How to Sell Life Insurance: Your First 30 Days Ep186

my first two weeks I didn't do great at all my fir actually my first month I sucked it was terrible so the first 30 days yeah you sucked but you didn't give up no no I didn't give up well I didn't give myself an option I didn't get myself an option I you know I walked away from my other company uh resigned my position there this was it I was starting a new career I didn't have any choice I had a wife two kids at home I didn't give myself an out I didn't keep one foot over here and one foot over here and tiptoe and try this this was going to work in order for it to work I had to give it everything thank you [Music] welcome back to another episode of the life insurance Academy podcast today we are really excited we're going to bring you a topic that we think is going to help every single one of you grow recruit it could be you right now searching for this video and this is definitely the one to click on but we have a special interview with Mr Roger short here one of the co-founders of life insurance Academy podcast and our wonderful YouTube channel uh welcome Roger how are you doing man I'm doing good I'm doing good Zack it's good to be here with you I haven't been here in a while you know we haven't been on a podcast in a long time me and you no no it's been a minute kicked Chris the curb for a little bit that's fine I know that you guys did a series just a while ago you and Chris which was great series by the way if you haven't watched that one make sure you watch it uh but yeah it's good to be back in with you absolutely and these are always fun and and I I love our audience Roger because we we love to focus on on helping people empowering people to believe in themselves getting them to a whole new level and a lot of it is none of us were truly born or came into this going to career day saying I'm going to be a life insurance agent right um we all stumble and find this opportunity in different ways and and I know a lot of us have heard your story if you're if you're a long-term listener of the podcast you've probably probably heard different ways of how we all got started uh but for some of you that haven't Roger I want you to go ahead and tell them just a brief uh how you kind of got connected to life insurance and and what were you kind of feeling and thinking about the opportunity in in your first 30 days or so well I was transitioning out of another business opportunity and I found this industry and realized it was probably one of the best kept secrets in America you've probably heard me say that before if you've watched this and I still think that to this day I mean uh when when I got started I didn't know anything about it nothing I knew how to sell but I didn't know anything about this business the thing that I um thing that I realized very quickly is that I didn't know a lot and so I had to start fresh new all over again like would you say you didn't know a lot uh clarify that I didn't know what carriers I didn't know a lot about insurance I didn't know a lot about insurance I didn't know what a carrier meant like why does it call the Carrier not a company that's weird that's just weird language right a carrier yeah really like what are they carrying a disease are they like a real big boat is it an airline is it a company that you know has yeah is it a truck is it a carrier comp I didn't know what it was so it's just just some interesting language like leads final expense carriers like there was just a lot of language so I was just learning everything everything new um and I had you know the area that I started in was Final expense because that's the niche that I saw at first and the great thing about you know when I looked at the business and I would recommend this for any new agent is to find a niche and start there I think too many agents you know are too broad initially so they're trying to learn everything all at once and when I started I found a niche so I I wanted to land there and my first 30 days I realized I didn't know a lot so I wasn't going to try to complicate it I tried to keep it simple and I realized I had to go out and roll up my sleeves and get kind of like punched in the nose a little bit and get bloodied up because I didn't know what I didn't know well let me let me ask a clarifying question there could you you made a comment you said a key word that is very important you said to not complicate it and to keep it simple um my opinion in being in this almost over nine years now and what I found and and I know you it could probably be the same for you when we coach agents is that first 30 days that first 60 days moving into this opportunity you have a lot of questions can I do it what do I need to do it builds a lot of anxiety a lot of fear of failure can you explain if kind of briefly if you weren't going to make it simple or if what does it look like if an agent did complicate it like what are all those things and those issues that really slow you down where you feel like okay if I'm going to be successful I have to slim this down I have to keep it simple um I think a lot of Agents when they get started it depends on how they see the opportunity for the first time right now it's presented too yeah how it's presented to them so I mean if you were if you're coming into anything brand new it's how you see it that kind of gives you the perspective of which you look at it I mean that's like they say we had how do you you know you're the first time you see an elephant how do you see it do you was it walking over you did you look at the hind end of it were you up close and you couldn't tell what it was or did you have a far away picture like all of those are going to give you a very different view of what an elephant is um and I think if people were trying to describe that they'd describe it completely differently based on how they saw it well I saw it in terms of final expense I saw it in terms of seniors that didn't have proper planning middle to low income I saw that there was a need clear need people would fill out cards and at the time when I started there was people weren't submitting stuff online on the internet there were no Facebook leads there were no SEO leads there was just people were mailing back in mailers and really that was the only opportunity for for Legion and but people were filling out these response cards saying I'm interested in getting some coverage so I saw that there was a clear need I saw that there was a market and I just needed to know how to take that knee take the market and put it together and where do I fit so then I had to figure out how these carriers these life insurance companies worked