on ad spend, a ROAS or whatever is the number that it's called. I like that number for a lot of reasons. I can't get into the details because I don't have it on the time now. If you want more information on this, feel free to reach out to us through our website or whatever. But the ROAS is important to understand. Another thing that I find a lot of people do is they have particular lead goals from a volume standpoint. So look, I've got three LOA agents. I've got three in-house agents. I need about 100 leads a week. Let's use digital marketing to then not only generate those leads, but also have a sustainable amount of lead flow that's coming in the doors, right? So a lead goal is a good number. Cost per acquisition is another good number. What's it costing me to earn a customer? The reason I like to check return on ad spend, lead goal and cost per acquisition is because any three of those numbers by themselves don't tell you as much as all three. Meaning return on ad spend, if I get a guaranteed issue product or like a really high premium product, return on ad spend accounts for that. Cost per acquisition doesn't, lead goal doesn't. It costs the same to get a lead, typically for a big premium or a guaranteed issue. The cost per acquisition is equalized as well. Sure, I'd pay 250 bucks all day long for a really high premium product, right? Cost per acquisition, but I wouldn't for a guaranteed issue product, right? So return on ad spend sort of levels all that out. Once you kind of understand the content strategy and how to use like understand why you're trying to create content, why you're trying to educate the prospect to then do business with you, then you just need to understand what portion do I wanna dedicate to our, what portion of our marketing budget do I wanna dedicate to I Need Leads Now versus investing in long-term strategies such as content marketing. So what I recommend doing is really finding a happy medium. If you're a new agent, you really seem to be getting lead flow, right? If you're an established agent, you have more money than time. You wanna start to get better quality leads. You do that by content marketing, by building out a big educational focused website that's built to educate and then convert, right? There's different needs for different folks and different strokes from different phases of business, right? It just depends on where you're at and what your needs are and that's all unique. I've tried to create, I would say 25,000 a year is a really like healthy budget in general to start. That's like a good number. If you can allocate 25,000 a year for marketing, you will learn what you need to do. You'll learn what you need to learn your first, that first year of spending that money. You'll also get a return on investment like whether it's one, two, three or four. If you're doing it the right, you shouldn't be losing money on your 25 grand investment, all right? So here's a general timeline of what I like to kind of walk people through in terms of how to actually execute this just to give you a good idea of understanding of like, you know, of all the clients that we work with. This is like what we try to set the expectation. So I want you to take this expectation as well and try and run with it, right? So you got, I got six months on the board. First month is really understanding, onboarding, getting the assets together, starting to figure out what we have. Do we have a website that we can build on? Let's talk targets, let's talk expectations. Let's talk key performance indicators. Let's define all the monthly work that needs to be taken place. Is it four pieces of content? Is that a healthy content scheduled? Do you want to do eight pieces of content? Why would you want to do eight versus four? All those different types of, you know, sort of discussions are when you have an in month one. You're also going to look at analytics, make sure analytics are set up so we can track everything and then figure out what's already scheduled, right? So we can start to work around what's already scheduled from a webinar standpoint, from a direct mail standpoint, whatever that is from a seminar standpoint, okay? Then on month two, you're going to want to develop assets. This is when we're going to really start to develop a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. The content, the video, the website, you know, the really just, you know, build out the pieces of the puzzle that we're going to use to execute the marketing budget. Now, if you're spending money on month one, you're obviously going to be developing assets month one as well and like paid social, for instance, but like I'm just trying to kind of give you a general timeline. This isn't like at one size fits all, okay? Once we have the assets developed and we understand the budget and we're executing and we're kind of like hitting the ground running, you're really going to want to set benchmarks that you, that we want to hit because we were starting to see the early stages of these numbers. We're starting to see things come in. We're starting to see benchmarks. Okay, we're getting leads. They're $5.50 a lead for a life insurance lead. That's fantastic. We're all celebrating, but I can't contact any of these to save my life. Well, let's increase the cost of lead and increase the buyer intent by adding qualifying questions into our funnel. Those are the types of things where you're starting to like set benchmarks and getting to the month four where you're starting to refine this process, refine what we're doing and get to the point where we are starting to see some wins that are not necessarily like the golden goose, but like are starting to show us promise, et cetera. Now, once you have month five and six, you know, in general, you're looking at like optimizing what the difference between optimizing and refining in my opinion is refining is really still trying to figure out like validity of this market, this program, this, you know, is this going to work for what I'm trying to accomplish? And optimizing is it's working. Let's make this work better and get ready to scale, which is the month six, right? So you really want to get to the point where, wow, we did this campaign. We've refined it. We've optimized it to the point where we know we're getting $14 leads. We're able to get in touch with, like I just did a video today with a, with an OEP like campaign that's a messenger campaign on Facebook for the under 65 health that just got released who's having new open enrollment period now for the next three months. So we have a messenger campaign that's getting like $14 leads. He's getting into like 30% of those are turning into like actual quotable opportunities. And he's like crushing it, right? He's writing tons of business. He's killing it, right? So he's getting ready to triple down on the budget or he is already made the decision to triple down on the budget because he has the capacity to take three times the leads. But when we started the project, we didn't say you need $9,000 a month to hit the lead volume that he wants. Now we started that $100 a day refined, optimized, got to where we needed to go. And then we got to $9,000 because he knows that it was already proven out at three. And the way the digital works is is you can really understand the sort of the scope of what's available by a term that's called impression share. So a lot of this stuff is like relatively like complex. I'm trying to get this stuff condensed in 25 minutes which is not the easiest thing to do. So I'm sorry if I went too fast, but really this is like the core of what I feel like you need to be focused on to hit your ultimate goal which is really this graph tells a lot, okay? So referrals are going to always go up into the right because you're getting more business, you're getting more referrals, et cetera.  But if you cut that leads budget, your leads go to zero. Long-term marketing and content marketing, what you're investing now today in content to educate, you may get a lead next month from the blog post you wrote this month and you may get one in three months from the blog post you wrote three months ago, but like it's just this engine that's moving it's built to educate. So that's what you're trying to accomplish with this whole marketing budget with especially digital, if that makes sense. So guys, I know that was quick, okay? I just finished my book that's called Find Your Marketer, what I learned spending a million dollars a month on digital marketing. This, it'll be ready for purchase in a couple of weeks where I extrapolate all this out to in great depth.  Also just go to our website for more information if you want, I talk a lot about this or our YouTube channel. You guys can get lost in the content that we've created. I've got good grief, hundreds of videos talking about this stuff. So I really, really, truly want you guys to be successful whether it's working with us or not. These are the principles that you need to have in place in your business, whether you're working with creative marketing or bringing in house or you've got your own guy. If they're not saying things like this, if this isn't the language that's coming out of their mouth and then you haven't found your marketer yet, right? So you don't have synergized strategies. You have one marketing budget kinda but you just got all the pieces. You don't quite know how it fits together. So I really hope that I was able to kind of provide some insight to help you guys be successful in your marketing endeavors as we move forward in this business. I really do appreciate Cody. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to come to the audience and kind of educate as much as I can. Hope you guys found some value in today and we'll see you guys on the next one. All right, who just finished that and you're like, dude, I wanna be a marketing legend too, man. That's how you find your marketer. That's how you also become a marketing legend in your space. You can do some massive things and change your business. So that eventually you say, dude, I don't even recognize it anymore because it's doing so well, okay? Awesome job, Landon. Let's give my virtual round of applause. Amazing job, okay? Also, okay, before we go to our next speaker, I want to encourage you to go to SecureAgeAndMarketing.com to check out all the different services that we offer when it comes to marketing and leads for the insurance space. We dominate everyone else, Gary and Freakin' Teed, okay?  Yes, you right now in the Zoom room, I wanna spend time with you in Dallas, live with me at 8%Nation, 20, 21, July 30, 23rd and 24th. Okay, we're gonna put the link in chat. It's 8%Nation.com. I wanna spend time with you. This event, the reason why I love events, okay, is there's a power in events. There's a power of getting in the room, okay? My whole life changed three years ago because I started attending events.  You have to show up to go up. If it's meant to be, it's up to me and you gotta go to events. There's a power in events. I wanna challenge you. Events have changed my life.  Okay, now, time for another new CA deal. Okay, again, kodiaskins.com forward slash deals. Okay, CA as in Kodiaskins LLC, a new deal. We have a new All Access Plan, okay? This is a wild $10,000 of value, okay? For only $9.97. It's an All Access Plan, which comes with the CA sales system. That is my life's work on sales training for individuals and teams called the CA sales system. It's an online video learning university, okay? Comes with CA sales system. The All Access, you get all of it, right? CA sales system, boom. Next, you get a weekly accountability with call with me, where I'm training you and other interest agents every week for a whole year. Boom, you get that as well. And you get to come to one of our boot camps live with me. All Access, all three pieces, 90% off, 10K of value for only $9.97, okay? Go to kodiaskins.com forward slash deals to take advantage of that right now. I wanna help you. I am, I have a gift, okay? Like everybody's got a gift, okay? I've heard Tim's story say this, other people say this, like everybody's got a gift. My gift is taking a complicated sales piece and making it simple, right? One of the things I love doing the most is training sales teams, working with sales people, traveling the country and helping your sales team level up, get motivated, get ideas, challenge them, wake them up and give them content to continue to be better than what they were before. Okay, I can promise you.  