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Top Producers Get Real about Life Insurance Sales (Ep. 228)
Ever wonder why top sales pros leave lucrative careers to sell insurance? This eye-opening conversation reveals the magnetic pull of an industry where compensation matches effort and helping people pays exceptionally well.
Their candid discussion demolishes misconceptions about insurance sales while highlighting what makes it uniquely attractive to ambitious professionals. The group also addresses common challenges like managing chargebacks, the investment in leads, and maintaining positivity through inevitable rough patches. Their refreshing transparency offers newcomers a realistic roadmap to success while confirming why insurance continues attracting top talent from diverse sales backgrounds. Ready to explore if insurance sales might be your path to financial independence? Connect with these producers directly through the contact information shared in the episode.
Hello everybody. Andrew Taylor, here Today we have three special guests with us. The first one is Erica Geck Thank you for coming in. The second one is Eric Walker and the third one is the legend, easton Padden, who we're going to start with. The best story ever was Now Easton's a legend in the industry. What's your biggest month? I mean biggest year, personal pin 940. What's your biggest month? I mean biggest year, personal pin 940. So Easton did 940,000 one year and I was like no, how much did Easton do, not his entire team. And they were like no, it was Easton 940,000. And I was like, dude, that's like more than some call centers do with like 40 people in them. So but if we were to rewind when Easton was new, tell everybody the story about when you're new.
Speaker 3:And you called me for advice it's one of my favorite stories because it was the. I was about to come down here and be wildly violent to you, so I was calling for help because I was getting murdered basically in the my brand new start to a new industry I knew nothing about. So I was calling everybody and I saw a podcast that you had done with Sean and you were like, had this commission breath story? And I was like, dude, that's literally me. So I was like I'm going to call Andrew and he will fix my commission breath problem.
Speaker 3:And so I called you to get help and obviously started to complain instead of ask for help. And you told me I should probably quit and get a job because I don't care about people, and hung up the phone immediately. So that was a really cool experience. So I called Zach and I was like, dude, I'm, you want to just go to Vegas really quick, we're going to go kill Andrew and break his neck. And, um, he started laughing and he actually was like yeah, dude, let's do it Well. He's like well, maybe I'll call him actually and see like what's going on first before we get put in prison.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is like it worked. Then you didn't more than a freaking some country selling life insurance by yourself.
Speaker 3:Well, that part's just a work deal, dude, and great mentorship. Like I had a nasty schedule that like Zach helped me set up and so that I mean that took care of it. Well, I was just talking about this yesterday, my biggest sales year, when I did 940 grand, my closing rate was 43% F.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, dude. I always said your guys' team with Zach is like the 300 movie. It's like you don't have to have that many of you, but most of you guys look, you are in really good shape and you sell a ton of insurance.
Speaker 3:So if you were to take your hundred and put them over, get up against like another two thousand, you guys might actually you guys might actually out sell them it would be depending on what group, but we we did get actually pretty lucky um, where we kind of sometimes you just like show up enough and you find really good people and that just felt like because we were so consistent showing up. All of a sudden you start bumping into these like really really hardworking people that aren't special but they're insanely coachable. So some of that is like lucky timing too, dude.
Speaker 1:Well, if you're working hard, you get lucky. I agree, I think so. So tell us about the two people you brought in here today.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to start with Erica, because I've known her the longest. The first time I met Erica she was actually still in high school. I was a freshman in college and I was like doing some part-time coaching for a high school team doing track. So I met her briefly there because we had a similar coach that had helped me a little bit too. And we went to college together and she was one of my college teammates, um at carol, this little little school in montana, and I, what I start recruiting you like two years maybe before you started like 2020, and then I started.
Speaker 2:I flew out to convention in 2023 22. Well, we talked december 2022 okay, okay and then um, I think that's where the thing like timing's everything. And it was just the timing thing, and then I came out to a convention in Miami before.
Speaker 3:I decided to join.
Speaker 2:And then I went to Miami and I was like, okay, yeah, this is the right move for me.
Speaker 3:And Erica's got a huge network marketing background, so I knew that she was a monster recruiter. And would you have a team of 10, 11, 12,000 or something like that?