how their products worked and try to deliver that so when I looked at all the things that I could be doing I really said Roger you can't learn all of this in a day so focus on two or three things get leads get a couple of companies and go see people so you like you've seen the opportunity you've seen a problem and you found a simple way to get in front of the people a simple way to walk the clients through the process and then boom and then it's rinse and repeat yeah well and then from there of course you start to get into a little bit of a Cadence right starting a little bit of a pattern you go okay I need this and then you kind of tweak and add as you go but you don't try to over complicate it I think a lot of new agents when they start you know they may see it from a guy who's high tech and they're just doing telesales or they're you're just doing Zoom or they're doing you know high value case iuls yeah or they're doing cash value Whole Life policies then they're talking about Mech limits in the policy and like it can be very overwhelming man exactly so so that that brings me to kind of uh to ask it this way um you obviously when you get started you started in final expense is a very simple process you learned how to do that you didn't want to be overwhelmed you looked at it as a one small step at a time obviously with your skill set you know how to look at and and help people with retirement plans with iuls with annuities with mortgage protection face to face would tell us correct but let's say you're listening to this and you're growing an agency right in the first 30 days I know for a fact that you're not doing this but you wouldn't want to recruit an agent and try to teach them at your level of insurance now and all those opportunities I think that's kind of a mistake that's kind of happening yeah is making it sound so amazing and look at all your skill set but you're overwhelming and scaring a lot of your new people yeah and so on if you're watching this as a new life insurance agent if you clicked on this video because it's about maybe your first 30 days in the business or how to start like I would say no matter how you see this or how the business is presented to you you've got a you gotta simplify it for you and you got to get started somewhere in a niche in an area you can't if you try to learn all of it all at once um you have a you have a high likelihood of failure because it's too much like so the thing about this business Act is you need to make money right to be able to continue and if you're coming in on the independent side and you don't have a base salary you don't have a an income like the pressure is on you to perform and make money early quickly it's not like saying okay I've given myself four years to go to college and after four years of training day in day out for four years however many semesters are that you're going to whether you're doing summer school winter programs you know two semesters each traditional year and all the other things that go with it internships you know all those other things and now you come out now you're applying for your first job and you have four years of experience now you're trying to make money right in this business you jump in and like you're hoping to make money in the first couple weeks so you give yourself very little Grace you give yourself very little Runway you don't have a lot of Runway because you got to make money well if you've got to make money and you try to do too much at once or you try to know too much at once it's like a recipe for failure so I would say the the first things that you have to do is you have to master like three or four well let's first let's back it up you have to identify a market niche identify Market Niche whether that's going to be home mortgage protection for new homeowners or maybe you're talking about a tax-free strategy for new people if that's where you're starting or final expense simplified issue final expense like start there like identify a niche and then secondly I would say the thing you have to do is to identify three or four companies life insurance companies slash carriers that are going to offer products in that market Niche and learn everything about them that you can you don't need 22 yes is to get everyone oh yeah and you know that can create a paralysis by analysis of getting overwhelmed that I can't go out until I know all these carriers front and back I can't go out until I'm comfortable selling these policies so the truth is you're probably not going to be comfortable until you actually do yeah but but looking back when you got started you know what was your result to your your approach you know in your first three to six months like when you were getting rolling what was your mindset what was your approach how did you operate in that okay so again let's back up to how I launched I got three carriers three life insurance companies at the time it was presidential life for a guaranteed issue I had United home life for a final expense product they had a great graded plan if you don't know what that is look it up read the apps and figure out what it is then I had American amicable life because they had a full Suite of products and they had three plans on one application and that was it those are the only three I had and then I got where I invested in some leads invested in mail direct mail to get some lead flow going I started out with used a day old leads initially like age leads and then but I got into a commitment to invest regularly into a lead flow so that I had fresh leads coming in every week about 20 to 25 leads a week that were coming in so once I had that process going I now didn't have to worry about who I was going to call because they were on the leads I didn't have to worry about where I was going to show up all I had to do was Route them in my GPS and show up I didn't even have to call him if I didn't want to I could just show up and door knock them through here this door knocking from but we're actually calling on people who requested information and then the other only other thing I needed to know is how do I write this application how do I write the application so in order to do that I had to have a presentation so I customize a presentation basically the presentations that I saw presented was right out of the American amicable brochure that was literally the presentation that I saw and it was pretty basic didn't cover a lot but it was enough to have conversations with people and that led to me seeing how to write apps and so then I dug in on that I started in that once I got rolling I added one more carrier my company was Foresters financial and then I was up to