I'm gonna leave you in a better spot than when we found each other, okay, guaranteed. Now, I have a question for our team, all right? I wanna see who's been the most active in chat? Who is sharing where their location is, where they're watching from? Okay, who's looking at chat? Who's sitting there thinking, dude, I'm ready. This is amazing. I'm here. I wanna make sure that you stay active because I'm gonna be doing some giveaways in chat and we're watching you whether you believe it or not. We are watching you, okay? Now, time to bring out the second speaker. This specific individual I saw at 10X2 speak on Grant Cardone stage to 10,000, right? Like we got 10,000 virtual. He spoke to 10,000 live in person, legend, okay? Unbelievable. He's been influencing my life a huge help and I'm excited to bring out America's coach, the super coach, Coach Michael Burt, bring him in. Let's go, coach. Excited to hear from you, buddy. Thank you for being here. I spent over a decade of my life as a championship basketball coach, learning the psychology of inter-engineering people to perform at the highest levels, specializing in activating the prey drive, and instinctual ability in each person to find, capture, and kill prey, to go out and see something either optically with the eyes or mentally with the mind and have the fortitude, the persistence, and the intensity to go get it. Now over the last 12 to 13 years, all I've been doing is activating this prey drive in individuals and businesses around the world, building high prey drive cultures where people are producing at the highest possible frequencies. You have a prey drive. You have another gear. You can find that gear and do something you've never done before. I'm Coach Michael Burt, and I'm here to activate your drive. Hey, I'm Coach Michael Burt, the super coach, and I'm so excited to be with you on this virtual summit for 8%. I believe that to get an 8%, you gotta have a high prey drive. You've got to learn to use negative emotions as positive reinforcers. And in this session today, kind of branded around the theme of you can't fail if you don't quit, I'm gonna help you overcome a cycle that people have, right? Which is start with good intention, they fail to follow through, and then they experience guilt. I have been coaching people for 28 years, and I have coached some of the top people in the world. I've coached in the prison system to rehabilitate offenders. I've coached kids for 10 years to build championship programs. I've coached top insurance people that are earning four million a year. I've coached a person who's trying to get one deal, one policy. And I have seen everything you could see. What I have come to learn over the last 28 years of coaching people is that deep within you is a drive. For the purposes of this presentation, we're gonna refer to that as prey drive. And it is a new book that I'm writing. That's my 17th book that'll be out in 2022 called Flip the Switch. How do you activate the prey drive in you and your people? How do you activate the prey drive in you and your team? The reason this is important is because once your prey drive is activated, right? Once you have this internal drive activated, you're not gonna quit.  You're gonna have some mindsets that I teach every day, which is it's gonna be a fight, but that government we're gonna find a way to win, right? There is no losing, there's only learning. We go to bed tired, we wake up hungry. It all goes to zero at midnight. There comes a time when winter asks what you did all spring and summer, right? This is the mindset of a high prey drive person. So where could that prey drive have gone in your life? Well, it could be dormant. It could be latent. It could be undeveloped. Maybe you've talked about finding another gear, but you've never had a coach to push and challenge you. Maybe you've never even thought about your potential. It shocks me how many Americans have never even been interested in their potential. Never been interested in what they could play at the next level. Maybe not knowing what's on the other side of success to get to. So in today's presentation, I'm gonna walk you through really how to activate this prey drive in you and more importantly, how to use fear, anger, disappointment, jealousy, comparison, rejection. How do you use negative emotions to propel you? Because I would tell you as a coach, these are actually your friend. These are a good thing, not a bad thing. They help you. They seem to hurt you in the short term, but they are really the fuel that you need to perform at a higher level because most people operate in an average or normal capacity going on about life until they have some conflict. And conflict is where real emotion comes from. So I would tell you conflict is actually necessary for your expansion. It is an integral part to you playing at a higher frequency. It is absolutely important for you. And if you do something big, you're going to have conflict. You're gonna have opposition. It's a pretty good indicator. You're not doing anything big if you don't have any opposition, if you don't have any conflict in life. So what is prey drive? Prey drive is an instinct. To see something with the eyes or in the mind and have the persistence and intensity to pursue it. You see, when you quit, you don't have any persistence. You don't have any resilience. You don't have any fight in you. Why don't you have a fight? Maybe what you're going after is not important enough. Maybe it's not big enough. Maybe it's not interesting enough. Maybe it's not appealing enough. Maybe you've got a series of starts and stops in your life. Maybe you start with good intention. You fail to follow through. You experience guilt over and over and over.  Achita has a 80% closing ratio. It pursues something. It sees it. That's stalking it. It pursues it. It kills it, right? In the sales world, you have a thought. You have an idea. You have a follow-up. You have a referral partner. You have an idea that you can help somebody. Boom, you wake up and like, I can help them. But it takes initiative to initiate, to disarm, to locate a problem, to offer a compelling solution, to go seven touches, to lock into something for a long cycle of time, right? It takes a persistence and an intensity. So I want you to think of prey drive as there's three components to it. There's an activation of it. Many times it's activated by some external factor. Fear activates a prey drive, right? Fear of losing something. Fear of losing status, money, power, fear of going back to who you used to be. Fear of not having anything. That activates something inside of you to do something, to take an action, to generate money, to make a sale, right? Environment activates prey drive. Creating an environment of exchange and energy and expectation creates a high prey drive, right? Exposure to something bigger creates a high prey drive.   Embarrassment can activate prey drive. Like you know you should be playing at a bigger level. You know there's a bigger game for you. You know there's a deeper potential for you. So I want you to think of prey drive in three components. There's an activation to it, typically by an external factor, right? Embarrassment, environment, exposure, fear of loss, a competition. Is it an activator or a prey drive? It's something that gets you going, that gets you excited, that gets you motivated and you want to take an action. But it's of no value if you start and quit. So you don't have part two and part three. You don't have persistence, which I consider a long obedience in the same direction. And you don't have an intensity. And intensity is ferocity of attack. It's energy. It's movement. It's circulation. It's, I am attacking my prey. Now if you're out there and you're watching this today, I've got a PowerPoint slide that goes with this presentation that I would be happy to send to you. I just want you to text this phone number<PHONE_NUMBER>. 7543, that's<PHONE_NUMBER>. And to get it, you need to text this code, all capitals together, get MP, get MP as in monster producer. And I will send you the PowerPoint so you can see what I'm working through here. Now remember it's<PHONE_NUMBER>, text code get MP as in monster producer, all together. Now, what if I told you and the animal that the reward is not capturing the prey? The reward is actually pursuing the prey. You see in this presentation, I talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you remember in school, we studied Maslow, who had this theory that we had five needs, physiological needs, air, water, food, shelter, sleep. Then we had safety needs. We had to feel like we were safe. Then we had love and belonging needs, friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection, esteem, respect, self-esteem, status, recognition. Self-actualization is actually the highest form of manifestation. It is where you are self-actualizing your deepest human potential, which is why you should pursue your potential. Work the muscle, go the extra mile. People ask me all the time, why do you push so hard? Is it for the money? No, the money's good. That's a byproduct of value creation, but that's not why I do it. The reason I do it is because I am interested in my potential. I'm interested in taking my talent and bringing my talent to the world. I'm interested in the exchange of distributing my talent to the world and the world distributing back love, affirmation, reputation, back to me. The exchange there, that is what I love doing, which is why I love speaking, which is why I love interacting, which is why I love engaging. Because helping, using your talent to help another person solve their problem is the ultimate exchange. Your past helps them build their future. Your talent solves their problem. That is the exchange that you're looking for. So just remember this, satisfied needs never motivate people, only unsatisfied needs. The enemy of the great life, the extraordinary life is the good life. I got a good house, I got a good job, I got good kids, I got a good wife. It's all good, man, it's all good. So therefore, if you study the motivational theories, we move toward things we want. What happens when we have everything that we want? What happens when we have a good life and a good job and a good everything? What happens when we have what we want? Then we suppress our pre-drive. We become lazy, we become complacent, we quit working the muscle, we quit pursuing the potential. Right now I'm coaching an 81-year-old insurance agent, 77-year-old financial advisor, managing $6 billion, a 74-year-old doctor. What do they have, man? They have an interest in their potential. They're still swinging, they're still in the game. They're still exerting force and energy. They're still pushing. And that's what you gotta do, right? And you can't start and stop and start and quit and start and fail. And you can fail, but you can't quit. You can't fail if you don't quit. You just learn and move. So by 8 a.m. every morning, I wanna activate my pre-drive in the body, in the mind, in the heart, and in the spirit. That includes a spiritual piece. That includes a physical piece. That includes an emotional piece. That includes a mental piece. So for me, it's listen to a sermon. It is physically exercise for the body. It is see my family and kids for the heart. And it is watch something on business. These four things activate my pre-drive at a higher frequency. These four things get me ready to go in and pursue the game. These four things get me going. So when I meet with my team, what do I do for my team? Number one thing is I'm trying to activate their pre-drive. Pre-drive is an instinct to see something in pursuit. Pre-drive is an instinct to take an action. Pre-drive is an instinct to reach out to a strategic partner. Pre-drive is an instinct to move to another frequency. Pre-drive is an instinct to follow up and close the deal. Pre-drive is an instinct to say, hey, this sounds good to you. What would stop you from getting started right now? That is pre-drive. So let's talk about, as it relates to this specific thing, pre-drive and emotions. Because when Cody Askins asked me to do this, I thought about things that paralyze people. Fear, disappointment, anger, rejection, lack of focus, jealousy, comparison, these are crippling emotions. I actually have come in my