Speaker 2:It was huge. I mean not that big. I had like 890 people on my team.
Speaker 3:Okay, so 890 people, which is still like three times as many people as I have on my team currently. So obviously I know it's different business structures, but I knew that Erica was like a recruiting powerhouse and really good at like culture building and team building stuff. So I was really excited when, uh, she finally decided to give us a shot and come and sell with us. Well, yeah, and what about eric? And then mr walker was a connection that erica had made through, um, our buddy, jordan. So, so Jordan works here too and he's still like doing some time splitting cause he's, you know, doing solar and this, and so that's how Eric and I got connected was through a mutual contact through Erica, and then he was able to make it down here and, dude, he's comes from a solar background and basically just been crushing it the last few weeks, so I really wanted to have him in and kind of talk about what he's up to Awesome man Cool.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I want to say I always hated the idea of multi-level marketing. Okay, and I would have friends and they'd be like yeah, I have 28,000 people that I recruited in my downline and I make like 500 bucks a week in overrides. And then when I got an insurance, I was kind of in denial. But this is multi-level marketing kind of. But the only difference is you don't have to recruit anybody. You can go sell $920,000 of insurance and not recruit anybody. But if you want to recruit people.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of similarities you recruit people, you get overrides. But the thing that I found that was different was like when we had 150 writing agents, we were doing a million a month in premium 150 consistent writing agents and a million a month in premium. If you have a 10 or a 20% override, you could do the math that it could be a significant amount of money. Now you have chargebacks, cancellations, debt, all kinds of other things. So it's never as good as it sounds, but it's good, right, yeah. So when I noticed like, wait, wait, with 10 guys I can make how much? So you coming over from multi-level marketing, did you notice that same thing?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, I literally like me, and a couple girls who you know came over were like can you believe that, like you used to stay up and hustle and grind and like some people, I mean they were literally grinding for $500 a month and that's like a phone call for us, which is crazy. And then I, and then, yeah, you start doing the math and I'm like if I had 800 people, oh, forget about it uh, like it's stupid.
Speaker 2:Um and just, I mean I'm a big numbers person, so doing like my numbers and my math and I'm like literally what I make here monthly extremely part-time, is like what I was grinding working full time for like a month and that was working full time and here I'm making that like super part-time and that's yeah, not even a portion but you really have like three jobs because you're a mom yes, of two
Speaker 3:which that equals three jobs right yeah, yeah, at least you never get to turn off parenthood, which yeah. I don't, I don't know how people like Erica that are slinging two kids full-time, you know, and running a business simultaneously like it is a crazy, crazy amount of work that goes into that. So. I love having the people like Erica that can kind of do it all Like I don't know how the time balance is like very, very impressive, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my favorite thing in the world is seeing a single mom figure this business out, which not single mom is amazing too, but a single mom where it's like dude, this makes the biggest impact in the world on them. But anyways, for all the moms out there, yeah, how do you, how do you manage being a mom selling insurance, building a team?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's definitely been a learning curve and adjusting as I go, for sure, um. So I just had my second baby, um, he's three months old and honestly, he um has worked by my side the last three months. And then with my first son, um, it was the same thing I I definitely utilized, like um, he was on a wait list for preschool, and then we utilize a nanny, which has been a godsend for us, for sure. But I think it's just finding um the balance, and I think it was Caitlin's on your team, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I watched a video of hers, cause she was also a nurse and that's what I was too. So I really she's like inspires me so much. But she says when you're working, you need to work, and when you're a mom, being a mom which I think that's easier said than done sometimes but I had to take that realization of like okay, but I can't let being a mom hold me back either. So like my son can learn from me and be like, yeah, mom works really hard and so like now he's only three and like he he'll get on and he's like I'm working like mom, like he's like I get to work. So I think it's just like balance of like buying your kids in to what you're building to and then also just like truly drilling down a really dialed in schedule.
Speaker 2:And that, no joke, has taken me, I mean honestly, up until like. I mean I'm going into my third year now. I just hit my two year mark and it's taken me two years to kind of like find that balance of like. I was working two nursing jobs plus being a mom, plus doing insurance my first year. Then I dropped my nursing job and was just a nurse at very per diem, a mom and insurance, and now I'm just like I dropped all my nursing jobs and now I'm just insurance. So I don't know yeah, no, that's good.