speed so I had four carriers total and then I January come January I said okay because I started late in the fall but now January is my first full year and I hit the ground running by May the third week of May or fourth week of May I was running for a trip with Foresters because they offered one of those all-inclusive trips if you qualify I was running for a trip and at the end of May I had written 137 400 dollars in production between January and the end of May yeah um one thing I think it's important to note here and I wanted to ask you about is you just kind of gave a rundown of what you did in the timeline of over almost six months there right and one thing that I noticed is it was the same process and so many agents nowadays um I'm not sure like where you got the belief and confidence in your process of doing that with a presentation with running the leads and doing it again and getting better A lot of Agents nowadays if they don't have instant success they pivot and move to a completely different type of cells oh I'm going to go to teles over here I'm going to come those leads were garbage I'm going to do those leads hey I'm going to try to sell it this way and they're they're flipping back and forth so much but where did you get the belief and the vision to stick to the plan because I'm sure not every week and even some of your very beginning weeks probably want the most encouraging and and results that anybody would just scream about right like how did you keep sticking to the same way to continue to get better well my first two weeks I didn't do great at all my actually my first month I sucked it was terrible so the first 30 days yeah you sucked but you didn't give up no no I didn't give up well I didn't give myself an option I didn't give myself an option I you know I walked away from my other company uh resigned my position there this was it I was starting a new career I didn't have any choice I had a wife two kids at home I didn't give myself an out I didn't keep one foot over here and one foot over here and tiptoe and try this this was going to work in order for it to work I had to give it everything like I had the gas all the way to the floor like it was it was gonna work so I did not give myself an option um I had to uh the the I guess the thing that I tell new people now and you've heard me say this we've taught it and at the life insurance Academy is that you really have to develop competency in three areas and that's in understanding the people you're serving or your Market there's your niche market right so understanding that why is there value in this product for that those people and what is the actual demographic of those people you've done a great breakdown like understanding a final expense client who are they why are they this way you know what does their lifestyle look like same thing for mortgage protection same thing for people who are looking to put away money early for a tax-free savings or using cash value life insurance to leverage opportunities for real estate and things like that in the future like these people have a a mindset a way of living and so if you understand those people and that in that specific market like you now can put yourself in their perspective so you got to be competent with the people you're serving number two you have to be competent in your process so for me if you're gonna be play basketball at a high level you've got to have a process you gotta have a process of practice you gotta have a process of routine get a press of how you warm up you gotta have a process of game day cool down all that stuff you know uh halftime locker room talks all that thing there's a process to all that there's no different for this you got to create a process if you're all over the place it's just going to cause anxiety and stress and failure right so you've got to develop a process or a structure and then lastly you got to be competent with your products you got to know those products and so those are the three areas I want to put a framework around that for you because if you're listening those are really the three areas you need to focus on those three and then everything else kind of Falls after that um I didn't give myself an out and I worked on those three and then that gave me a path forward I think what's really cool is when it comes to that belief aspect of it you obviously seen this process being demonstrated and you saw that it was successful yeah you came into this leaving a very lucrative career leaving another company that you were a partner in to try something new but you didn't have the skills right you were working on those you didn't have the products you were learning those a lot of those products you learn as you're going through them you didn't really have the process you had it lined out for you all you had to do was follow it but you had a belief because you saw it successful and you were able to see if he can do it why can't I yeah and I think that's an amazing approach and it's that mindset that each and every one of our listeners can take and and do it because I promise you the reason they joined this opportunity the reason they looked at this opportunity is because they saw it being successful and changing somebody else's life yeah I mean that's how they hear about it that's the craziest thing just do what they did it will work just believe in yourself and do what they did yeah so emulate a pattern of someone else's success I mean when it comes to anything in life if you can emulate the process you might not have their ability to talk the way they do you may not have their looks you might not have their car you know there might be a lot of things that are different between you and those other people but there's still a process there and so I saw this guy Fred get in his car 10 30 in the morning take his leads route him in his GPS go out and door knock people basically on the leads and say did you fill out this card I watched him do that for two days and at the end of two days he wrote 40 it's like forty three hundred dollars in premium in two days and Rose said do you think we can make a career out of this I said this is a very lucrative career and I don't even know what we were doing for the last two days I don't even feel like we had any appointments we're just showing up at people's houses with these pink cards and asking them did you fill this out and the next thing I know we're and sitting down on their couch or at their kitchen table and we're talking about life insurance and then we're writing naps like uh I just so I just did that I wasn't trying to overthink it and I think that's what's what's beautiful about this opportunity and