life to appreciate these feelings, right? Fear is an unpleasant emotion created by belief that something's gonna harm me in the future, right? It's a belief that something is gonna harm me in the future. Where did the belief come from? Something in the past. Fear, if used properly, can be the greatest motivator you've ever had. It can motivate you to take large amounts of action. In March of this year, when the pandemic happened, the coaching business was hit incredibly hard as many businesses were. Our business model was built on me speaking, people seeing me, driving leads into the equation. I was primarily a live person, right? I did some virtual stuff, but not at a crazy level. So when this first happened, man, I was afraid. How are we gonna drive business? How are we gonna hit our sales number? What if we have to lay everybody off? And then I made a decision. The decision was to convert that fear into fuel. I'm gonna multiply my effort. I'm going to push and, right? So I used the activator of competition. Now there's a competitor. Now there's an adversary. Now there's an impediment. Now there's something standing in front of me and my destiny. I'm gonna use that with fear and I'm gonna multiply my actions. When in doubt, take an action. When in doubt, multiply. When in doubt, don't add a thing. When in doubt, multiply. So I did eight free things a day for companies. Showcase events, virtual summits. Anything I could do to push to get in front of people. Anything I could do. And I did it for six straight months. Now remember this, we always reap what we sow more than we sowed it for longer than it was sown. Month one, struggle. Month two, struggle. Month three, decent. Month four, month five. Month six, I had the biggest month in my coaching career. And month six, I had the biggest month in my coaching career followed by the next biggest month in my coaching career. Followed up by a January that was incredible, right? Because there's momentum and there's energy, right? And the way you build momentum, which is just energy headed in direction, man, as you take action. So the fear helped me to play at a freakish level. Even my own team came to me and said, man, you're playing at such a freakish level that we've never seen you play at this level. It would have never happened if I didn't have the fear. The fear helped me play at a freakish level. Disappointment in other people helps you to understand how much volume you have to have. When you're only helping just a few people, a few people disappoint you, man, not your whole day out.  They're gonna tell you something. They're not gonna not follow through. If you're just, if everything's relying on one deal and the one deal falls through, man, you're disappointed. Kind of breaks down your little engine. But if you're working on a thousand deals at a time or 10 deals at a time or 20 deals at a time when you have one deal fall through, forget it, man. See, disappointment is because you're not helping enough people. Then you take anger or rejection, right? There is no such thing as rejection. Some will, some won't, so what? Some will want what you have, some will not want what you have, so what? Who cares? You just gotta keep on moving. You gotta keep on moving. There is no such thing as rejection. All you can control is your stimulus. You cannot control your response to the stimulus. All you can do is make the call, right? So what they don't want is, there's seven billion people on planet Earth, folks. There's no shortage of money. There's no shortage of opportunity. There sure is no shortage of people need insurance because they all need insurance. So when you think about it, I wanna teach you in this segment and really leave you with this concept is that these things can paralyze you. When I'm afraid, I contract. When I'm disappointed, I contract. When I'm in anger, I contract. When I feel rejected, I contract. When I have jealousy or comparison, I contract.  They will distract you away from your target. None of these emotions will help you get your targets, if not used correctly.  Here's still, here's what you need to think. Thank you, thank you. You know, in the Bible, Jesus commissions the disciples to go from city to city and share the message. And he said, you don't need anything. Okay, you don't need any equipment. And here's the exact words. You are the equipment. You got everything you need. You don't need any fancy this or fancy this or CRM systems or, right, you don't have to stay at the nicest hotels. All you need is you and a message.  He doesn't say wine, pout, complain, feel sorry for yourself, blame everybody else. Here's what he says. Go where you feel celebrated, not where you feel tolerated. Here's what he said. Just go, just keep moving. Just keep moving, man. And for you, that is the lesson of pray drive. Pray drive is in you. Pray drive is in you. My son is eight months old, man, he will get involved in anything. His desire is to push, to evolve, to touch, to get involved, to see, to be involved in anything. See, you've lost that desire. You wake up in a static position and you don't pursue. You don't pursue your big goals. You don't pursue your big dreams. You don't perceive strategic partnerships. You have a thought, yesterday I had thoughts.  Boom, text message. Oh, I need to do what this dude, boom, text message. Boom, next thing you know, things are happening. Yes, I'm in, yes, I'm interested, boom. So what does that do? It creates energy and energy. Money is just energy circulating around the world. It's all it is. It's just paper. The people who have the most circulation make the most money. People who have the least circulation make the least money. Money is energy. So for you, my strategy for you is simple in this 8% concept. You can't fail if you don't quit. You need pre-drive to have the activation, to have the persistence, and to have the freaking intensity.  There is no shortage of anything. Money, opportunity, possibility. There's a shortage of courage. There's a shortage of creativity. And there's a shortage of confidence. And that is what a good coach provides for you. So I'm Coach Michael Burt. I'd love to be your coach. Thank you for having me at 8%. If you wanna get a copy of this, full presentation. Text<PHONE_NUMBER>.<PHONE_NUMBER>. The text code is getMP, like monster producer.  And we're gonna reach out to you and we would love to help you in some way. I believe everybody needs a coach in life. I believe a good coach can change your whole life. And more than anything, a good coach will teach you how to toughen up and fight through adversity and use adversity to accelerate your process. I'm Coach Michael Burt. Thank you for letting me be with you on 8% Nation Virtual Conference. E-Coffee, E-Coffee, E-Coffee, E-Coffee, E-Coffee. Welcome back, hey amazing job coach. The dude is the number one activator of pre-drive. He always activates my pre-drive. And when he speaks, I stop and listen, okay. Awesome job. Thank you for being a part of this coach. Preach each a buddy. Okay now, I wanna bring out a new ticket for 8% Nation 2021 live in Dallas that we've never done before. This is probably for you by the way, okay. There's a lot of agents. We have 10,000 registered. We also have a YouTube channel with over 30,000 YouTube subscribers. And what we've learned is, because 92% of agents fail, a lot of the agents watching are struggling taking the next step in their life, right. They're struggling to change everything but they're committed to the cause. They're not quitting, they're not throwing in the towel. They wanna win and if that's you, let me hear you in chat right now, okay. I had a company in Costa Rica actually call me, I won a trip and they called me the rising star of the insurance industry, okay. And that got my attention. Like that had a lasting impact on my life, right. And it was just, it was an amazing moment for me. I'm about to give you an amazing moment. Maybe you're watching right now and you're like, dude I also am really committed to winning. I don't have a ton of money yet, keyword yet, but I will. I believe in the power of events and Cody I wanna spend more time with you, okay. Some of you, you can hear me, right.  Now, and you may agree that you too, given the right opportunities because you're hungry as Les Brown says.  You know it because you're the one, but nobody else knows it. So we now at aprecination.com have a, this year only a rising star ticket for you. The person that's watching this, I do it, I'm a rising star. I'm committed, I wanna win. I'm gonna show up and we only have 92 of these tickets 92 of these tickets called Rising Star for only $92. And by buying this, 92% of agents fail and it costs 92 bucks. You are saying I may be buying a $92 ticket, but I'm never gonna be a part of the 92. I'm showing up to 8% because I'm guaranteeing my spot in the 8%. New Rising Star ticket meant for you, my goal and my dream is to help every insurance agent in the world. And even if you don't have a lot of money and you're unable to buy a fire ticket for five grand or a diamond ticket for a couple grand or a premier ticket for a thousand bucks, it doesn't mean I don't wanna help you. Doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you and it doesn't mean that I don't care about you. Right, a lot of people don't need a handout, they're just gonna hand up. And this is me reaching out and giving you a hand up right now. Let's go to www.apricenation.com to take advantage of the Rising Star ticket because you are a Rising Star and you're gonna get a chance to prove it. And I'm inviting you to attend Apricenation 2021 live in Dallas with Eric Thomas and many other amazing speakers that I haven't even mentioned yet for only $92. So it makes you take advantage of that.  The flash sale buzzer went off.  Now that means we gotta do a flash sale. Okay, which means the last three minutes right now. Okay, are you ready? What this means is for the next three minutes, those that take action now and pay attention, do something insane, are gonna get to bring their whole team to Apricenation 2021. Here's the flash sale. Okay, here's the first one. Since the team sounded the buzzer, here's the first one. Okay, I loved this. The first flash sale is 10 VIP tickets, which are currently selling at 400 bucks a piece. $4,000 current value, over a $10,000 retail value. 10 VIP tickets to bring your team because when you bring your team, everything's gonna change, all right? And we only got three minutes for a thousand bucks. Okay, so make sure that you take advantage of this specific flash sale right now. You got three minutes to buy 10 VIP tickets for only $1,000, that's insane. And we're gonna limit it to the first three team leads that go grab them. So put in chat right now, did I want it? I'm in, I'm committed. I know the urgency is insane, and I only got three minutes. This is the crazy deal I've ever seen. It's meant for you to take advantage of it right now. Okay, because of this flash sale, right? So now it's time to bring up the next speaker. And again, this flash sale is going for three minutes. You must hit the link and go grab it. 10 tickets, only $1,000, 10 VIPs. I mean, it's all 10 of you are going to the party for only $1,000, that's insane. Okay, never been done before flash sale, limited three minutes. So stop what you're doing and take action now. Okay, the people that are committed and they're paying attention and they wanna win, they will take advantage. This is a crazy freaking flash sale meant for you to take advantage of right now. Okay, next speaker is unbelievable at selling life insurance, gathering referrals. He's a good buddy of mine. He puts out amazing content, right? He's got activity trackers, everything else. He loves converting age leads from hundreds of dollars into tens of thousands of dollars. The dude does an amazing job. I'm not only excited to call him an amazing sales trainer in the insurance business, but I'm also excited to call him a mentor and a friend. And I've enjoyed getting to know the next speaker as I bring him to the virtual stage. Please help me welcome Mr. Pete Fournier. What is up, 8% Nation? It's Pete Fournier coming at you, president of sales for an innovative financial group and owner of Fournier Enterprises, a training, coaching and consulting company for agents and agencies across the country.  