.png)
FFL USA
The #1 Insurance Marketing Organization In America. To learn more or join the team visit: https://www.familyfirstlifeusa.com
FFL USA
From Homelessness to Millions: The Rise of FFL’s Young Empire Builders (Ep.231)
Meet the young revolutionaries transforming the insurance industry. John Egan, Thomas Fox, and Max Konopka—all under 22 years old—have built multimillion-dollar agencies at Family First Life, defying conventional wisdom about success in sales.
Their stories demolish the myth that age equals achievement. John candidly shares his journey from selling drugs at 12 to building an empire. Thomas reveals how he lived in his car while attending college before insurance changed everything. Max started at just 17, setting appointments before he was even licensed. Today, they lead teams averaging $10,000+ in monthly production per agent.
What's their secret? A relentless commitment to accountability and an unapologetic approach to team culture. They've created environments where mediocrity isn't tolerated—from agent houses where team members live together to 4:30 AM wake-up calls enforced with ice water for those who don't comply. Their training systems are comprehensive, their expectations crystal clear, and their results undeniable.
These leaders aren't afraid to invest heavily in promising recruits, sometimes flying them out, providing accommodations, and funding initial leads. But their generosity comes with stringent expectations—those unwilling to embrace the culture are quickly removed.
Perhaps most fascinatingly, they've mastered the virtual insurance landscape, dramatically increasing productivity compared to traditional in-home sales. Even serious setbacks don't derail them—John shares how he returned to the office to sell a policy immediately after spending 47 days in the hospital following a near-fatal accident.
Connect with John (@officialjohnegan), Thomas (@ThomasFox01), or Max (@MaxKonopka) on Instagram to learn more about their approach to building sustainable wealth through insurance sales. This conversation is essential listening for anyone serious about achieving extraordinary results in sales, regardless of age or background.
What's up everybody. Andrew Taylor, here Today we got three special guests. We got John Egan with us. Thanks for coming in, dude.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, thanks for having me we got Thomas Fox. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:And Max Konopka, of course. Thanks for coming in, guys. All right, so I got the opportunity to go see your guys' office in Illinois. What's the town again? Naperville.
Speaker 2:Naperville, you said it was the safest number one safest of 2024 cities.
Speaker 1:Number one, safest. Now the crazy thing, though, is you have your office, and then you have Montserrat across this way, and then you have Stan Smith across the way. How many agents are in this same little parking lot? Thousands, yeah, yeah, it's like a college campus. When I left that's what I said I was like this is literally like a college campus. How much volume do you think is coming through there, gotta?
Speaker 2:be close to 10 mil. It's gotta be At least Just in Naperville. I mean that's kind of it to the hub of life insurance. So everybody's going down there. We got right in the heart of it. Like you said, we're in the middle of offices, so that's the big thing is the opportunity is there. And what we always say to each other, at least as far as leaders, is it's not are we going to grow this business, it's who's going to grow first. You know what I mean? So it's one of those things where it's like there's so many people, there's so many, so much opportunity. And that's why we chose Naperville you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Someone told me, like when kids graduate, they either go to college, they can go to the Amazon warehouse there where they could sell insurance with you guys like it's like three options, but it's like no now, yes, people know that's an opportunity there yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:and the funny you say that because before I actually got over to insurance, originally the day before I was going to an interview for a FedEx warehouse, so I was just going to be at a warehouse doing warehouse things. But that's the biggest thing is like now people know there's so much content getting pumped out. All of us are marketing Like you can't go on Instagram and not know at least who one of us are. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:And I think that's the crazy thing too is like I started like at FFL when I was in college, so like when I first started. Like my first three months when I first got into it, like I was still going through all of my classes full-time, and then after I'd go to John Egan John's apartment, and then those first three months like really showed me like what you could do at FFL. I ended up saving $30,000 within my first three months, like I'd never seen like my bank account over be over 3000. So it was kind of unreal to me, but it showed me like what you could do, like regardless of what kind of circumstance you're already in. And then from there on out, like that's where we opened up our first office, because we saw what we could do with it.
Speaker 1:But you guys have a lot of people that come in like, and they're all in cubicles and they're all working all day. How do you guys create that environment?
Speaker 2:I mean it starts from leading from the front. So the big thing because I've got to open up three offices I know Max got to do two with me and every time we open up an office, the first three months we're in the cubicles dialing. We're running it as if we had nothing. And that's where people get lost in insurance as they start getting better. And I heard a quote it's like when you get good at selling something, you actually sell less because now it's an expectation, you're expecting to sell more. So when you put yourself in that level and don't treat yourself like you're any better than anybody, you're going to grow, like when you were growing at 50K a month. You're going to put yourself right back on that level.