Speaker 1:So you're slowly actually just getting better.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And figuring it out more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just really, I guess, doing the math of like it really is just all math, like if you can dial in your schedule, dial in your lead flow.
Speaker 1:Reverse engineer the whole. Thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, which is what I did with ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just used ChatGPT for Atlas' baseball t-ball coach and AC's t-ball coach. Chat GPT made the first schedule because I had never coached three and five year olds before. Dude, it's perfect. It's like start running, have them run around the bases and act like an animal. That's easy Do. Simon Says to get their attention like simon says, touch your nose. Simon says go run a lap. You know that's awesome and it works.
Speaker 2:Dude, chat gbp is amazing yeah, oh yeah, I love it, like I I'm like playing with it and I'm like help me build this thing to a million a month.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:And it's like it's literally telling me everything to do.
Speaker 1:It's freaking me out though.
Speaker 2:It's kind of wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you do the paid version. Have you done the paid version yet? Bro? Make anything for you. That's cool. So first for a mom, for someone who's a full time mom, what advice do you have for them to get started and like what's your goals, what's driving you?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah. So I think for a mom it really is like I've always been doing like all business, for like before I had kids, I was like I'm doing this for my future family. Now that I have kids, I'm like I'm doing this for my family and I guess I it kind of is like that saying like no one is coming to save me and no one's coming to save my kids, and like it's literally up to me to make this thing happen. So I'm like, and I know that I can up to me to make this thing happen. So I'm like, and I know that I can. I think it's honestly mindset too, like if you believe, you can do it.
Speaker 2:You can if you just, yeah, just persevere and keep going and doing it all. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge. All right. So for anybody all you moms out there, super moms if you want to get into insurance, how can they reach you?
Speaker 2:I'm on social media at just Erica Geck, or you can message me or call me at 406-461-6720.
Speaker 1:Awesome, cool Multi-level marketing. Easton. What do you say if somebody says is this multi-level marketing?
Speaker 3:I'm like it kind of is the biggest difference between true multi-level marketing and what we do is kind of what you were talking about earlier is, if everybody quit, tomorrow I can get myself paid, and the only way that this thing works is if you actually teach people how to make money. It's not I'm not trying to be mean to the lotion and soap people or whatever, but you don't have to force your friends, family contacts to hey, I need you on a reoccurring order of my soap so that I can get money.
Speaker 2:It's like.
Speaker 3:here's the platform. You can earn however much that you want to sell and whatever you work for, it's definitely an eat what you kill style business. So it has the multi-level marketing aspect of you do want to build wide and deep and develop leaders, but you are 100% responsible for getting yourself paid when you start and you don't have to convince Andrew to like can you please buy my stuff? Rent's due soon. I can just go call a lead and sell a client and that's the biggest swing between like a true MLM style company is again, everybody quits. Tomorrow I already know how to go out and pick up 50, 75, a good career.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can do it forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did love that too is like you are not relying on other people, to not just relying on other people to make your income, Like if a whole team fell apart. Like Easton said, you can pick up the phones and make some phone calls and it's life-changing stuff, not just it's very satisfying talking to people, helping them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a people business. One of my friends made a lot of money. I was like what happened after you made a lot of money? He made a lot of money in insurance. He was like, oh, I stopped, I got out of the industry and I got depressed and I was like, why? And he was like, oh, because I didn't have a people business to be around. I wasn't around people, which was making me happy. So one of my questions to people I've done really well is I'm like what happened after this event of you getting paid X amount of dollars? What'd your life look like? What changed? You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah that's a that's a great question. I've I've always been really curious, because Sean's, I feel like, is a really good example where you know we could never see him ever again. It's not going to be homeless, you know, and he still shows up kind of everything, and that's how you and Zach are too, which is why he's so easy to work with. Um, I don't. I'm always curious on what the driver is like. How do you not get bored when you're that driven to build and sell something enormous? How do you not go crazy?