Unbelievable job with the advertising, with getting some monster producers and monster motivational speakers to be on this virtual conference. I'm humbled that you asked me to be on here with this lineup. It's exceptional. I can't wait to watch each and every keynote. Now, the moral or the theme of this conference is you can't fail if you never quit.   You're doing PNC, life health, whatever.   The reason for that is you can't close at 100%. It's literally impossible. Most people won't close in the high 90s or even high 80s percents. I'm pretty sure that the national average is that insurance agents sell 20% or less of their sits, 20% or less. If you have 20 sits a week, you might sell four. Maybe, if you're lucky, if you're average, right? So your job is to fail 80% of the time. Now, with that statistic, how does it make you not wanna quit? How does it make you not wanna go get a nine to five and say, screw it, I just wanna base salary and some good benefits? How does it make you not wanna pick up the phone every day and make two to 300 dials? How does it make you not wanna get into your car tomorrow morning and drive around and knock on doors in the freezing cold? And I'm pretty sure it's freezing cold almost everywhere right now. How does it make you not want to quit this industry with a statistic like that? I think the only job that you can be successful at failing that much is probably playing baseball. If you close two or three out of sales, it's like batting a 200 or a 300 batting average. If you're a 300 batting average, you're going to the Hall of Fame, okay? Right? And if you're a 30% or more closer, you're going to the Hall of Fame of Insurance based on statistics, maybe not based on your personal goals, but based on statistics. The reason that you shouldn't quit based on those statistics is knowing your numbers, okay? I've been doing this personally for about 10 years now. Came up on my 10 year anniversary in the business in December. That's where all this gray hair comes from, right? The insurance business. And I failed on a micro level. I failed on a macro level, whether it be not closing well for my first couple of years. I was a very poor recruiter. I was good at selling the dream. I was very bad at vetting agents and that caused some serious roll up debt liability to hit me that caused me to want to quit pretty much every day for almost 18 months back in 2012 and 2013, but I didn't. Why? Granted, I'm from North Jersey originally. I kind of have thick skin, but that's not really the reason that I didn't quit.  I didn't quit because I knew my numbers. I knew I was confident in myself knowing that every dial I made was worth like six bucks. I want to say at the time, every referral I got in a house was worth like $150. Every sit that I had was worth like 800 bucks, right?  You have to fail. You have to. That's part of your job, but you can't quit from it. You can't. And the only way you're gonna alleviate yourself from quitting, from getting burnt out, from becoming one of the 92% that Cody always mentions, right, 92% of agents fail. That's why we have the 8% nation. That's why you're here. To alleviate becoming one of the 92% is knowing your numbers, knowing your business, okay? If you know that you can go out and consistently only close 20 to 30%, but make a couple hundred thousand dollars in doing so, you're going to laugh at your micro level failures that you're going through on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis. You just will. You have to look at the end result and you have to be running towards future you, okay? I look back on the first, let's say, two or three years that I was in the business. It was hard. I was working 80, sometimes 90 hours a week sometimes because I wasn't that good when I first started. I didn't perfect my craft. I was getting depressed. I was getting upset. I was getting frustrated. I was like, why aren't these people buying what I want to be selling them? I didn't come out the gate having success, right? So I wanted to quit. I really did. But I didn't do it because I knew other people were having success in this industry. So I interviewed some of the best and most of them told me the same thing. They knew their numbers. They knew if they sat with 10 people that they would close four of them, let's say, for $3,000 in premium and they would make 1500 bucks if they were at a 50% contract, right? They knew the breakdown.  How many dials did you make to get those sales? And how much was each one of that segment worth to your business? That's the only way you're going to get past wanting to quit on a daily basis. Compete against yourself, okay? It's much easier to pick up the phone and whether you're cold calling, you're calling age leads, you're calling on warm market, you're calling on referrals, you're calling on brand new fresh Facebook leads or brand new fresh direct mail leads. It's way easier to pick up the phone and dial. If you know every time you dial the phone, it doesn't matter if they pick up or not, it's paying you $6. Every time you get into your car and you get out in the cold and you're freezing and you're knocking on the door, each door knock is worth $45. Do the math. If you haven't done it already, sit down after this, after these monster keynotes and monster speakers, go through their presentations. After this whole event is over, if you take nothing away from this talk right now, it's I want you to sit down and actually write up your numbers.  How many dials does it take to get $5,000 worth of business? Or even better yet, how many dials does it take to get $5,000 worth of commission? Because I don't really care what you submit, right? It's based on what you bring in, what you put into your pocket. It's not based on what you turn into the carrier. It's not even based on issue paid half the time, right? Because all kinds of stuff can happen. It's based on what you take home. So do the math, run the numbers. That's the easiest way that you're gonna create a positive atmosphere for yourself, your business and if you're building a team for your agents. That's one of the first things that whether I'm coaching and training an agent outside of Innovative or within, they need to know their numbers and they need to send them to me on a weekly basis. I wanna see how many leads did you buy, okay? How many dials did you make? How many sets did you have? Because not everybody's gonna sit from your sets, right? How many sets did you have? How many sets did you have from your sets? And how many sales did you make, okay? How much ALP annual life premium? How much annuity business? How much, you know, make it customized to your business, obviously. I'm just talking about life right now. But how much ALP did you write? How many referrals did you get? How many Medicare apps did you write, right? Breaking down the numbers to make sure they're formulating activity and then reverse engineering that to see how much each one of those activities is worth, okay? Your baseball player, that's getting up. I'm not a huge baseball fan. I like the Yankees, but I know there's 162 games I believe in the season, okay? And maybe they get at bat one or two times a game, baseball experts, okay? Out of 10 at bats, they're maybe gonna hit the ball two, three times if they're monsters, right? You think that person's, that batter is ticked off because they missed the ball or they strike out 70% or 80% of the time when someone's paying them $25 million a year to do so, $100 million a year to do so. Take that, reflect on that and adhere that to your business. Think about it, okay? You're never gonna quit if you know that I'm going to fail 70% of the time and make half a million dollars a year doing so.  Probably not, unless you have crazy high NATO offer, Cody asking, Brian asking goals, okay? Unless you have Tyler Reese goals, whatever, and you wanna shoot for tens of hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't think you're gonna be mad as a producer.  So that's my one, that's really my key takeaway to this business after 10 years and it sounds so trivial, it sounds so basic, sounds so remedial. Some people want like the magic answer to how do I close all these people? The magic answer for how do I have a positive attitude?  You got me hooked on that thing with Brock and Hannan. But what do you have to do to stay motivated, to keep yourself from quitting? My sole argument for that would be knowing the breakdown of your numbers to a T. And if you wanna send them to me personally, you're more than welcome to. Email's pdptefornier.com, P-E-T-E-F-O-U-R-N-I-U-R. If you wanna send me your numbers and I can help you break them down, you're more than welcome to. 10,000 people are on here, kinda scared that I just gave my email address out, but you'll be fine, I'll be fine. But please, break them down. If you need help doing this, I've provided a free ROI tracker to everybody on this call. We set up a link on pdpfornier.com. I didn't even tell Cody I was doing this. I don't wanna sell you guys anything. It's a free download.  It's a tab. And you can download my personal ROI tracker.  How much did they cost? How many sets did you make? How many sits did you have? Or presentations, if you're doing telesales. How many sales did you make? How much premium did you write? And again, customize this to your business. Could be Medicare apps, could be MedSub, could be DVH, could be auto insurance, whatever it is, break that down. How many referrals did you get? How many sales from referrals did you get? And then you want to calculate your power number at the end of the tracker. And you wanna go for a 10 plus power number. If you download the tracker, you'll know what I mean. But I put it together for you. So that way you don't walk away from this quick talk right now because I can only do so much in 15 to 20 minutes. But I don't want you to walk away from this and let it seep out of your head and you not to do it.  And track your numbers. And I promise you guys, you will still consistently fail on a daily basis. That's never gonna stop, okay? We're in the insurance business. Again, like I said in the beginning, it is your job to fail. But if you know your number breakdowns, you will never, ever quit, ever. I appreciate the time today, guys. Thank you so much for attending. You've paid yourself dividends just for being on this event. Again, I appreciate you, Cody and Landon, for having me. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing each and every one of you at the live 8% nation in July. We'll see you soon. Take care. Hey, awesome job, Pete. Man, that dude speaks with such confidence and eloquence. And you can see how he would be so successful at not only helping agents, but helping clients, man. The dude does an awesome job selling life insurance. Amazing job, Pete. Thank you, sir. We'll see you at 8% in 2021 live in Dallas. Okay, also, I want to mention another new CA deal. Who's watching? Let me know in chat. And you're saying, dude, I struggle. The number one thing I struggle with is overcoming objections. If that's you, put me in chat right now. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me too, right? This is the biggest thing I hear. If you think about agents, and I talked to our sales team and I said, hey, what's the top two things agents struggle with? And they said, objections and closing. I'm gonna spend an entire day with you and take this away, all right? I'm doing a private event here in a couple of weeks. For only $47, an entire day with me, and we're gonna obliterate objections forever for only 47 bucks. Come on now. Like, I'm making it so irresistible, like this event. I mean, it's so irresistible, you had to show up, right? I'm making this offer, so irresistible. You gotta show up. It's $47. I wanna help you become a master of objections. Objections is the best, the number one thing that I'm the absolute best at in the insurance industry from a sales perspective and also from a sales training perspective. We are gonna take away objections forever. Let's go to Kodiaskas.com forward slash deals. Register for the objections mastery class for only 47 bucks. It's in two weeks, okay? And we will see you there. Also, I wanna mention, the team wanted me to mention, when I was listening to Pete, okay, the team told me to mention this. Okay, 8% the Statler Hotel in Dallas. We sold out early last year. Actually, pretty freaking early. I wanna make sure that you know ahead of time, all right? You want to reserve a room. Don't wait, don't procrastinate, just do it now, okay? So we're gonna put the link in chat. It's also at aprecination.com for you to actually go to the Statler Hilton Statler Hotel link and actually book your hotel for aprecination. Now, the event is a 23rd and 24th. You're gonna wanna come in at minimum on that Thursday, the 22nd, and stay unless you're close by till Sunday the 25th. We'll go from about nine to five on, we'll have like a welcome of social event on Thursday night. We'll have like a nine to five event on Friday. Then we'll have a VIP party that night, probably not till seven, eight o'clock. Then on Saturday, we'll do breakout sessions in the morning and we'll fill up from about 8 a.m. till about 5 p.m. And that'll be Saturday. And then Sunday, we may or may not have something special for fire ticket holders, okay?  