Speaker 2:And when people see that they fill up the cubicles like we had, we grew about half a million a month already this year and the biggest thing was we started on the cubicles and then we filled every cubicle. Now it's time we got to expand, we got to get more office space, things like that. But it all starts with you like the only reason we were able to do this stuff is because we set the tone, and that's what I always call. It is setting the tone and it's, it's, it's strategic if you go in there and you show them what a dial day looks like, because now you have people. It's like a dial day. Is you hot, wake up at eight, dial by ten, maybe get off the phones by four.
Speaker 2:It's like that's not a dial day it's not a work day right, like the reason we blew up was like intentionally dialing from 8 a to 12 pm, intentionally dialing from 3 to 9 pm. Like that's how we blew up. We were selling 5, 6k a day. Now you see people that want to come in one policy. They're good and like that's the biggest thing, is like that can't be your standard. If that's your team standard, it's horrible, right. And like I know at what was that event in Michigan? It was an Ignite.
Speaker 4:No, it was just like a new agent training.
Speaker 2:New agent training. Like we had Homs go up there and they were like well, how much do you want to sell a day? He goes I don't know three, four policies. They were expecting to hear a number right, they were expecting to hear all 3,000. He said three, four policies and I think that's a good tempo to run at. You know, if you're, if you don't have any agents, you're training, and even if you are training agents, you should be selling more anyway yeah, I mean, um, that's good.
Speaker 1:So I want to get into your guys's backgrounds a little bit. Uh, jay didn't tell me what, but he was like john egan's got a crazy background. I want to know what it is.
Speaker 2:I mean, so I so I mean I started selling drugs when I was 12. So I was at the park, just posted up selling drugs and barely went to school. I mean I, if I missed three more days of middle school they would have held me back, had all f's like zeros, not like 50s. So and then then high school. I was going into my senior year. I had 11 credits out of 44 so I had to make up 33 credits and COVID hit, so it was all online. So I made them up and graduated early, and that's right. When I found insurance and got an insurance, the only reason I graduated high school was because the first company I worked at they told me I had to graduate high school to work there. So, like, otherwise I wouldn't have graduated high school.
Speaker 2:So that's the big thing is, like working your way out of situations like that and developing into, like a very good person. There's a lot of my friends from back in the day that amounted to absolutely nothing. A lot of them are in jail, a lot of them have passed away and like that's the big thing is, when you get into this, you kind of change your whole circle, change your dynamic and then, like, you start like in like high school, whatever. Going to jail is like funny. It's like you know this is dope, but like then in the real world, you're like why are you celebrating that? There's no reason to celebrate that kind of thing, and like that's when you start to change your mindset. And that's why I loved insurance. It's because I got around a lot of motivated individuals that are like now they're, now they're complimenting on you. Oh, you went to the gym today, you did you sold this today, you worked x amount of hours today, like proud of you, versus oh, you did this, did this, you did that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So so you're just saying it's a good influence to be in a hundred percent, to be in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, how many people in insurance that are good Do you know that are bad apples? Not that many, not that many. And it's one of those things it's like your success will only ever amount to your personal development. You know, and I a hundred percent believe that because at the end of the day, like everyone's looking at you to lead and if that's something you could fall in love in or fall in love with, like that's how you're going to blow up the industry. But I mean definitely changed pretty much since I was 16. I stopped selling, started working regular jobs and then I like I would work 60 hours a week at Wendy's you know what I mean, like putting in extra hours, doing whatever I could and changing out of that.
Speaker 2:That lifestyle is pretty hard because you always like kind of miss it. That's the thing is, like you always kind of miss it and what you'll learn is, as you're going on in this, on this career, is it only gets better, it only gets more gratifying and that's what you start to fall in love in, rather than that fast money just doing things just to do them. You know it's actually has purpose. If I lost insurance today, my residuals would still be over 20 grand a month three years in. So, like that's the big thing too is, is you are doing something long-term here. You're building wealth.
Speaker 1:That's huge dude. I always tell people like this industry kind of saved me because I could have easily, like, gone down a different path, right, but you get around people telling you to read books, you get around people telling you to get up early, you get around people telling you to work out, and it's really hard to find that when you get older, right, actually, even when you're younger, it's hard to find.
Speaker 2:But that's like a hidden perk to being in this type of industry, right, you know 100% yeah, and I believe that too, because I literally haven't ever read a book until I got into insurance. So yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, cool Thomas, let's go over your background.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. So whenever, when I would say before I started insurance, like my story, I had a pretty normal childhood, growing up, I would say, and up until I was 15, I had a single mother, right. So she was working two to three jobs every single day to take care of us. I was one of six, so attention was thin, right. So the biggest thing, when I was 15 years old, I actually moved in with one of my best friends, him, and him and his family actually kind of took care of me, because my mother wasn't able to, right, she wasn't able to kind of take care of all the things that I wanted to do or like sports and things like that. So I was really grateful because there was people and other people in my life that were able to kind of do that. So not only that, but it taught me regardless that you know, she was able to put in that, that effort, that that work every single day, like she was working 70, 80 hours a week. So it kind of inspired me to be greater than everything else and and kind of like John, whenever we started at our practice company, I was also in college, right. So I was doing full time in college I was actually living in my car.