it's really what we believe here at life insurance Academy that everything is simple empowering and profitable yeah and when you saw that that Fred did that wow you just hopped in a car you ain't driving fast you're just cruising chit-chatting find a door that that's on your lead and locate the house knock on it and it obviously it's empowering because in those moments you know and if you haven't heard some of Roger's stories before about um the the life experience he's had with clients and literally saving their lives and not just writing policies but it is very empowering it's really cool to see the friends the relationships we make but at the end of the day it's so cool because it's profitable that we're able to do that yeah what is an action step that our agents our listeners can take um towards these three areas simple empowering and profitable in their first 30 days um I would say the first action step and this may sound weird because it's a thinking step is don't overthink it don't overthink it I mean most people get themselves worked up because they feel like they're not ready and then the flip side of that I will take the people who just lunge at things and start before they're ready at all and we've seen it in our trainings recently or we'll say make sure you know five or six products really really well Master them so you know how to get onto the apps and write them and then we get into the training they don't even know how to get into the first one like they haven't even logged into the first one so either we're overthinking or under thinking here's here's my suggestion don't overthink it be competent in those three carriers like we talked about understand what your process should be and start just start and then the second thing I would say is you got to put up some little wins some little wins what's a little win a little win is um getting an appointment booked making your first calls and getting an appointment or routing your leads door knocking and actually having someone haven't sitting in someone's home and doing your first presentation like that's a win whether you get the app or not so it could be a task based it's task based yeah it could be activity like make make your first 50 dials you know route your leads and go see all of your leads twice or three times in a four day period like commit to that and put up some little wins you don't have to write the biggest apps in the world it may be a little app for 35 bucks a month and you get that app for 35 a month you walk out you feel like you just won the lottery because you wrote your first app I mean we've seen it in these telesales boot camps that we do like we get people to ring the bell you may have seen some on our social media if you haven't like check out our social media and you'll see people ringing a bell like when they get a sale and we're at a telesales workshop and we get them to ring the bell because it's celebrating a lot of these are just little apps thirty dollars a month but to them it's like I break through they broke the through we even see people get emotional about it we just did a two-day telesales want a virtual one last week Chris and I you popped on and did some coaching and at the end of the night man on Friday night at eight o'clock we were wrapping up there were three people on there emotionally in tears because of their wins they had breakthroughs for the first time so you got to put up some little wins yeah keep it simple put up some little wins these are these are really really good tips and they're really they're easy and a lot of the thing is is a lot of our listeners they already know these things right but but it it hits different when you have you know when you can have coaches or mentors and we feel like we're everybody's mentoring even if we haven't met them yet and that's what we love what we're doing but let's say you have a new agent that's coming on the first 30 days they're checking out the podcast which is win number one because that will help I can't tell you how many Roger you know how many comments we've got from Agents that literally have increased their production or literally we've been like their only training Source since they started when independent but if they don't have somebody brand new that they can just duplicate and buy the same leads and do the same presentation that they have what are some of the different ways that they can get in front of their clients when it comes to prospects or lead options if they don't have a way right now and maybe they're wanting to get in life insurance but they're only kind of doing a post every now and then or warm Market yeah I would say um you know today versus when I started there's all kinds of ways to generate leads number one obviously you can generate release through your referral Market people that you know but typically what I found is that those are some of the hardest people to see and sell because you're getting like pity sits like they're sitting with you because they know you they don't really want to sit with you you don't really have their trust because you used to do this other thing now you're doing life insurance and now they feel obligated to see you but you can get some wins there and some people will go with you and help you you know work through that like we had Sid James on um I think a week or so ago on the podcast from from Missouri and he said you know there was family and friends who didn't have life insurance and he started calling on them and they he started sitting with them and they were gracious enough to allow him to work through the process to get them covered like you can start like that so if you don't have the funds to invest in leads do that um secondly there's companies that you can work with that will actually do lead generation for you I have too many new agents trying to generate their own leads online you know what about generating your own leads I mean we had this question last week in that training how do you feel about doing self-generated leads and well that's a separate career it's called marketing and that's not selling life insurance now you're actually becoming a lead generator well if you can do it for life insurance you can do it for pretty much anything but it's that's an entirely different skill set why would you bog yourself down trying to learn two brand new skill sets yeah while you're trying to focus on one that's not keeping things simple you can actually make more money by investing in leads and spending your time sitting with prospects correct yeah yeah so how do you see more people and stop spending time trying to find more people um so work with a lead company and there's