So make sure that you get your hotel, go to aprecination.com to grab it. You wanna be at the host hotel, you wanna be hanging out, you wanna be staying across the hall from me, not in the same room, but across the hall, okay? Maybe down the hall, maybe on another floor or whatever, okay?  Most people ignore the relationship piece of this, okay? So go to aprecination.com and grab your hotel right now. I'm excited to see you there. Also, I'm excited to introduce the next speaker, this dude that's about to speak, okay? He once wrote $505,000, a final expense premium in one single year. Now, I'm excited what he's about to speak on and I'm excited to hear him again. The dude knows his stuff. I'm excited to have him a part of the stage. I'm excited to share a stage with him once again. Please welcome to the virtual stage, my good buddy. Welcome back, sir. This dude Matt, maybe. Hey, everybody, Matt Moongia here. I wanted to first start out by thanking Cody for having me share my stories of myself and others that I know and other professional athletes and what they've gone through to get to the places in life and in their careers where they're at now. And I think that's the theme here. You're gonna hear a lot of good speakers, a lot of speakers that I know that I've talked to and I think they're gonna come with some very good stories. So I will start off with mine and let me start off with who I am first. Again, those that may not know me, I'm Matt Moongia. I own the insurance squad. I own 360 Insurance Group. And I've been in the business for 15 years now. My goal and my job, if you will, these days is to help facilitate all the agents that we have. We have bunches of agents in almost the entire country that are specialized in the Medicare, final expense and ACA now. And so my job is to make sure that they have the very best training, the very best support systems and leads and the whole nine yards to make sure they're the best that they can possibly be. So that is my job and that's who I am now, but that's not the way it always was. Let me tell you, I came from very humble beginnings to start off my career. And so let's start there. So I started off at New York Life about 15 years ago and I didn't really know anything about insurance. It's not something I wanted to do. Just like most other people, I got an insurance because I couldn't find anything else. Quite frankly, I went to several interviews after I got my business degree thinking that, okay, once I get my business degree, everybody's gonna want me and I'm gonna get a job real easy. Well, that wasn't the case. I went to several interviews, got rejected left and right. Finally, New York Life said they would take me in. Well, it's 100% commission. And 55% contract levels and everything has to go through a blood and urine process. And by the way, no leads, you create your own leads. So needless to say, for those that have been in the business and know when you have policies that you get paid on quickly or that you have good commissions and you have a bunch of carriers to choose from and you're not captive and you have a good mentor and all these other things that most agents out there have, that's hard enough to survive in your first year as it is. Well, New York Life, you're captive, one company 55% levels and blah, blah, blah. It's much more difficult. So, but at the same time, I'm glad I went through it because going through it and surviving that and not quitting, which is the theme of what we're talking about in these videos, allowed me to get to where I'm at now. So I have no regrets on that front. I'm glad I survived that and went through that and never quit because that prepared me to survive anything that is thrown my way in the insurance business. There is nothing at this point after going through that, nothing can derail me, right? And so I'm gonna talk a little bit about my experience as just how broke I was so that people can understand that sometimes there's a long path ahead of you and sometimes you might be in the absolute bottom of the barrel of dumps right now. I mean, the lowest of the low. I mean, I hear and get these calls sometimes. I know how some of these agents out there are barely making, but I encourage you, do not give up. This isn't one of the most rewarding jobs, but you have to do your part and you have to get through these trying times. But just to tell you how broke I was, we had a small house when this is when I first started New York life, a small little tiny house and the air condition broke in the middle of July or August. Doesn't matter, it's 100 degree weather. And so we couldn't afford to fix that air condition. So we went to a little Walmart, got a little $70 or $80 window unit and placed that in the master bedroom only. So we didn't dare go in the rest of the house unless we were running the refrigerator for water or something, but we lived in our master bedroom and that little window unit kept that little master bedroom cool. We'd have to put a little towel underneath, as my wife was my girlfriend at the time, towel underneath the door crack so that the cool air wouldn't escape from our little master bedroom. And, you know, because to get the air condition fixed it's gonna be a thousand plus dollars. And it might as well have been like I said, a million dollars, it doesn't matter, we couldn't afford that. So that's how we lived. One day, a few days later, I was cranking that thing up because it was still somewhat hot and it froze up on us. And I'm sitting there chipping away at the ice that had accumulated on that little window unit. And my wife comes home and, you know, I'm down in my boxers because it's hot in there and I'm chipping away at the ice. Like that is how bad it was. That is the place in my life where we were. And in that same house, there was something that lived in the attic as well. To this day, we don't know what it was. We don't know if it was a squirrel, a possum, an alligator, a kid, we don't know. We couldn't afford pest control to come and see exactly what it was. So, but I just wanted to preface everybody with just how bad it was. To the point also where my father would come visit me. And instead of getting excited because I hadn't seen him in a while and I wanna see him, I'll get excited as bad as it sounds that I'll get excited because I knew that I didn't have to pay that weekend for food and gas and whatever else that he would offer during that weekend visit, you know, he would always fill my tanks up and he would leave a couple hundred dollars before he left.   But I got through it, you know, and at New York Life, I found my way. And I found that insurance was a passion, you know, and I got the hang of things. I had a good mentor, Ben T, Ben Treadaway that got me through some of these trying times. I made a couple of sales here or there just to make ends meet and got some rhythm. But I think that I'm glad I went through those experiences. You may be listening in right now and be like, that's me right now. Like that's exactly what I'm going through. And I say all what I said to say this is like, no matter how bad things may be for you right now, if you have the will, the heart, the desire, the passion, the fight in you, you will come out on the other side of it. And you can never see all the glory that's just on the other side of that hill and that mountain, if you quit, anybody can quit. I could have easily gone to take a job somewhere and worked with a family member probably since I couldn't get my own job in interviews, but I had family members around that they could have gotten me a job, right? I could have found something, but thank goodness, I never quit, I didn't stop. And I think of all of the professional athletes. So I love sports growing up. I ended up playing division one sports and got a scholarship and all that. So sports was always my passion. I was never good enough to go pros, but that's something I always look at. And so think about this for a second. We have Tom Brady who just won the Super Bowl. Arguably the best quarterback of all time, I think he's the best without any argument, seven Super Bowls, right? He's 43 years old and he just beat Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes on his way to the seventh Super Bowl. All of these are for future Hall of Fame quarterbacks. But when you think about Tom Brady and what he had to go through, he wasn't the best quarterback out there when he got drafted. He got drafted in the sixth round, which means he was a bottom of the barrel NFL quarterback. He was drafted, I think at number 200 in his draft. I think seven quarterbacks were drafted before him, I believe, or somewhere around there. So it goes to show you that in his world, he was at the bottom of the barrel in his world and he had to work his way up. And I guarantee you he did all the right things along the way and throughout his career as time went on to give him the best chance to get where he's at now. So there's probably no apologies given because he had to do it. Michael Jordan is another one. Michael Jordan got cut from his high school team and got sitting down to the JV. And I was watching a documentary that he used that to help push him.  I think Michael Jordan was a master at that. The documentary, he would make things up in his head that people didn't even really say anything but he would play it in his head as if they did say something and he would use that to urge and spur him on to do great things. Kurt Warner is another professional athlete I think about. He was stocking shelves in a grocery store at one point, got called up to play at the Arena League and I think he played at the Arena League, did well with the Arena League for about a year, got called up to the pros, was a third string quarterback for the Rams and a couple of the quarterbacks got hurt. He got a shot at starting quarterback position, made the most of it, right? Did all the right things to put himself in that position and I think a year or two later I ended up winning a Super Bowl. So I mean, think about that. You go from stocking a shelf at a grocery, working at a grocery store to a Super Bowl champion a few years later, you know there's steps along the way, right? And it took several years to get there. So again, I encourage all that may be listening in, they're down in the dumps right now, they're at the lowest level they could possibly be keep fighting, you know? Keep after it because just on the other side of the mountain don't quit right before you dig six feet and the goal was six and a half feet underground and you stop six feet under and you never realize what was just a few inches lower had you just kept going after it. And I think that's what's helped me a lot is, and I think sports helped me with that, just having that mindset of never giving up and always fighting. So hopefully that helps somebody, but that's my experience, but I also work with several agents that I've had similar experiences.  I mean, he had been in this business for I think nine years and was always struggling, barely surviving, never thriving and making just making an eating out of living. And he would tell stories to this day of being at a grocery store and calling his wife because he couldn't afford milk or eggs. He would call to make sure that it was okay for him to buy that for his family, milk, eggs, bread. Some of the basic necessities that we all take for granted, he was having a call and see if it's okay. Can they get that? And now, here he is, has won several insurance trips around the world. We've traveled to Hawaii together, all over Europe together. And he always calls me with so much appreciation and thanking me that I've done so much for him.  