Speaker 3:So as soon as I turned 18 years old funny, funny story I actually got caught smoking weed as soon as I had turned 18, it was like a month after I had turned 18. So I had got caught smoking weed and everybody from my life had completely shunned me. So I was living in my car. I started working at AIO because I saw the opportunity. I was a full-time kid in college, didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was like, okay, maybe I can make an extra couple thousand dollars a month, right. And then it turned into something way bigger. I started, like I said, at our practice company and then six months there, you know it wasn't really working out. I actually reached out to John and I saw the opportunity. I was like there's no way.
Speaker 1:How'd you find John?
Speaker 3:They actually opened an office. They it was crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they opened the TAMP office, how'd you know that.
Speaker 3:So it's crazy because John had actually um DMs and they say Instagram DMs like that's the best way, right, that's the original way. So he actually DMed. My original upline on Instagram was like hey, you know, this is what we got going on like showed kind of the differences, hopped on a call and it wasn't even until like six months later, you know, after I had already been at our practice company for six months, that they decided to make the switch. And that was the biggest thing is is it was crazy because the things that John was telling us six months in advance, like all those things were coming true. So it was like okay, this guy knows a little bit more than we do and with kids that are 18, 19, 20 years old, I mean, that's what you're looking to find there. They pretty much left us in the dark. He kind of opened our eyes.
Speaker 3:So once we found John, it was like only up from there. I decided like, hey, dude, college isn't for me. I would go in a class and my teacher, she would give us like all the answers to the test. I was like that doesn't really teach me anything. And then John's teaching me not only how to build a business, but I mean, it's probably one day I was it was, it was a random day, I think it was like the 16th, so middle of the month I got deposited like five, six grand on that day. I was like dude, I'm 18 years old. There's nobody that's 18 years old that I know is getting deposited five, six grand in one day.
Speaker 3:What can I do with this opportunity? So I decided, and John text me. He was like Barry, do you have so much potential, like, do you know what it is that you can actually do with this so funny story? I actually moved in with John. He was like he had the pleasure of like. He was like, hey, dude, I see the drive that you have, like, and I absolutely respect for the vision that he had for me for that. And then, like I said, it was only up from there, like I took a crazy amount of steps from there and it absolutely has changed my life.
Speaker 1:That's cool dude, that's legit how old are you?
Speaker 3:So I actually just turned 20 years old. So another thing as well is like after, I would say, the day that I turned 19,. My mom has a mortgage on her house and I helped pay off most of the mortgage on her house and that was one of the biggest things for me, especially having a single mother, is you do, obviously, for the people that you do it for yourself, right? Like I said, I came into insurance because I was like I can make a couple extra thousand dollars a month, but then, seeing the potential, seeing the things that it actually could do for me not only for my family, I mean it absolutely changed the trajectory of my life, for sure, for my family.
Speaker 1:I mean it absolutely changed the trajectory of my life for sure. That's cool, man. A lot of people that come in here they talk about taking care of their parents, like it's like for young people. I've noticed like it's one of the main like driving things that they have is like, oh, I want to help my parents or my grandma that struggled to take care of me, or something like that. That's legit Congratulations on your success. That's legit Congratulations on your success. I can't wait to see what you do, though, dude, you're only 20. Thank you. You guys could build this thing like crazy we do have to talk about because you said you made 5K. What did you spend in leads? What did you actually net? I don't like to put out stuff where it looks like, oh, I could just go make 5K without putting in, without telling people what it takes, how much money did you spend?
Speaker 3:How much?