Speaker 1:So last night me and Zach were at dinner with a billionaire, okay, and I asked like so many questions about like how do you raise your kids, how do you make sure they're not ruined, all these different things. And basically what he said was from a young age we're teaching them to understand that money doesn't make you happy, but creating and working hard and accomplishing things does, so they're trying to use sports and business to get that fulfillment. So I was like that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:You know, really cool All right Back to the multi-level marketing thing. When people ask me, I just go. I think it is, but you don't have to recruit anybody. But do you care if you could make good money? Do you care?
Speaker 1:yeah, no and then if they say usually they say no, because they'll be prideful, like I don't care what people think, but really everybody cares what people think yeah, but then I'll go check out these deposits, and then they'll be like, oh, and then they're like you get paid that much money, like, well, not everybody, some people don't make any money, some people lose money. But for people who have a like, they like business and they want to be self-employed and they want to work hard, yeah, so I don't know what you call it, but does it matter?
Speaker 1:that's a good point I don't know, I don't care what it's called well, Well, it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:And and it's cool because, like you're a, you're a good example you can go here's what I made by myself, Like when you were multiple time Hall of Fame producer. Like here, here's what I went out and got myself, Like you sold over 400 grand a bunch you know. So, like here's what I did. And then this is the difference between me doing it solo and then me teaching a ton of people and then my leaders also teaching a ton of people. Look at the difference. But I got paid both ways. This one is just significantly larger. So you, you do have both the results of I went and got this, so here's what that looks like. And then here's what it looks like when you teach a bunch of people to also make money with you. And that is, I also think that's the biggest swing between multi-level marketing and having a kind of a multi-level marketing style. But it's you have to teach people to get paid or it doesn't pay the business, which I think is cool.
Speaker 1:That's huge Cool man. All right, so Eric X solar.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tell, tell us about that.
Speaker 4:Um, I started off my sales career doing alarms door to door and then I did that for about a year and then from there I transitioned into solar and I did solar for about the past five years until I recently met Easton and then kind of made the transition out of solar into insurance.
Speaker 1:So give me your solar pitch if you knock on my door.
Speaker 4:Oof man, I was running a setter-closer model. I was doing a lot more of the in-home closing, but as far as knocking on your door.
Speaker 1:Well, you started as a setter.
Speaker 4:Knocking on your door. It would go just along the lines of knock, knock, hey Andrew, or I guess, andrew, right, yeah, right, yeah, hey andrew. This is I'm eric. I'm just out here working with a couple of the neighbors. You've probably seen me walking around um talking to everybody. Uh, what we're out here doing is in regards to these, these raising, or I guess, in regards to these notices that everybody got in their mail. You probably saw this yellow flyer, and then I hand you the little laminated slip that we had.
Speaker 1:And is that notices?
Speaker 4:of From the electric company.
Speaker 1:Going up.
Speaker 4:Probably got this notice in your mail from the electric company of the rates going up. This is what it's going to look like over the next couple of months. My job's super simple. The reason I'm out here is just to see if you qualify for any of these government incentives that help put these panels up on top of your roof, like a lot of your neighbors have. What stopped you before from putting those up on the roof? And then we get one of the objections out of the way and then from there it's just a cool. Like I said, my job's super simple. I'm just here to see if you'd even qualify for a program like this. So what we're going to do is just take a look at your bill and then kind of go from there, Transition into the house and closing them up Legit.
Speaker 1:Now what made you want to get out of that?
Speaker 4:Regulation changes, industry shifts a lot of a lot of moving parts. I'd say the main one is is um the amount I was traveling. I'm married and I live in utah with my wife and I was traveling to california for like two, three weeks at a time, every month or every other month, so it was a little rough um. On top of that, it was just a lot of of factors of who I don't know. It was just a lot of parties involved with actually getting the deal done, getting this glass put on the roof and getting paid at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Same with real estate. It's like you got escrow. You got exactly 30 days. I got this property in vegas that I don't. I mean, I'm kind of new to vegas and I am flipping houses and I bought one in the wrong area, which I didn't know was the wrong area because in the daytime it looks like a nice area. I close escrow, go over there. There's a dude walking out of the house with a stroke baby stroller with a dog in it, oh my god. And then the cops roll up and arrest him for having two guns and a bunch of pills. Right, I have a picture of it. Then open the kitchen cabinet and there's an a. There's a um clip for like two ar-15s fully loaded. Like dude. I just bought this house in a war zone.