Great lead companies out there we work with a bunch of them you can use secure agent marketing they have great leads right now you can call them up they'll hook you up they you can game change your leads is another great source for digital lead generation for face-to-face and for over the phone sales you can do local or Statewide there's another company called all web leads that will do a variety of different types of leads they'll even do call transfers which is a little more tricky don't recommend call transfers if you're a brand new person because that's uh that's a slightly Advanced skill set to take that on but there's companies out there that you can use to Source leads from Source them out look at the options but preferably talk to somebody who's used their leads before find a mentor or somebody using their leads and find out about how to best use them and if you need help with that you reach out to us and by the way we're not sponsored by any of these leading companies here no we are not um another exciting news is a little plug just out of the blue that life insurance Academy is going to be offering their own lead platform website so yes we would like to add that in here a little bit because I think that's really cool it's something that we're going on because Roger our whole philosophy is to help our agents and Leeds is a huge topic that we get questions on all the time and what we want to do is we want to take the best lead opportunities that we have found that we work actively that we know people are having success us and we want to put them in one place because I know that is a huge question especially if you're starting Insurance in your first 30 days how do I get in front of people where do I come to leads we just want to make it simple for you guys empowering and profitable and put it all in one space for you so be on the lookout for that so there we get those questions all the time life insurance Academy leads is coming yeah we're going to put together a portal so that you can just go there and Source your information there so um that's that's a great way you can get in front of uh people in your first 30 days so we're walking through we we've talked through our mindset we talk through keeping things simple we've talked through uh following a process and and you know obviously if you have a mentor that helps you can borrow some of their belief system inside of that we talked about just keeping things really simple empowering and profitable because we know in this independent space you literally have to have those little wins you have to make money up front because that funds your next month that funds your next leads we believe everybody can be really good at this you just need a little bit of time and you need a little bit of uh hustle and money to to survive to get good um we know that for sure but when it comes to actually being able to sit down with somebody and building that trust with them and getting that presentation rolling um I guess can you can you share a little bit about what it's like to to sit with your client for the first time what are some of the agents why are they struggling to even get there and even uh maybe part of that uh paralysis by analysis where they're not even one is sitting down with clients but that whole presentation process kind of what you do what was your mindset maybe now but also when you were brand new well I think there's a couple of things that you can Implement in your presentation we'll call that the sale the sale or the presentation that you really need to remember and whether you're doing telesales or you're doing um you're doing face-to-face sales um whether you're using a script or something like that it's important for you to have a structure to the conversation otherwise it's all over the place you don't know where it's going structure so for us at the life insurance Academy we teach a principal-based selling system and it can be implemented into any script really because there are ultimately there are some components that you're trying to establish and accomplish during the process so that you can move the client from the beginning to the end and the components of that principle-based selling system and we do a complete deep dive into this inside in our courses and coaching but for the purposes of this I mean number one is you've got to establish and transfer belief that's the first thing secondly you got to establish trust now there's some components to trust I'll get into those in maybe just a minute but thirdly you've got to identify and raise the stakes what is that well what's at risk you know for the client why are they what is their pain Point what is their need what's at risk if they don't take action what is there to gain the stakes um fourthly we need to present options to them so they can make a choice and that's becoming an educator presenting to clients what their options are even some of the options would be choosing to do nothing and then if they choose that what is the outcome like it's okay for you to address that and then lastly providing a simple and easy solution so we I would say the thing that a new agent needs to know is they need they need to have a structure to their sales presentation and what is your structure for me it was a five-part Structure I knew I was going to accomplish these things and then my talking points were in the middle of that so even if I got all the words wrong I still know I was accomplishing it because I was anchoring these five things you are you come from Estelle's career you you sold advertising and marketing to companies businesses owners all the time uh weren't you good enough to just go to homes and just talk to them um maybe the answer is to that would be maybe but even in that business we still had a five-part selling process because it's Universal right like these principles are Universal you have the number one believe in what you're doing you have to establish trust right you have to address what the pain point is have a conversation about that talk about how to solve it and what they do if they don't take action present the solution or present options and then provide them an easy solution I mean this is sales 101 but it's broken down can be applied to literally everything in life and it promotes active listening and and and I do want to clarify this because I know we talked about this with new agents because I'm a big believer in the presentation obviously you know that um but is this what about experienced agents what about agents that's been in this for years what about agents that do produce at a high level do they still follow the same type process I guarantee you any