Speaker 1:time did you spend? Why do people fail? Why do a lot of people not make it in the industry? Why do a lot of people lose money on leads? Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:So I would say, kind of to answer the first question is how much I was spending in leads. So whenever I came in, John was saying like, hey, if you're not spending a thousand to 1500 a week on leads, you're not spending the right amount, You're not going to get, you know, the right amount of results that you want to get. And that was the. That was the biggest thing for me, especially being, um, they say full time, like there's a lot of people that they say part time there they said it at Ignite, right and there's like there are part-timers that are more full-time than full-time part-timers. And that was one of the things I feel like for me that I really took seriously when I first started. So, like I said, I was a full-time kid in college but I was working nine, 10 hours every single day, regardless of that right, Like I was spending 1,500, 2,000 a month on leads. It's not something that you can just simply do, Right, you have to be willing to put in the effort. I say the biggest thing for people and the reason that they fail, especially just in sales in general, is because they're not willing to put in that extra effort. Like I said, I saw my mom work 70, 80 hours a week, you know, just just to get by for us. I was one of six, so seeing her do that just to get by for us was like there's no way that I can't work that hard and that's why I've always loved working is. I can see, you know kind of what the results that you're able to get, especially in an industry like this, and the impact that it can have. But it's not something that everybody can do, Like you were saying. Again, there are a lot of people that fell in this industry, but it's just because they're not willing to put the work that it takes in to get those results, but it's just because they're not willing to put the work that it takes in to get those results right. They're not willing to.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was dialing.
Speaker 3:I was buying Alaska leads, you know, in the morning before I went to school, so I could dial at 12 o'clock at night, right, Because I knew if I got off school at 12, you know, then then we were right, then we were dialing out of like my apartment, right, so, um, the biggest thing was like, okay, from 12 to 9 PM, like we're working, we're locked in, and it was something that nobody could, you know, drive me from Cause I realized, like there's no way people tell me like, hey, I want to retire my parents, I want to retire my brothers, Cause I have little brothers, Right, and I have no clue, especially in this day and age, what they're going to do in their lives.
Speaker 3:But knowing that, like I want to be able to provide for them as well. So I realized, hey, if my mom is working like 60, 70 hours a week and she's not able to do it, there's no way that if I work 67 hours a week, if I put in the same amount of work like that, I should be complaining. So I always try to put in twice the amount of work because I want to get twice the amount of results.
Speaker 1:How old are?
Speaker 3:your brothers. So I have a brother, he actually results. How old are your brothers so?
Speaker 1:I have a brother. He actually just turned 15. And I have a brother that's 13. Nice, so they're pretty young, cool man, all right. So, max, what's your background?
Speaker 4:Well, man, this is kind of an interesting story Because when I first gotten involved in insurance I was actually 17. So I wasn't even able to get my license or anything like that. But I was hired on at our practice company where I was setting appointments and they had me hire people. They were saying, hey, a hundred bucks for a hire, and that was good to go. So, you know, as a high schooler, like I was in high school when I found out about life insurance, and you know, for me it was crazy, because when they told me like you could get a hundred bucks for a hire, know, for me it was crazy, because when they told me like you could get a hundred bucks for a hire, I was thinking like, all right, I could either work 30 hours a week at my, at the dealership, at the car dealership, or I could hire three people. One seemed a lot easier than the other. So, um, like, I got involved in insurance and that's where I actually met John. So, you know, I was, you know, setting appointments, I was hiring people and, um, once I turned 18, obviously, like me and John weren't on the same team or anything like that. But, um, you know, we just had. We were just talking like we we would talk at the old company and, um, like from there on out, obviously, jay had left to, uh, to FFL, john had left to FFL and at a certain point, like I remember, there were some, some like when John first had came to FFL, like they were mostly doing in-homes and I didn't have a car.
Speaker 4:So, you know, starting in college, I was thinking like all right, like if I can make $150,000 in insurance, like at AIL, as long as I spend my money right, like I could put myself in a really good position and that's kind of the the way that I went about it and obviously, like I would never like take away from any sort of, you know, knowledge that might be out there. So I always kept myself like in real, in relationships, I always kept myself in connection with, like John and other people that are in insurance, because I saw the amount of money that you could make in insurance. So once, once John and some of the other guys went to FFL, I remember seeing like the numbers literally within a, within like a few weeks of them going virtual, and seeing the actual numbers and it was like it was unbelievable, like it was a completely different thing. So it was kind of a no brainer for me because at the end of the day like I remember it being, it being explained to me like your lead flow is your cash flow, so when you control your leads, then you control your income. So it was really a no brainer for me, like coming to FFL and I think that's one of the most important things.
Speaker 4:Like starting out, like a lot of successful people say that, like your success is dependent on your speed to action. Like a lot of successful people say that, um, like your success is dependent on your speed to action, like how long it takes for you to take action, and like that's. I'm very thankful that I wasn't necessarily so involved in insurance where it might've taken me an actual, where I might've had like a second guess. I might've been doubting my decision of going to FFL, but to me I was so brand brand new in insurance that it just made sense. Like, all right, leads equals more premium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm going to say well, you don't get free leads, yeah, so you have to buy your own leads, so don't go there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I'll even tell you this because when I was at AIL, I remember sitting in my Upline's office and John was actually in there. John was not on our team.