Speaker 4:That's insane.
Speaker 1:What do you know? No one wants to buy it. So finally get it in escrow. And then, right before it closes escrow, two dudes walk off with the air conditioning unit on a dolly and it's on the ring camera dude, like we literally just watched these guys. It took like three minutes. They just whatever they did cut everything, unbolted it and then strolled off with an air conditioning unit down the road. So then the people were like, yeah, we don't want this house anymore. So escrow canceled and now it's back on the market. But the point is is there's all these things to get paid right, which, in insurance, a lot of people like that. You can just write an app, you get an instant decision, you can get paid.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was the biggest thing Doing solar. On paper you make pretty decent money, but at the end of the day, it's what actually gets deposited into your bank account. And for me, transitioning into insurance, writing a deal today and then seeing that in my bank account tomorrow is pretty addicting. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:It's like drugs, exactly.
Speaker 3:That was like where? Because when you're getting started you're like, well, I've heard all this stuff and then all of a sudden you're like, hey, I closed a deal and then within 48 hours they pay you the money. I was like, wow, they really do pay you fast. Like this is actually going to happen, they're going to pay. Like she said, yes, she paid them, and then they paid me in a few. Like this is really going to happen.
Speaker 1:Like it did blow my mind when I first got in that they were legitimately going to pay you that soon after doing a deal. Yeah, and then you're like dude, we're getting paid by the carriers, mutual of Omaha, trans America. They've been around forever. Each of Omaha has been through two world wars, the Spanish flu, covid, the great depression and everything else that's happened. They've been through it, paying claims and paying commissions, all of it. All of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Dude. So All of it, all of it. Yeah, it's pretty awesome, dude. So have you seen Yellowstone?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And like all the Taylor Sheridan shows, like 1883 and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, has everybody seen that? I've seen Yellowstone, just Yellowstone.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, anyways, I was like wouldn't it be cool, because National Life Group's been around for 150 years and they got these crazy stories, dude? And I'm like how crazy do you think the death claims were in like 140 years ago? Like there were people probably faked them. They probably had bounties for the people that faked them and they had to go find them. I was like, dude, they should make a show like yellowstone type yeah, but for a life insurance
Speaker 3:agent.
Speaker 1:And then I went and pitched the dude that runs National Life Group.
Speaker 3:He was like I don't know about that idea it's only that 20 people that like insurance that are in there watching it. They just like love it to death.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think there's something there, dude.
Speaker 2:I do use that Titanic thing that you said all the time. I literally tell all my clients I'm like, yeah, this company, they pay it out to people in the Titanic.
Speaker 1:Like that's how long they've been around. It's crazy that is crazy.
Speaker 4:I say that all the time.
Speaker 1:So it's also nice that these companies they have a lot of the systems figured out, so that's why they could pay so fast. It's like if you keep switching from escrow company to escrow company, switching, switching or whatever, and things are constantly changing, you don't get that speed of like they get approved. You get paid right away. How nice is it to get paid that fast?
Speaker 4:it's awesome, it's, it's the best thing. It's probably the number one reason I made the switch. I'd say now.
Speaker 1:The other thing, though, is you got to deal with chargebacks.
Speaker 2:Why don't you guys tell everyone let's do this, tell everybody the worst stuff about the business okay, well, um, yeah, I mean I knew going into it that chargebacks were a thing gonna happen to everyone. Everyone's gonna get chargebacks. It is what it is. I just recently got my first roll-up debt from some agents. So I guess I mean, when you're building business, you're going to have problems, but you just have to learn from them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like. So I think I don't necessarily think it was like the worst. I mean there could be worse. I don't know it was just an worst. I mean there could be worse. I don't know, it was just an obstacle. It still is an obstacle that I'm getting through, but I think that's one of my biggest things.
Speaker 1:Biggest issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the roll-up debt.