agent that's producing at a high level has a process and a system that they follow and in fact it's probably slowing grain they think that's the only way to win they think their way is the only way because it's the only way they know and I guarantee you I could go out with you or someone a new person could go out with you and they'll see your process but what'll start to happen over three or four or five days or two weeks they'll realize exact does the same thing every time and he has this process that he follows if they went out with me or they got on the phone with me for a week or two they would realize I've got a process and I follow that consistently so it's yes I would say a very very skilled high level producer is still going to have their process that they follow so we'll keep this simple for you guys um to summarize that don't Wing It follow a process but understand the process before you start presenting it because that's where your belief and conviction is transferred we have courses that literally we have we have a we have a presentation that is literally TurnKey that you could just take and move through it with prompts for the for you guys as the agents to ask the client the clarifying questions it's exactly the same principle base Roger just walked through um and we also have a 16 video course I think it's a 16 video course that goes along with it and a workbook that even teaches you how to use it uh so if you are brand new you're in your 30 days that is going to be absolutely essential every time I go out I use the same exact book I'm talking about every single time it works like magic so that has continuous belief flowing all the way through it you won't convince me otherwise yeah um so we we talk about the presentation of this let's I know Adam's giving me the little signals here he's doing like air traffic control over there um but what about when we when we touch base on technology technology is something different because I know when I moved into this opportunity there really wasn't technology I remember when I very first started uh we were quoting in the back of we were we were doing algebra in the back of the agent guides and then calculating all this stuff but then shortly after we actually got a link to quote individual carriers um and still doing everything paper apps we are having to send everything into the carrier things have changed dramatically now starting from where we started um and I feel like dinosaurs now which is weird um but starting from where we started when it comes to technology to now what is available to make it easier but I want you to to I want to get your opinion on what do you think is actually necessary to get started because there's a difference between I have to have this to get started to be successful and what can help me be more efficient yeah I would say um well number one those agent guides the paper agent guides man they're still gold so if you think hey I'm just a tech guy I'm just doing everything virtually or over the phone and you're just going to look at everything like there's something to happen actually a booklet that you can quickly flip to and look at what that medication is or look to what that impairment is or look to see how American amicable is going to treat it if they're they've got these two prescriptions and how they impact an underwriting decision like there's a simple Book American Anvil has a great one Foresters probably these are two of the best agent guides in the industry for simplified issue final expense particularly if that's the market you're in that's where I started man those two were gold they were like I I made sure I had copies of those all the time um now of course you have tools like Insurance toolkits an insurance toolkits is a you know underwriting and quote tool which takes into account 95 of all final expense and simplified issue term um you know even with dental vision health Med sups like it has a variety of products uh categories and then they'll consolidate 90 of all the products and give you your best options and so that's a great online tool where you can get to an underwriting decision very quickly if you don't have that because that's a subscription base it costs like 40 bucks a month uh you can get a discount with certain groups if you need a discount reach out to us we've got a discount but if you if you um don't have that you know you can simply use your two or three carriers they have a mobile quote tool just download that on your phone keep it on your phone if it's American applicable I know I'm going back to that because that's the company I started with when I first and so they have a mobile call tool you can plug that in and find out how they're going to underwrite this decision and and what the what the rate is going to be um and so it will help you get there um simple keeping it simple I would say a Google spreadsheet for leads um maybe Google doc for notes something that you can share across your devices and if you're working with somebody like they can jump on and look at your leads and they can jump on and look at your docs like you can share that like technology has made that super simple now so if you and I were working together and you were new I would get you to share your Google sheet and your doc with me and I'd be able to see what leads you're working on and you can just put a category in there or color them you know yellow green red red means they're done yellow means we're not there yet and green means you wrote an app and so then I can actually see what's going on like you don't you don't have to over complicate things it's keep it keep it super simple but those are a couple of tools that you can use to simplify your business and be able to move forward without a big investment yeah in a way um the way I kind of view the technology piece of this is it's going to make you more efficient right it doesn't necessarily make you better I think it's important to learn these processes learn the agent guides if you want to know how a carrier views something they literally tell you like they're literally made for the agent to teach you how to write their product the one thing it's never utilized enough is the sell support lines at the carrier level they literally employ people to teach you how to sell their product it's it's absolutely amazing to sell it I mean yeah so they're great the one thing is we we talked about the beginning of this call before everybody goes and buys all the technology is um you we're going to keep things simple but you need money you need those wins you need the money to reinvest in leads and to keep going especially in that first 30 days especially in the