Speaker 1:And they were ragging on FFL. We were like rivals, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 4:And John was at AIL. John was doing really well at AIL and I remember sitting then in the office and John was like would you rather spend $2,000 on leads to write $10,000, or would you rather spend zero money to write $5,000? And I was like brand new. I was brand new. I was like, oh, I'd obviously spent 2,000 to make 10,000. Like there's more profit. Everybody else was like FFL, ffl, all this and that. And I was.
Speaker 4:I was like what, what's FFL? Like I'm just thinking about money. You know, like, thinking about it logically, like there it was a no brainer, you know. So obviously, like once the opportunity presented itself, it was just a matter of running with it and being the most intentional. Like I could have been with my time. You know, obviously, like I was still trying to figure out, like what I wanted with my life and what was possible.
Speaker 4:And I was in college. You know, like I was in college going through all my classes and, um, you know it took me three weeks to get my first sale. Like we didn't know what leads to run, like, what scripts to run, or anything like that. But like for me, coming from AIL, I'm very like, I'm very appreciative of that opportunity because I did see like the long-term, like I saw the vision and I saw what life insurance could do for people.
Speaker 4:So, you know, during those first like when I first started at FFL I didn't necessarily care that like I didn't get a sale within my first day or my first week or my first two weeks, because all I was worrying about was where am I going to be? I just can't wait till a year from now. Where am I going to be at a year from now? Where am I going to be at two years from now? I know that if I continue learning at the pace that I am now, then I'm going to be in a really good position and at a very young age, because not a lot of people are taking advantage of it.
Speaker 4:So, I think that was like one of the one of the big things for me is just having an environment where it's very easy to focus on on the long term, because that that's all insurance is. It's like I remember hearing very early on at one of the conferences like it's not a get rich quick, it's a get rich for sure.
Speaker 1:So that really stuck with me. But you can't technically say that because a lot of people fail.
Speaker 4:Right, right, and I think it's like it's something that you have to be very focused on the long, long term, because it's it's sales Right.
Speaker 4:Like at the end of the day, like we don't know whether we're going to get a sale or not, we don't know how big that sale is going to be, we don't know what's going to happen. But the only things that we can control is our input. So that's why I think, like our, our agencies does really well, and why our agent has gotten over Our average agent does over 10,000 a month is because we're not necessarily focused on, like, the end result, but the input that gets you to that end result. So that that's one of the biggest things is like being focused on the input, what you're actually taking in, what you're implementing and the action behind it that's going to take you to those results. Because, I get like again, we're not, we're not focused on where we're going to be at, like I don't care where I'm going to be at a year, like a month from now. I care where I'm going to be at a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now turned 21 last month crazy.
Speaker 4:So I've been in insurance for two and a half three years and you know when I first started um, you know, before I actually turned 18 and got my license, I was trying detailing during that summer and all this crazy different type of stuff, but life insurance really stuck out well, I want to go back to what you said, how people were ragging on ffl.
Speaker 1:So when we opened up, a lot of people were just dogging us dude. And we would always say like I would always compare it to the movie straight out of Compton where, um, they got like a cease and desist from the FBI or something, and then it was all over the news. And then they're like all publicity is good publicity. And then what I realized is like people are telling, even if they're talking crap about us, they're still telling people about us. I'm like dude, you're actually, it's actually the best marketing machine we've ever had. Cause, once they like they might initially be like oh yeah, that's bad. Now they know about it, they're going to go look into it and they're going to try to find the truth for themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's one of those things that we talk about a lot because, like how kind of how I recruit is, I'll DM the upline first and I'll DM them, talk about the opportunity, and then you have this guy that runs around his office talking crap. Like you have this John Egan guy DMs you. What are they thinking? Block him, yeah, block him, that's, that's their favorite thing. And like that's kind of. What I realized is like okay, you can only do that to a certain level. People aren't getting paid at your company and everybody knows my name and you're telling them not to go with me for a certain reason, because you don't go, don't go with this company, don't go with this company. You're saying me specifically that's why I dm them first, because then they hear about me from their upline and like that kind of changed the game in recruiting as well, because now it's like whether he's talking crap about you or not, everybody knows who you are yeah.
Speaker 1:So when someone comes to me and they go, do you know who this company is? I just go. Never heard of them, that's it and never I dude. I just never talk crap about anybody else because it doesn't do any good right yeah, and that was the one thing too.
Speaker 4:I remember people at AIL they were telling us not to. Or at our practice company they were telling us not to look at other opportunities. Even now, I always like, when my agents ask about another opportunity, I tell them to get on the call. I tell them to try and recruit them, because I know how good of an opportunity FFL is, and that's one of those things too is like you're not scared of other opportunities when you know what you're doing is when you know you're in the best one.
Speaker 1:you know, yeah, that's cool. So what were the other selling points for you guys? Was it just leads? What was it?