Speaker 4:What about you, eric. I mean, I've been doing this for maybe four or five weeks now and I'm seeing a lot of good stuff here. Oh, buckle up, yeah. Weeks now and I'm seeing a lot of good stuff here. Um, oh, buckle up, yeah. Well, it's been pretty awesome. I haven't had any chargebacks yet. Um, I'd say the one thing that I was talking to easton about this yesterday is different and like kind of intimidating is spending money on leads. Um, it's just which in the solar industry it's. We're doing the same thing. We're just not paying for it up front. Right, you pay your setter to go out and set an appointment for you to go and close. Just the difference is that it comes out when and if you get paid, you know, three, four months down the road. I'd say that was like the biggest industry shock for me. It was just coming up with the money up front for the leads.
Speaker 1:So Joseph, who was in here before you guys, he's like 22, grew up in the foster system. Someone talked him into getting his license. He's starving, has no money for leads. So he said he was selling everywhere. He said he was knocking on people's doors with no leads. He said he sold 15 policies. And then he was like I even went on the ring app and I made two accounts and I on one of them I put does anyone know someone that's good at life insurance? And on the other account he put yeah, call this dude, joseph. Here's his phone number that's awesome, that's creative marketing.
Speaker 3:So you?
Speaker 1:don't, you don't have to have leads, right. But if you want to do consistent, high level, right, predictable, yeah right, sure for sure yeah but I actually have a dude on our team who stopped using leads and he only he only sells warm market now, but like he goes to networking events all the time, he recruits people and then he sells the people they know, and then he teaches them to recruit people and he sells the people they know and he's killing it like that actually does still work just not my.
Speaker 3:Thing this is the best part about the insurance business is having an inventory system in place where it's like a premier option. I think is huge, because if you have control over your inventory and a constant, you know list of people looking for what you're selling, I think it solves a lot of problems as far as like control of your income in your business. But our rule that this is what I had a really hard time with early was if, if somebody finds something that works for them and they're doing well, what don't mess with them? Like if people want to post on Facebook to get leads or share something on Instagram to just get leads, or go to networking events or show up at apartments uninvited, whatever all of it who cares?
Speaker 1:So, uh, this other new agent. He works leads half of the day and then he calls warm market for three hours every day. Wow, I know, I'm like that's pretty cool too. Yeah, yeah, but I'm a lead junkie. I said in the meeting yesterday I'm addicted, I've always been addicted to leads like drugs. And then I was like it kind of sounded like I said I was addicted to leads like drugs. And then I was like it kind of sounded like I said I was addicted to drugs, but I was just talking about leads, like I love getting leads, right, because I have people to talk to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the and one. I'll tell you my one of my biggest like issues, and this is something that as a when you're getting into, like trying to become an elite person that's closing insurance business, whatever you want to call yourself, the leaderboard, watching and trying to like compete for what's on a report instead of what you keep.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God was a nightmare, dude, when Jake, steve and I were trying to like go at who was going to be the top guy selling in the company that year. You're anyone that's down to go five, six, seven, 800, a thousand bucks a month and they're like I'm pretty sure I might be able to handle that. You're like perfect, let's nail them down, you know. And so now you start overclosing without downselling people into affordability. Dude, that's when I was like every month I already knew I was going to eat 25 or 30 grand in charge backs every month because I'm hard heavy closing big premiums with everyone that I got in front of always. And so, yeah you're, you're selling a hundred, 120 a month like all the time. But what if you just sold 70 and kept like a lot more money and didn't have the stress of like eating business that you're overselling? So when we made that adjustment stress of like eating business that you're overselling so when we made that adjustment, our agency's persistency, um, the last six months was 91.5.
Speaker 1:So bottom line dude, don't compete with other people just to look cool. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3:Compete with yourself, get better, do what's best for your profit and the clients dude and the clients Cause if they agree to get oversold, because when you're good at your job and you're good at you know negotiation, convincing people that it is a necessity and it'll benefit them they might buy in early and then have remorse in 24 hours. So then they don't have the insurance that they needed in the first place because you didn't kind of like double check and go down a little bit to make sure it's good forever, dude.
Speaker 1:When I was new I was selling like 20 15 policies and 20 a month policies and then sean was like why are you doing that? And I was like I don't know. And he's like you, can't you gotta stop showing people what you can afford and show them what they can afford, I feel like Easton's.