first 30 days it's okay to take this technology get what you need really focus on on your team again whoever your Mentor is whoever you're leaning on if you don't have that reach out to us we will provide some support as far as that we would love to do that but as as you get rolling and and you get six months in and you start to build your confidence and you start to really understand now you add the crms that are going to make calling and have all the different features and managing your book a little easier now you have a wider spread of carriers that you now have mastered multiple now you can use something like Insurance toolkits to compare maybe 10 carriers instead of the three that you go to all the time it can speed up the process then you can get you know even virtual assistance right I can consider that some sort of technology that maybe dialing and set appointments for you and jumping on your calendar like all these things make it to where you're you're able to duplicate yourself and in your tasks so again you're spend spending more time with your clients yeah but this is not in your first 30 days unless you're coming in this is not you don't have to do that in your first 30 days you're going to over complicate it if you do that for 30 days exactly so if you hear people talking no you need a CRM you need automations you need text automations and email automations to nurture your leads yeah and you don't even understand what that means nurture your leads the whole brand website yeah you don't need all that you don't need it all to get started keep it simple Yes keep it simple there's like some money there's a couple more things that I want to hit before we leave here and one of them is I think is extremely important because most of these agents they have that fear they have that anxiety again they have these carriers they feel like everything's coming at them so fast to get rolling to get a couple wins and a common mistake that agents make and I just want you to touch on this for a minute is they move right into the phone call or they move right into the home and they try to start selling the second they walk in or the second they sit down or the second they say hello and I I want you to just give a brief I don't know 30 second tip on the importance of building trust and that relationship that's not you know you know hey hey I'm Johnny I just I just got started in life insurance uh I got this card and how much coverage did you want yeah yeah I mean we see it so often so if you're in the business you just got in the business or you've been in the business for a while and you're struggling or you're considering getting in like in your mind the goal is to get to the quotes right bad word by the way quotes don't ever say that to your clients I'm going to give you some quotes because quotes are for consideration of which people can think about and get back to you later that's what a quote is so we're not doing that we're providing a solution and that doesn't involve a quote it gives them three options to choose from but we're not going to use the word quotes and so I think new people think I gotta hurry up and get to that part because hopefully they'll pick one and they'll make a sale and we see it so often man they run through and run past the most important part and if you remember the five steps to that the the principles of the the selling process it's belief trust Stakes right and that trust and Stakes man if you don't get to a place where they trust you and you can't uncover what the stakes are like it doesn't matter what you quote it doesn't it doesn't matter what you call you could be the cheapest price ever but you know someone said to me one time where there's there's no value there's no price low enough right you can write that down if you're listing where there's no value there's no price so you've got to get to Value and value happens when trust is established and trust is established in a couple of ways one it's in it's in two ways number one you have to be an authority which means you have to be competent in your products and your process it goes back to that first thing I said they need the sense that you can actually help them get to the solution they're looking for but more importantly you have to show empathy and empathy comes from understanding their situation and you can only understand their situation if you're not doing all the talking but you're actually doing most of the listening and you do that by asking good questions and then you hear what they say their needs are and who is important and Zach one of the things that we've been teaching lately is the stakes always have a name and it's important that you know the name I always tell people that I truly believe this the best question you can ask is the follow-up question to the previous question you just asked yeah because it shows that you're listening it shows that you care it shows that you you're you want to learn more you want to find a way for them so many agents when they are building trust and they are nervous um they they naturally just want to ask a question and then change the subject ask a different question then ask another question well Roger told me to ask questions I got all these questions I've been practicing them and I just been asking uh but that's the one of the worst things you can do because you never develop the connection yeah it's important for you to develop a set of questions that you can go to Every time to ask but your goal is not to get to the next question your goal is to get to their answer and then dive deeper on their answer so you can uncover their internal need because every client has an internal need that they're trying to that they have not that they're trying to get to they have it right the external need is I'm looking for insurance for whatever reason I don't have any or I need more internal need is why that's important to them so we got to get to there you got to get them saying why it's important to them that's the internal need and that comes through a series of questions you know I was on a quick call last week with a group of 50 agents on a virtual training that we did and I had Cody Askins come on and join us for a 30-minute segment and he said go seven layers deep on your questions and always use the previous question as the springboard for your next question the first question should lead you to six more questions and when you get there generally you're at the internal need of why the client really needs your product or service absolutely and and talking about uh speaking of Cody a little bit obviously he promotes eight percent nation which is cool but the name was found