You're the one that went to go doorknock those leads. You're the one that went to go call on those leads. You're the one that studied those scripts to make sure you were on point and went out there and got all these things done. So, you know, he fought for it. Now, there's only so much I can do, but he was one of the few that fought for it. We have other stories. Ethan, one of our top Medicare agents, I think he sold over 600 policies last year. I mean, he was telling me of his story. He had been in the business for four years before he got here and things were rough, rough and tough for him. And he was barely surviving. He was about to throw in the towel and he got on this lead order and he started talking to some of the other agents in this group. I know Adam has really helped him out. Adam Howard, who sold over 800 in 10 months and you know, some of the other trainers here like Louise has really helped him. And now he is thriving. I mean, to do 600 Medicare Advantage policies in one year, you're looking at well over 100,000 in lifetime renewals. And so now it's, there's no looking back. He got through the hard times and now he's gonna be able to enjoy the fruits of all his labor at this point. There's no looking back because those things pile up on year after year on top of each other. So, you know, I say all that to again, encourage somebody out there that's feeling the financial stress and pressure of this job that no matter what, the people that are in your agency, the agency owners at your FMO and IMO, they're all probably in similar positions as you are right now, but they never quit. They kept fighting and that's why they are where they are. Okay? So agents, you get hit with a chargeback. When you get hit with a chargeback, how badly does that affect you?  I think that's another key point in some of these professionals, whether it's a professional athlete or a professional insurance agent is chargebacks are part of the game. They will happen.  And the better agents don't even mind because they're writing so much business anyway, they don't feel the chargebacks. The ones who feel the chargebacks are the ones that are maybe just start now or the ones that are not selling enough or the ones that are on only a few leads, those are the ones that are it's affecting.  Part of the business, not the fun part of the business but part of the business. And you wish them well and you part ways but you don't let that affect you down the road from now. Short-term memory, some of the best professional athletes have short-term memory. So think of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, all of these athletes, they can go out there and miss six or seven or eight shots in a row but they're still gonna take that next shot, probably with confidence too. And that's the difference between them and somebody who's in the minor leagues still playing in the G league, right? So it's short-term memory. Forget about what's happened and move forward, move past that. Don't let what just happened affect you in the future or near future. Babe Ruth is another good example. Babe Ruth is known for his home runs but people don't realize that Babe Ruth had the most strikeouts of anybody as well. So again, short-term memory. Babe Ruth, that means he'd probably go out and strike out twice in a row and the third time at bat, forgot about the first two times and ends up hitting the home run the third time whereas the guy that's still struggling in the minor leagues or never made it to the minor leagues couldn't do that, right? They didn't have the mental mindset and fortitude to turn that off or forget about those first two abats where they struck out. I just read right now LeBron James is one of the best of all time, arguably the best, although I like Michael Jordan, but he has the most turnovers of anybody ever. Second place, Carl Malone, another Hall of Famer. So these are guys that have gone through failures with some categories and at some point in their life but yet they're Hall of Famers in other things. And so you have to, it's okay to go through the peaks and valleys this business will throw at you but learn from the best of the best. Learn from these professional athletes and these other insurance agency and agency owners that have gone through all that. They've been through all those trying times and they're still after it. So I think this message today was to encourage people that may be on the fence, throwing in the towel, don't think their life's gonna get any better. They're not gonna get to where they wanna be. Keep fighting, keep after it. Don't stop because that gold could be just on the other side of that mountain or just a few inches deeper if you keep digging. So again, thanks everybody for listening in. Thank you, Cody, for having me and we'll talk soon. Hey, awesome job, Matt. Welcome back, K. Awesome job, Matt. Thank you so much. Unbelievable job. Chat is lighting up. You did an amazing job. Thank you so much, buddy. Appreciate you being a part of this, K. Look forward to seeing you in Dallas, all right? Now, another 8% deal, kodiaskas.com forward slash deals for Premier tickets, for Premier tickets. That means VIP, that means Premier ticket. VIP party and Premier lunch. Four people, all right? Normally, right, it's a $5,000 to $6,000 total value. Current pricing right now for you as an appreciation deal for Premier tickets. Literally one of the craziest and best deals you're gonna see for only $9.97. So go to kodiaskas.com forward slash deals to take advantage of that, all right? Now, I'm excited for our, yes. Yes. Did that scare you too? That scared me, okay? Are you ready for the next flash sale, all right? They're just gonna, I guess they're just gonna just pop in the side of them and I'm in the middle of talking and just totally throw me off my game, all right? You got three minutes, you know the deal, okay? Three minutes, you gotta hit the link.  And they're actually showing me what it is, which means this is going to be nuts. Next flash sale, right now you got three minutes to take advantage, the clock is ticking, tick, talk, not tick, talk, but tick, tick a talk, all right? Tick, talk, tick, talk. One VIP ticket for only a hundred bucks and we're only doing it for 10 people. One VIP ticket, $100 and we're only doing it for 10 people. Go to take advantage of that right now. Random flash sale, hit the link in chat, go take advantage of it, one VIP ticket, $100, it's insane, it's only lasts in three minutes and you want to grab it right away. That's one of the, probably, I mean, I don't know if we're gonna top that, we'll see, okay? Maybe we won't, but that's an insane deal. One VIP ticket for only $100, which is so crazy, all right? Do me a favor, okay, as the clock is ticking, okay? I want you to tag me on social at Kodi.askins on Instagram, at Kodi.askins on Facebook, I'm gonna even throw something out. Team, I want to find the person that posts about us the most and give them a hundred bucks, okay? I want to choose one person that tags us and promotes us and just freaking gets after it and crazy. I want to give them a hundred dollars, okay? Straight from me, from my Venmo, okay, or Cash App or whatever. Also, I want, okay, for the individual that has the best video or picture, maybe it's a testimonial while they're watching, okay?  We're gonna give that person another hundred dollars as well, okay, so whoever posts the most and then who posts the best, $100 each, okay? So it makes you take advantage of that, all right? I'm excited, the clock's still ticking, okay? We're getting close to that three minutes.  Never gonna happen again. Only flash sale, poof, it's about to be gone. Go take advantage of it. Now, I'm excited to welcome our next speaker, okay? I've been getting to know her for a long time. She's unbelievable at like local grassroots marketing. They call her the Medicare Wonder Woman and she's about to fly in, day-percent virtual, okay? And help you, I think Wonder Woman does it, I don't know, okay? All I know is I'm a big fan of Rebecca Davis. She's unbelievable. We're good friends.  Her local office is crushing it and she's dominating her space. So please welcome to the virtual stage. Blow it up in chat for Mr. Rebecca Davis. I'm Rebecca Davis. Some of you know me as the Medicare Wonder Woman because I take the wonder out of Medicare. I also own Cannonball Insurance Solutions. I'm originally from California and I grew up on a ranch but I moved to Texas about 21 years ago and I got into the insurance business about eight and a half years ago. I kind of fell into it. I was pregnant with my son and when I had him, I was looking for a different career at the time I was managing retail stores. And I found insurance actually stumbled in the state farm and after four years there, decided to branch out on my own and Cannonball Insurance Solutions was created. So what a lot of you guys don't know about me, I actually was born and raised on a cutting horse ranch. If you don't know what a cutting horse is, Google it. My dad was a trainer, a professional trainer and we grew up with the hard ranch life where everything came first, the horses, the cattle, the animals. You get up in the morning, you'd bust ice if you needed to, you feed, long before your day ever got started personally. And that taught me a lot about how to work, just work ethic and what it means to work and what comes first. I eventually started showing competitively myself. I was far from a natural at it. I fell off more times than I can count. I even have professional photos of me falling off in major events. But then I would always get back on, no matter how many times I fall off. And over time I learned how to do it very well. I actually became in the Hall of Fame by the time I was 16 in a national championship. I was on the fast track to a very lucrative career on the back of a horse. I even demonstrated our sport to the Olympic community. Not too long after that we moved to Texas because in our business, that's where all the major competitions were having anyways and we would come back here three or four times a year showing. So it just made sense for our family to move to Texas. But we weren't here six months and I flipped my car and over and seven times.  And when I tried to get up, I realized I couldn't. I was in trouble. Next thing I know as being life-lighted to the hospital in Fort Worth in was on the emergency floor for 18 hours. The doctors really didn't know what to do with me. I'd actually broken my neck and my back in seven places. My scapula had glass sticking out of areas that glass should not be in. In the whole time I kept coming to and waking up and fighting with the doctors because I was supposed to be on a plane to Vegas in the next couple of days for another competition. And the doctors in their most sincere but straightforward voice told me, yeah, that's not gonna happen. Well, I got sent home a week later in neck braces and back braces and there I was. Just basically stuck in a giant brace for months on end. Couldn't do anything. Actually could not ride. Ended up not being able to ride for three years. And my career as a professional horse showman had ended instantly. And that put me in a very dark, frustrated, angry space. And for several years after that, I bounced around from different types of jobs, a lot of retail, did a lot of managing retail stores. And I just wasn't in good head space. And then I found out I was pregnant and it was no longer about me. I know how to make decisions for what would be best for my child. And at the time I was managing retail stores and I had my son while I was doing that. And in the moment of having him, I realized I no longer wanted to work nights, weekends, holidays and that kind of schedule being dictated by somebody else. So I started scrolling through the help wanted job ads and I found a job for insurance. State farm insurance in fact.  