Speaker 2:Told me that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's the opposite of what you're saying, because it could also be in the other direction. But yeah, you're right, you got to listen to the client and give them the right product.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I'm pretty big on doing at least a little bit of soft financial budget stuff for that reason, because if they have a huge need and they have a ton of flexible income and it does make sense, I'm down to write $1,000 a month on everyone that it's easy for, but the one that's stretching them thin where they're not going to manage it over time, then it's not good for the client and you eat the business anyway. And sweet good job finishing first and you're less profitable than the guy in 50th. And sweet good job finishing first and you're less profitable than the guy in 50th. That's a weird way to run your business. So we try to preach on that like crazy because it's like when you make the mistakes and you're like I hope nobody else does that, so I want to prevent them from doing that.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you just got to let them rip and they're going to do what they're going to do. But I'm like it's not fun to chase 30 in the hole every month, always just so that you can have a fake leaderboard position with less profitability for oh my gosh feel good. And then you got this dude over here who wrote 10 and is more profitable yeah, or like one who didn't buy leads for two years and has written like 2.6 million in the last 24 months and he hasn't bought any leads, he just network markets and posts on facebook.
Speaker 3:That guy's a legend dude. Yeah, he's like 63 and doesn't hardly speak english.
Speaker 1:He's a total savage yeah, so no, he speaks english. He just doesn't speak english when he doesn't want to speak english that is very true.
Speaker 2:That is true, that's so funny yeah, social media is kind of wild yeah I just saw this girl took it from. She was doing like 30,000 and she posted one TikTok video and is now doing like 200,000. She's probably on your team.
Speaker 1:Who is it?
Speaker 2:Um what was her name?
Speaker 3:Nicole.
Speaker 2:I think she's on. No, she's on um. She's like best friends with Marissa Marissa.
Speaker 1:Marissa Mazzioti, Dude how about the company's getting so big? This dude didn't know who Sean Mike was yesterday. He was like Sean was talking to him and the guy goes. Who are?
Speaker 3:you again. That is crazy.
Speaker 1:Dude, the company's just exploding.
Speaker 3:That's funny. We used to know everybody. Anybody that sold 30 or more like I knew everybody, Like I knew their name, I knew their story, I knew where they lived and whose team they were on. And now I have no idea. If you do 30 or 150, like I, I cannot keep track because there's so many really really high performers.
Speaker 2:It's awesome.
Speaker 3:It's really fun to grow with the company. Oh, legit.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you, easton, because you're an animal. Last time you were out here you made me do your schedule ice bath. At 3.30 in the morning you did an ice bath too. Yeah, erica came out, and then by noon I was like dude, how are you awake? And he's like take some more pre-workout. And I'm like dude, I'm going to have a heart attack.
Speaker 3:So before we get off, dude, dude. So these two are some of my favorite people because not one time has either of them ever complained to me and I know that eric and I haven't been working together a super long time insanely coachable, like hey, what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? And then, coming out to an event, he doesn't live here. Um, made no excuses about getting down as a brand new agent making the trip. Erica's got two kids dude, dude. And still is making the trip all the way from Montana down to here to get a part of something and learn. So it's like two of my favorite people that I get a chance to work with because they're relentlessly humble, which I love to work with people like that. And then not one complaint, dude. Since I've been around these two ever, obviously I've known Erica a long time.
Speaker 1:What about a problem? There's a difference between a complaint and a problem.
Speaker 3:Big difference. So we'll hash out any issues or structure or schedule or leads, whatever. I'm all about that, but the negativity is what I've never, ever heard between these two, which is why they're so fun to work with.
Speaker 2:So I'm really excited.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude, it's a huge difference maker. I think Sean was talking about Fire Friday and how important that is you could talk about today too Today.
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm like dude if they're negative. I just don't have time for it anymore.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be around it, Dude.
Speaker 3:everybody's already negative enough fighting to have positive outlooks on things to have someone else dumping stuff all over you, and once you realize that everybody has stuff and it's hard for everybody, it's a lot easier to ask for help than like try to complain to other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I got a question for and then we'll wrap this up. Do you have days where you're in a bad mood? You don't want?