Speaker 2:To get into FFL. Yeah, so I was actually at the company. I was at there, they I went to the dentist one morning and like I was like diehard, like I would be there early, like I would stay till like midnight, like doing everything, like I was like all in you know what I mean. That's why I named my agency all in. And I went to the dentist one morning and my SGA at the time, like the agency owner, called me a hundred times while I was in the dentist chair and then when I got out of the dentist chair I opened up my text. He's like you might as well not come in. You're obviously not dedicated. I'm recoding your team to somebody who cares about the business.
Speaker 2:And I had 30 people and till that point I was a year and a half in, never thought about another opportunity. And that's when I kind of realized where I was. You're not secure. You do not own the book of business. You don't have any rights to your people. You're recruiting, you're recruiting them for someone else and, looking in, I looked into every insurance company. It took like three weeks for me to make the decision and I wasn't going to go to FFL. I was not going to FFL, and after I was between that and one other company that was nowhere near as good. And that's when I came over here, because there's a couple things.
Speaker 1:But you weren't going to go to FFL.
Speaker 2:I was not going to FFL. What made you?
Speaker 1:change your mind.
Speaker 2:After getting knowledge. So I reached out to multiple people and Jay was my original upline at the practice company. I was his first hire. I reached out to multiple people. They all told me great things, great things. So I called Jay and he's like, well, right now we don't have an office, don't have any really structure with the leads, we're running in-homes Basically told me everything that was wrong with it. And then I was like, well, that's an easy fix, because we work really well together, we can get some meetings going, we can get an office, we can get people together and know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like the end of the world bad. It was the great opportunity that needed to get a little bit better at the time. So I was like all right, onboard me, I'll be out in Nebraska in like a day. I had negative $300 in my checking account, no car, no credit limits left. Like everything was maxed out and I just drove out there and went all in. But the biggest thing was was you nobody could take your agents. You can't just like well, you're directly with the carrier, yeah, so it's like you're not worried about somebody in your own office taking your own agent and you're also not worried about you know, am I gonna end up having residuals or not? Am I gonna end up with this? Do I have any rights to the business? And with FFL, they give you all that, like you have access to everything.
Speaker 1:When people try to tell me, ask me about that, I'm like okay, you get paid directly from the carrier. So the apps are not coming through us to the carrier. We're not paying you directly, we're not receiving all the commissions and then paying you, you're just getting the money directly from Mutual of Omaha or AmeriCo or whoever. It is Right, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a big thing too is also being able to network with carriers and things like that, because anywhere else you have no access to that. They keep that in the dark. Here you have reps you could reach out to if there's a problem with whatever, and that's the other thing is relationships and networking-wise. This is the place to be at, just because you have so much exposure to everybody. You know what I mean. Like if you want to get a hold of anybody, it's one phone call away, one Instagram message away. Everybody answers Like I've never reached out to somebody doing well and I'm just not answering.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I think I saw somebody post like would you rather play with the XFL or the NFL? Like FFL is the NFL of the life insurance industry, you know Well, right now, I mean the rate of growth is insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like. The success stories are just endless, like and obviously, with a lot of people coming into sales, a lot of people fail, but I've never seen so many young people doing well. And we're talking like what's the average age of your guys' team?
Speaker 2:I'm one of the oldest I'm 22.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'm 35, and I'm like the old man at your guys' office. You'd be the oldest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100% yeah, like almost times two. Yeah, 14, 15 years. It's crazy dude.
Speaker 1:And when I started started, I started 18 and there was only a couple other 18 year olds and the rest it was like 50, 55, 60. So the whole dynamic of the industry changed, which I think a lot of people are coming from solar, um, door-to-door sales, pest control, loans, real estate and I think the secret's finally getting out about the industry and what what I believe is like right now is just it's who's going to get to them first. Right, because they're going to end up. A good percentage of these people will end up in insurance, but it's just who's going to get to them first. That's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know A hundred percent. It's kind of like like who's going to crack the egg, because somebody might message them. They give you 100 messages and they finally respond to one. And that's one of those things when I recruit I don't ever push for at least teams I don't ever push for. You guys need to start with me today. Like he was saying, his team got recruited a year before they even came over. I'm going to provide the value I could provide on the phone call, tell you exactly what's going to happen at your company, because I know all the information about all the companies and you know when it comes true, you'll, you'll come over here. But at the end of the day, I'm not rushing that process, I'm just providing value. And when they reach out to other people and they're rushing it, trying to get now, now, now results, it's like that's not how you play the long-term vision. You have to have some sort of how do you say when you wait for something?