because 92 percent of Agents fell in their first year right um one of the main reasons and I would love to know the percentage which I don't really know it but the percentage of that that fall off in their first 30 to 60 days for once because they didn't this podcast hasn't been released yet but for two um a lot of it becomes is everything we talked about everything we talked about on this on this podcast but a lot of it is their their energy right it's it's their motivation it's it's high they're they swing both ways they're high and they load they get an app they feel like they're in the world that all of a sudden they're going to be the first life insurance agent to make a million dollars in their first month right and then they get their first charge back and it feels like they're ready to go work at McDonald's right the emotional swings of a new agent but staying motivated is absolutely crucial so how did you stay motivated um and and part of it is you know you didn't have choice right like forcing function is a huge aspect of this that was the same for me as well but how how would you recommend somebody in different situations coming into this maybe somebody this is their third career and they want it to be their final maybe this is somebody coming out of college that's looking for an opportunity how would you recommend they stay motivated not just in the first 30 days because that's crucial but where me and you both know they take a dip which is typically after three four three months to six months and that seems to be an issue you have to find a tribe of people that are running in your direction that are going to help keep you accountable and they may be actually going on the same process you are they may be new just like you man if you can align with those people and you get in there and fight together it's amazing to see what happens because you start to develop a community a tribe of people that got your back and you feel like you got their back and now you're accomplishing something together like I believe we were put on this planet for Community not to excel in isolation right some people are loners and I get that some people work really good on tasks and projects but for the most part if you think about the things we really value in life it's our relationships some people that's a small group other people that's a larger group but we thrive in communities Community success happens in community we say failure happens in isolation and so you have to find a tribe and if that tribe is moving in the same direction like plug into them regularly do not disconnect it's like unplugging men from a power source I'm going to plug back in again next week it doesn't work like you got to keep it plugged in like if you you don't charge up your Apple watch you can't put it on the next day and it's running you gotta It's gotta be it's got to be connected to a source right every night when you go to bed it's got to go on the charger uh your phone you got to keep it running that's why we have Chargers in our car you know that we have to keep stay connected to the source and so like even in our trainings that we've done in the virtual ones and in the individual Live Events we break people up into teams and so there may be 50 people in a virtual we break them into teams of six to eight and you saw that right you jumped in on Friday and one of those what was the name of the group that we put you in I was about five or six different groups the first one was it the Mavericks Titans we put you in a group called The Titans and you're like I'm just starting to get to know them I want to hang in here now even you felt like you had a little connection to that tribe and you didn't want to move on too quick because you were just getting to know who they were what they were trying to accomplish so you want to stay there and help them it's the same way right so if you're out there and you're trying to get started in this business get connected to a group find a tribe that'll help keep you accountable without it your opportunity for failure is about 92 percent absolutely and I and I will tell you guys uh this podcast has been has been amazing um it's already an instant classic if you don't have a tribe we'd like to invite you to join ours this is all you know spruced out of just helping agents doing the right thing providing incident Solutions no matter what team you want what IMO no matter it doesn't matter we are a tribe here of difference makers and we invite you to be the same um we have coaching calls we have courses we do these um these these live training events uh on every different type of of content you can think of we have face-to-face training we have teleselles boot camp trainings which are a lot of fun a lot of energy you can come ring the bell with us anything you guys want um thank you Roger for being on the podcast today is there any final words you want to give them the last this is the last motivation for the for the first 30 days all I got to say is you have to believe in yourself long enough and um with enough consistency to your discipline the the the uh that component right there to get you through that first 60 to 90 days and if you'll commit to that find a tribe keep your process simple you can make it because this is one of the best Industries you'll ever find it can create Financial Independence for you it can create the life you've always dreamed of but you have to be committed to these simple fundamentals if you do it you'll win absolutely and one last thing is we love feedback we love comments we love to interact so if you guys have any comments of how this episode has maybe helped you or maybe another episode has helped you please reach out to us and let us know in addition to that if you have some uh some content that may have helped you out in your first 30 days that maybe we didn't cover that you think might be helpful for our community please reach out to there as well and let us know because we're all about sharing we're all about iron sharpening ironing and sharpening our community our trap is growing we definitely want you to be a part of it we'll catch you guys in the next episode of The Life Insurance Academy podcast foreign

Channel: LIFE INSURANCE ACADEMY

Views: 43,107

Keywords: final, expense, sales, final expense, final expense sales, life, insurance, life insurance, life insurance sales, mortgage, protection, mortgage protection sales, sales training, life insurance academy, life insurance sales training, life insurance training, life insurance agent, insurance agent

Id: jY4l6Vo3RAU

Length: 49min 16sec (2956 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 13 2023