Speaker 3:to do this. Oh, not that I don't want to do this, but I definitely have days where I'm trying to headbutt everything that I see. It's just like, dude, sometimes you get so frustrated and on those days I just reach up and I'm like, hey, I'm kind of having this issue. Or if it's a personal issue, I don't ever talk about that with anybody in our business because it's irrelevant to work. But if I'm getting beat up by the business, I'm not going to call Erica and be like guess what's happening? Erica, you're not going to believe this.
Speaker 3:What I'm dealing with it's more of like, hey, zach, I've got a quick question for you. Or hey, sean, any advice on how to handle something like this? So I definitely have days where I just want to like punch and break everything, and that's probably been the biggest thing that I've adjusted. Working here, dude, is just not overreacting emotionally about something that you have zero control over, and just like it is what it is, dude, we just we kind of got to move forward now, like there's nothing that we can do to fix it. So, yes, to answer your question. And then do you have days that are awesome? Yes, dude, I have a ton of. I have way more awesome days than hard days, for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what about you so far? I would say the past four or five weeks that I've been doing this have been pretty awesome. That's a good sign They've been good. Yeah, well, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:What about you Like? Do you got bad days? Oh yeah, how do you get through them?
Speaker 2:I mean I think just, I mean, yeah, always reaching up, for sure. I definitely, like I don't know, call Easton a lot when I have, like I guess, a problem. And then, yeah, I don't know how I just keep going, because I know it's like yeah, someone told me that someone said this to me the other day.
Speaker 1:They were like the issue is, people think you're always supposed to be happy and everything's always supposed to be perfect and it's just not the way it works. So once you accept that, then you can just be like it's just part of the the ride, you know, yeah, and then having good perspective helps, which is like just take an inventory of how lucky we are to have this business anyways and perspective and vision I think is huge, like I think that I don't know if you would ever ever say it, but like Erica's vision on where she wants to take her business, where, hey, you've got this.
Speaker 3:Is the very first time that you've had a little bit of you know like team roll up ever in your career. So it's like, okay, well, the good news is you've been here two years, not 50. So we have we're, you know, young in. I mean we're not 20, but whatever, Younger than some. So we have so much time left. Why dwell on something so small and give up like this? You know I'm going to pursue my dream kind of thing. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like you'll just get through it. I mean, you just learn from it. Yeah, and you can just keep going. And I, I today I was looking at your uncle and I was like it's so crazy, like sometimes we try to go so fast that like like I guess for me like I'm like I just want to go faster, but also I like look at your uncle and I'm like I still have like 30 years in this yeah or, like you know, like we are just getting started, all of us.
Speaker 1:My uncle. He was talking about it today. He's doing 75 hard. He lost 20 pounds or more. Then he stopped drinking. He was talking today how in his industry you come home and you drink. You go to work and you drink. That was a huge part of his life. Then his wife the other day was like. My aunt was like oh, like you guys have been a good influence, like look at this change, you know, which is super cool, like just to get people in an environment where they can kind of get out of things that are, um, not beneficial to them.
Speaker 1:You know, it's pretty dope, all right. So, eric, how does somebody reach you if, um, they wanted to work with you? They have solar cells and anybody watching this. If you don't want to work with easton, you're crazy.
Speaker 4:Dude's a legend yeah well, seriously yeah, I'm on, uh, social media.
Speaker 1:It's just at eric matthew walker, yeah do you want to give your phone number too? I feel like I would.
Speaker 4:I would not find that like yeah, yeah, no, my phone number is 831-235-7658 so they could call you.
Speaker 1:Do you want to build a team or no? I should have asked that yeah, absolutely, I think we're.
Speaker 4:We already have a couple guys getting rolling, licensed and contracted.
Speaker 1:Solar people are just coming over in droves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of wild.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the industry is getting interesting for sure and there's a big shift happening for sure.
Speaker 1:Crazy. All right guys. Thank you for coming in.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you guys. We'll see everybody June 6th at the Ignite event. You guys all be there, oh yeah, yep, absolutely. And we'll see you guys then. Thanks, thanks, drew Cool.