Speaker 2:Delayed gratification, yeah, delayed gratification. So that's the big thing, is you have to be willing to wait for the results, even if you're planting the seeds now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just planting seeds everywhere, yeah, and some of them they're going to grow, right, and you're not looking for immediate right now. You're just planting seeds, building relationships, getting to know people, talking to them 100%. It's a relationship business.
Speaker 4:Because, at the end of the day, knowing the opportunities, you know what else is out there. It's just a matter of I want to be that person when they do find out. And even going back to when we were both at our practice company john, this was like months before, like I ever ever came to ffl. Like no, he never mentioned anything about ffl or anything like that, but he was like, do you want your own agency? At one point, and like, immediately from that point, like I was thinking 100, I want my own agency. So when the opportunity presented itself, you know, a couple months later, like was a clear, it was a clear decision to be made. Like it was. Like I remember even talking to you on the phone, like in the parking lot, and being like dude, I don't, I don't want to leave. Like I built some relationships but I know that like the money is there. Like I know that it's the smartest decision to make, moving forward.
Speaker 3:I think it was the. I think it was the transparency. For me, like I said, back at our practice company, they pretty much left us in the dark with a lot of things, like as far as like requirements, whenever an agent had a requirement like they wouldn't tell you what it is. They were like, hey, worry about this later on down the road. And I think the biggest thing, especially being at FFL, was the transparency of what you could do but what it took to get there right. So it was the. I think personally from John, like John's experience that he had there, but my own personal experience like we were the only agency that um there that did in homes. So we we only strictly drove to people's houses. So I was driving two, three, four hours every single day um to different people's houses until nine, 10 o'clock.
Speaker 1:So now you can do virtual yeah do virtual, yeah, 100.
Speaker 3:So I think it not only changed the game as far as like my income, but as far as recruiting like um. I think it maximized my business by I mean double, triple, not even um, I mean maybe even more than that well, what's?
Speaker 1:how old are you, john 22 dude. So how much are you doing a month? And like total uh issue paid agent? Like 9 30 dude. That took me 10. I think it took me eight or nine years to do that. So if you think about how fast people are doing what used to take way longer, you know yeah and that what I was doing would be considered fast then. But you're 22 dude.
Speaker 2:It's insane what you guys are doing well, yeah, but also you got to think about, like, how limited you were.
Speaker 1:There wasn't virtual back, there wasn't dude virtual changed the whole dynamic of the whole thing in the best way possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I always kind of say this, too is like because I got into it in the heart of covet and that's kind of when, like andrew tate and things got popular like being an alpha male getting into sales things like that, like Andrew Tate and things got popular like being an alpha male getting into sales things like that. And that's where, like when I came up, you got on Instagram reels, whatever it was. There was nothing about you know, get in sales, be an alpha male, do this, that or the other. Now it's everywhere. Now that's the only thing these people are getting in their mind. So I got 14 year olds hitting me up, like this one kid I just hired. He hit me up when he was 14. He built websites for me over the years to you know, side work, whatever he could do, anything he could do to provide value. Second, he turned 18. He got an insurance, like these people are. He waited four years to get into insurance dang.
Speaker 1:What do you guys say if someone goes? I heard bad things about, I went on youtube and I heard bad things about ffl and I don't want to work there. What do you guys say? Do you guys ever?
Speaker 4:have that I agree with them. Yeah, I'm usually like they're probably true. I'd love to tell you more about it.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, because on the call I was like that's how I got recruited. They told me what was sucked about it and I'm like I'm in If that's.
Speaker 2:the thing with me is like I'll get on the call and I'll explain like like when I'll explain, kind of when I started, I'm like, yeah, so this was bad. They're right, you know they're working with a team that doesn't have an office, or they have a virtual leader that works half days and they're at a. They don't have any lead flow cause they weren't ever told they had to buy leads. I'm like I'm extremely transparent. I go over what is bad like and what we fixed about it. That's the thing that the people like to hear.
Speaker 2:So when I got here, we didn't have the leadership, we didn't have an office, we didn't have like a general hub to work at, we didn't have the scripts we needed, we didn't know what leads to run. But this is what we did did to correct that. We opened up offices like fast. I opened one of my six months. You were like four months in. We opened it together like we were doing things so fast and it was like the only reason why? Is because we knew what was wrong, we knew what worked. So what worked we left alone and what needed to be worked on we worked on and like that's how we changed the game. And then then people hear that and it's like the success stories are good alone, but just the progress we made in systems and things to get new agents paid.
Speaker 2:Like I had an agent come in right 20 grand their first month without me talking to them, because we have two websites with 40 hours of training videos anything you could think of there's a video on it. Then you have, on top of that, we have this 20 part document with all the scripts. You could need any advice. You can need literally anything. There's access to everything and it's all within a click of buttons. So that's the thing is like. Yes, you could have a bad rep on some agencies. Some agencies could have a great rep. My goal was to make our agency have that great rep, and that's kind of what when we get on the call with those people is. It's easy to persuade them to be like you know, you think this way about it, but you got that person's angle who was working two hours a week.