I'm like, hey, that's perfect. And I gotta sell something you legally have to have. So how hard can that be? Little did I know it was a little harder than we all thought. So I started for State Farm and I was there for about four years. And then through that, I got lots of great learning experience but I realized I wasn't going anywhere with this. It was just the same thing every day. And coming from a self-employed business background that my family had established, I decided it was time to go back into that field. And so I decided at that time to become an independent insurance agent and open my own insurance office. And that's how Cannonball Insurance came to be. And hence the name Cannonball because my son's name is Cannon with a K. So after the idea of Cannonball Insurance Solutions was formed, now the big question, now what? So at the time my husband was deployed. He was actually on a naval flat top ship out in the Gulf or the Pacific. I don't even know, I wasn't allowed to know if any of you are military family, you understand. But while he was deployed, I decided to make the sleep of faith. And I first started at my dining room table where I know many of you currently are or have been. And I had my computer set up and I was working from home. And it didn't take me too long to figure out working from home was not a good fit for this person. I would get so distracted, I'd look out the window and be like, oh gosh, you're grasping in super mode or the pool looks so inviting. I think I'll just go lay around it for the rest of the day where the dishes need to be done or the laundry needs to be done. So that wasn't working for me. I could not focus at the task at hand. I always seemed to manage to be doing most of my work after nine o'clock at night when there was nothing else to do. And that's not good work life. So I decided to find a small office space. And when I mean small, I mean small. Because I had the fear of renting a space and spending that money before I really had a business going. But I knew if I didn't get off my dining room table I was never going to have a business. So I bit the bullet and I found this Shoebox office right on our town square. It was probably 10 by 10. It was tiny, barely enough room for a desk and a couple of chairs. But it did have a window to the street so I could hang a sign. And there my business started officially. And it worked. It did exactly what it needed to do. It was low rents, low maintenance. It gave a place for customers to come.  And while I was there, all I had to focus on was my business. And just within six months I was already hiring an admin. I had too much on my plate. And again, do I wanna spend the money and hire an admin? But I bit the bullet and I did. Got somebody that was part-time. She was also a single mom. So it worked out great for her because I could use her part-time while her kids were at school. And she did this simple task for me. She helped me with my thank you cards and got birthday cards out. Just took stuff off my plate which allowed me more time to focus on the business and on the clients and the sales. And with her help in our Shoebox office I was able in about a year's time once again, able to grow again. And then I rented my first retail location. It was about 800 square feet, I believe. It was just enough for myself, her and another agent. Well, since I had the space, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? You know how this business is. So I decided to get an LOA to work out of the office to help me with the sales. Again, I had no idea how I was gonna pay this person. We were still so new and I was so scared. I was just thinking I'm gonna hire this person and I'm gonna go bankrupt. I was scared to death. I even got a little creative in financing because we were still new and didn't even have a renewal base yet. And I went and refinanced my car and got a little extra cash just to put it in the kitty just so I know it would be covered. And I laugh at that now because it was the best decision I ever made, even though it was a very fearful one because now I'm hawking something to start my business but I did it anyways. And I invested in my business to make it grow. And from there, we spent two years in that retail office, the three of us, and we boomed. We just boomed. Looking back on it, I feel so blessed. I was able to pay off that loan in six months. And then in two years, we were busting at the scenes. We were tripping over each other in that office. And my mom was a real estate agent at the time. And we found a building just to block up the street from my current location. It was about 4,000 square feet. It's a brick and mortar. It's not attached to anything. It's a standalone building, a block from the H-E-B across the street from one of the popular Mexican restaurants in our town between a pawn shop and a dry cleaners. And two doors down was an urgent care. It was a gold mine. It was a mess. This building was a mess. It was split into two different buildings. One was a tobacco shop, a vape shop. It was disgusting. And the other one had, I don't know how many different tax firms in it from one time or another, but it was awful. When we started remodeling this thing, we had four layers of flooring, y'all. Four, it was a mess. But we got it cleaned up and moved in. My mom passed right before we actually closed on the building. When that happened, it created a lot of fear and anxiety if I should even continue with the purchase of the building. See, my mom was one of my biggest motivators. And without her, I felt a hole and didn't know if I could continue to move forward. So I sat down with my dad and my brother and we had a conversation if we could continue with the purchase of the building. And it came out as 100%, yes. Keep moving forward. Keep growing. So I did. It took us about six months to remodel it and then we moved in. And I then had space for more agents. So I hired another LOA. Again, still wondering, but this time my residuals are up because I've now been in the business a little while. So it wasn't near as fearful, but it's still always a fear because you never know are you hiring the right person? Are they going to do a good enough job? Are they going to do it like you do it? There's still always those fears and making the wrong decisions or even failing. But I'm a big believer in as long as you keep moving forward, good things will happen. Funny thing about fear and failing. You know, we're all afraid of failing, but is that really what we're afraid of? Because you can fail all the time. You can fail a test. You can fail your driver's license when you're 16, but you can retake it or you can try again. I don't believe we're actually afraid of failing. I think we're afraid of what comes behind the failing.  And when you fail in what you're doing for a living in your business, you feel like you're failing your family. You're disappointing them. Maybe you're not putting food on the table. Maybe you can't make your house payment. And I think at the end of the day, that's really what we're afraid of. It's not the act of failing in itself. It's what the failing means in the long run to us. In, you know, that's when you got to have people behind you. And I'm going to use a quote that I heard at 8% Nation last year from Justin Forsett. It hit hard to me. He said, build your huddle. And I think that is so important. And what that means is to build people around you that will support you and will pick you up when you have bad days. We'll put you in your place when you need to be put in your place. People you can really lean on. Whether that's family, co-workers, other agent friends. I for one had to go into my huddle just to make this video. I am not a professional video.  I have an iPhone that's like from the centuries. It's a dinosaur. I know nothing about this. So I went into my huddle and they're lo and behold, I had an agent friend that loved doing this. And she was more than willing to help me. Which that is part of what makes this business so great. We have people all around us that are good at other things than just insurance. So build your huddle wisely so you can lean on people when you need them. And they will help you get through the fear of the failure and come out ahead. So build your huddle. But when you do, don't be afraid to ask for help, y'all. It doesn't matter if it's family, friends, agents. When you need help, ask for it. Because Lord knows in this business, we get stuck, it's hard. We need help, whether it's emotional support, whether it's help within the office, we just need that help. So don't be afraid to ask for help, especially from your huddle. You built them for a reason because it's a group effort and everybody knows it. And don't forget to return the favor. So if somebody in your huddle reaches that to you, always say yes, it leads to great things. So what I'm trying to say, y'all, is whatever you do, keep moving forward. Whether it's an inch or a mile, all forward movement leads to success. That doesn't mean we won't go backwards or go side to side for a while. Just don't stop. When you stop that leads to quitting, which leads to failure. And when you quit, that's the only way you will fail. So as long as you don't quit, you won't fail. Awesome job, Rebecca Davis, Medicare Wonder Woman. Now you can see why amazing job, Rebecca. Thank you so much. Love spending time with you. You're crushing it. Awesome job, you just did as well, okay? And you're getting a lot more comfortable on video. Awesome freaking job. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Are you an agency owner? Do you have downlines? Do you have a team? Is your, do you have an office? Is your team struggling? Are you, is your team on the struggle bus? Are they having trouble closing deals, overcoming objections, follow up, building a value, building rapport, creating certainty, closing, getting in and building engagement and trial closing and follow, like all these other pieces, right? Does your team struggle with this? The phone, I'm gonna take it away, okay? So make sure you go to the deals page, codeyaskers.com, four slash deals, okay? These are exclusive deals for C88%, only during this event, okay? The next two days, you can't purchase the team training, but I want you to go to that page, if you have interest in talking to me about potentially training your team, whether it be just one time or for a whole year, right? I just want you to go to the deals page. You can't purchase it, there's an interest form, okay? And okay, I'll ask that, okay? There's gonna be an interest form on that page so that you can let us know, you can raise your hand, I'm interested in you helping my team, okay? I can promise you, I'm gonna over deliver and change their life and you're gonna make more money because of it, guaranteed, okay? It's one of the things I love doing, I do it every single week, multiple times a week for a ton of companies, right? Now, my team's telling me to ask, okay, which is a good point and I'm curious, let me know in chat what is your favorite part so far of this event, all these amazing speakers so far, right? And we still got several more just today, okay? What's been your favorite part of today's event? Let me know in chat right now. There's gotta be big takeaways, right? Like I believe it's on the learner to take an idea, a takeaway and to really get something out of showing up for an event.  It's your job to listen intently and to take notes, to take big ideas, big takeaways and to actually take something and learn something and apply something for what you hear over these next two days, okay? So I'm curious, what is the major takeaway so far? There probably is one, okay? So let me know what that is in chat. Social media's blowing up. I'm getting tagged like crazy, all right? I wanna get tagged in 10,000 posts before this is over, okay? So thank you for that, okay? Don't forget, make sure you're taking advantage of those other flash sales are gone. We may have more in the future. The siren's not going off to scare me at the moment so I guess it ain't happening now. Either way, you can still go to the deals page and kodiaskins.com for all these deals, take advantage of all the private deals just for these two events. Thank you for being here. It's my focus to help you become the best version of you that you can be. And I want us to do everything in our power to help you be more successful in the insurance business. So you're showing up, you're listening, you're taking notes, you're getting takeaways and I'm gonna keep bringing the heat along with the next speaker, okay? Good buddy of mine. We first met back at 8% 2018. He came to the very first event and was on a panel. Then him and Justin came to a retreat with myself in Chandler, Arizona. He actually lives there back in, I think it was June of 2019, okay? I'm remembering pretty well. And this dude I've been getting to know for the last several years, okay? About the last three years. Good dude, love the guy. He cares about the insurance industry and has a lot of knowledge to bring, okay? Thanks for being a part of this, buddy. Love spending time with you. Thank you for coming and is he ready, okay? Please welcome. Bring to the virtual stage. Come on now. My good buddy, you light it up and chat with Mr. Eric Pia. Sometimes the opposition that we're gonna face in our sales career will come from those who are closest to us. Now they don't mean ill by doing so. In fact, it's the opposite. It's just easier sometimes to tell us to travel the more predictable path versus setting our own. This was my reality. But just because somebody doesn't understand the direction that you wanna go doesn't mean that your direction is the wrong way. You see, we're a different breed. In fact, this whole conference is built around the idea that only 8% of the insurance agents who get into the industry will still be here making it a career beyond three years. That means only 8% chose not to quit. You can't fail if you don't quit. You see, my grandparents on both sides of the family immigrated here when my parents were young. My dad was 10, my mom was 17, and both of them came here for the same reason to find more opportunity than what they could in Mexico or El Salvador. But by the time I came along, my parents had relocated to Arizona, which by the way, I love it here. Don't think I'm gonna leave. And as we were growing up, we really didn't have much money, barely scraping by. And when you have friends growing up, whose parents have means and the ability to provide the finer things in life, you'll normally fall into one of two categories. You're either gonna look at the other kids and say, man, I wish I had what they had. Or you're gonna look at them and say, one day, I will have what they have. See, I fell into the ladder. I just didn't know how I was gonna get there, but I knew I would one day. Growing up, I didn't have a lot of good influences in terms of trying to find the right career paths and trying to tell me which direction I should go. And I sure didn't have any influences when it came to getting into the sales careers. But I did have a couple of people who did help frame my mind in a way where I knew that if I chose the right career and I had the right work ethic, I could be a person of means. The first was my grandma. My grandmother and my mom's side started a store, a Mexican grocery store in Northern California, which ended up growing to six stores in a short amount of time. It was an amazing accomplishment from an immigrant from El Salvador. My other influence was my uncle. My uncle made a great life for him and his family. He joined at a young age, a big company called Intel, and worked his way up the ranks until he became management. And from there, he ended up being able to provide a lifestyle for his family. That again, I looked at it and said, one day I'm gonna be able to do the same thing. Now myself, I started working when I was about 15 years old. And through the different jobs that I had, let's call them that, I ended up getting a lot of valuable work skills. But none of them met my internal desires for what I wanted as a career. Well, what do you ask those are? Well, first I wanted to make sure that whatever career path I chose, I was actually going to help people, truly help people, make a difference. The second thing that I was looking for is I wanted a place where I could earn what I was worth. I didn't wanna have to walk and work in the political arena and try to climb the political ladder in order to get pay raise after pay raise after pay raise. I wanted to be in a position where if I put in more work and more effort, the return would also increase. That's exactly what I was looking for. The last thing is I wanted to make sure whatever career path I chose, that it was recession proof. I wanted to know that even if the chips are down for the country, no matter where we're going up and down because we all know that recessions are cyclical and so I just wanted to be in a position where in the bottom of a market or the top, I could still hustle work and make a living in whatever state the country was in. And so sales just seemed like the best fit. Now what I was gonna sell, that's a whole different story that I had to figure out along the way. So in the beginning of my sales career though, I did have a really tough go at it. And of course, along the way came the, I told you so's from the people closest to me. There was also the managers who say, you know what Eric, sales is just not your thing. You're just not cut out for this. I think you should stick to the nine to five jobs, right? Those are really deflating words for somebody who has ambition. And you know what, many times I actually did just that. And when I looked for that nine to five job and even though I was miserable, I did just that. But then one day, an awesome opportunity came my way from one of my best friends. He's actually my best friend outside of the insurance industry, but he happened to be specifically focused in the sales industry for a niche called Medicare. And so when he presented this opportunity, I decided I wanted to give it a try. So I would continue to work full-time as a finance manager, and then at night, I would go run appointments for Medicare. And guess what, I was good. I was actually really good. So much so that my part-time income going to these appointments after work ended up eclipsing my full-time income. That's when I decided, yeah, I think I should probably make the jump and go jump into full-time Medicare. But something crazy happened along the way. As I decided to go full-time, and as I did go full-time in my sales career, I had this fear come over me. And on speaking about this, because I think a lot of people could actually resonate with what I'm about to say, a lot of you probably can empathize because you've been where I've been. And that's why I wanted to make sure that I spoke about this part of my story. You see, I had this overwhelming fear just come over me that honestly, for months and months, paralyzed me and hindered my progress in sales. And I kept it a secret. I didn't talk to my wife about it. I didn't talk to my friends about it. But obviously my performance was suffering. It was a really tough go. And the good news is I was able to turn it around, but I attribute that turn around to three things.  She was just behind me 100%. She was one of those moms who, even if I said I wanted to be a professional basketball player, even though I'm only five foot six, she would still 100% back me up and say, go for it. You got this, do it. The second person is my wife. I've been with my wife since I was 15 years old. She's always been there for me, supporting me, encouraging me, seeing things that my mother saw in me that I personally struggled to see myself. She was always there for me when the chips were down. The third person is that best friend that I told you about earlier. His name is Teg Ray Moot. He was a guy who also saw potential in what I could do, believed in me so much that even when I was in that street where I was just not doing well in sales, he sat me down as a good friend would and he just asked me straight out, do you wanna be in this industry? Do you wanna be in sales? And in my heart of hearts, yes, I absolutely did because I could remember all the people that had been helping that I really enjoyed helping. In fact, this career was checking off all my boxes of what I wanted to do for a living, but for some reason I was just paralyzed by fear. What fears was I paralyzed by?  I was fearful of making the company look bad. I was fearful of having people telling me to F off, to cuss me out, to tell me to pound sand, to kick rocks.  I would telegraph conversations spending 20 to 30 minutes before each call because I wanted to make sure I was as prepared as possible. You know what ended up happening? I would call the person and 99% of the time they just don't even answer. So here I am spending 20 to 30 minutes trying to get ready for a phone call that was never gonna end up happening. That was the paralysis of analysis. So this best friend I'm telling you about, he sat me down and after he asked me that question and I said, yes, I wanna be in this industry, he's asking me, well, why aren't you doing what needs to be done? And after explaining all my fears to him, he looked at me and he said, okay, what you need to do is you need to go into beast mode.  Don't try to telegraph the conversations. Don't try to come up with the rebuttals to all the objections that you perceive will happen when 99% of the time don't even answer the phone. Just be reactive.  Go into my intro and then just react. It changed my life. It honestly changed my whole sales career. And moving forward, I became that beast. I was afraid of nothing and I wanted to go after everything. So I'll attribute a lot of that to that friend that I told you about Tigre move. So now with that being said, let's do this. I wanna help you create a plan to get you from point A to point B so that once you decide to flip that switch, if you haven't already, you're gonna have a path that you can start going down to lead you to the success you're looking for. First, you're gonna need a mentor. Mentors are extremely important because they can help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls that people fall into when they try to go at it themselves. They can help give you direction. They can give you a path, a way that you should be going in order to have the highest likelihood of achieving success. People like Cody Askins, they've made an entire career out of finding this niche of helping people in the insurance industry get on the right path to success or help elevate where they're already at. The best thing is people like Cody Askins actually walk the walk because they themselves invest in coaches to help them go bigger, go harder, go faster. And you know what? At the end of the day, it's extremely important. I myself invest thousands every year in self-development so that I can make sure that I'm staying on task and that I'm going after the goals that I achieve. It's incredibly important to find a mentor. The second thing you're gonna want is a sales system. No, I don't just mean one tool, I mean a sales system. The Senior Sales University that I created is designed to specifically help an insurance agent to get going in the right direction, to train them, to provide the tools for them and that way they have the highest probability of success if they work it. So what should a good sales system have? Let's break it down. A good sales system should have an online training platform that's gonna teach you the products you need to know, that's gonna teach you how to sell, teach you how to market, teach you about lead generation, teach you all the components needed in order for you to operate your business and then on top of that a good sales system should provide you the tools you need. That can be from top of the line CRMs to quoting tools to anything else needed in order to make your business as efficient as possible so that you can focus on doing what you do best, selling. If your sales system could also have hours and hours of recorded phone calls that you could listen to so you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together, that's another big bonus. Your system should have presentations available, phone scripts that'll help you get and know exactly what to say, when to say, when you're talking to clients or possible clients on the phone and it should also have built out automations that are gonna help you with lead nurturing and client retention. And if this system can have accountability and coaching calls on top of that, well, that's just the icing on the cake. But most importantly, your sales system, whichever one you choose, should be able to produce results. You should be able to see past members who also applied and use the sales system telling you that they were able to produce results because they actively worked the system. We really pride ourselves as senior sales university because we feel that we're one of the best at doing what we do. And the best part in my opinion is that we're a friend to all insurance agents and FMOs alike.