Speaker 3:Dude, that's powerful. I always say, like, what do all the greatest people have in common? Like JP Morgan, for example, is like JP Morgan and Chase? What does he have in common? The most amount of hate? Mcdonald's, for example. They have the most amount of lawsuits, right. So the greatest people are going to have the most amount of people that are wanting to see them fail.
Speaker 3:That was something that I learned early on. Like, not everybody's going to love what it is that you do so and I think, especially with that, like I said, going back to transparency for John, he had told me all the bad things about FFL, but they were all things that you could change. A lot of the bad things from other places were uncontrollables, right. So if you take away all the uncontrollables and you get to a spot where it's like there's really no limit because it's based off what you can do, you get into a better situation where there's really no ceiling, right, the ceiling is only as high as you'll think you'll go. So I think that was the biggest thing for me, especially realizing that and understanding like if you're not trying the hardest that you possibly can, you're not going to get to where it is you want to go.
Speaker 1:So you said there's no ceiling, but for a lot of people they fail. Why.
Speaker 3:I would say going back to the effort that they're willing to put in. Like, a lot of people make excuses for the things that they go through, the things that they have going on in their lives. Like you know, I don't like putting other people's experiences out there, so I'll use my own right. I would say like people's experiences out there, so I'll use my own right. I would say, um, I would like not everybody's dealt the exact same hand. Some people live a lot better than others. Like, at 18 years old, I didn't think I would be living in my car right for for six months a year. Where'd you park at when you?
Speaker 1:slept in your car.
Speaker 3:Dude, I slept like crazy places. So I'm, I'm from, I'm from Indiana, so talk about like nobody's posting about sales or getting in the sales. Like, dude, there's farms everywhere and the next town over is 25, 30 miles Like it's as far as we drove to get here. That's scary. Yeah, it was crazy. So like I mean you could virtually park anywhere, so I would go like somewhere. I heard Walmart's the best place.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. I heard Walmart's the best place, though, because you got lights and security and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:They let you too. It's 24-7. You could park there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so sometimes I'd park outside of the Walmart because it was 24-7. Dude, what's their?
Speaker 2:strategy there. Well, Walmart's rumor is they're partnered with the government on. If there was ever a doomsday, everyone would go to Walmart.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, they have the doors that close. Yeah, everybody can like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there was ever like a natural emergency. Whatever it is like walmart's the the place everyone should go.
Speaker 1:Oh, so they probably get paid by the government for that yeah, I learned that when I was like 14 on youtube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I might have to fact check, I would like to add to what what you're asking them though I think a hundred percent of it is is the upline as well, because you could come into this business and not everybody. Once you start getting paid as an upline or a manager, it's hard. The million dollar question is can you work when you no longer need the money? And it's like now you're bringing in these people because you have the status and a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Just let them flop or let them fail I agree with you too, but I don't agree with. I get a lot of calls and they're like I can't succeed because my, the guy that hired me, is whatever I agree with drunk if they're saying it I agree with you. So they're saying I can't agree, I can't succeed because of that, and I'm like dude, there's so many people you could call yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3:Like I said, whenever I first started my original upline, like at our old company company, they basically like he was, he was a great follower, right, so he's able to follow all the rules that they had set in place but not really lead on his own.
Speaker 3:So when it came time to coming over to FFL especially where you can own your own business and you lead, I would say like having having him as a leader, it definitely like stagnated, like it made my growth pretty stagnant, but having someone else that you can rely on like especially with FFL, I learned there was a person who spoke completely no English, that did 150,000, like his first three months before I came over here I was like, wow, that's crazy, you know.
Speaker 3:So the resources not only that we have here are insane, but also, I think, the mentorship as well, because having somebody like John, whenever I first came in, that was willing to believe in me a hundred percent, I think the day that I got recruited I joined like a group chat he dropped a 12 or $15,000 deal, 47,000. $47,000 deal, whatever, okay, but it was like the biggest deal I'd ever seen in my life and I came from somewhere where it's like, okay, you're struggling to do 5,000 a month, like my first month, my first day, I did. I did half of that. I was like holy smokes, like this is crazy, like I don't know what I can do in this opportunity, but I know it's the right one now what are okay.
Speaker 1:so when I recruit people, I kind of do what you do, like I try to scare them away, because I don't want to invest time into them if they're gonna be scared when things get tough, if they're gonna quit when things get tough. So I tell them about chargebacks, I tell them about lead costs, I tell them about all the things that can go wrong, to try and get them to quit before they even start. Did you guys hear Nina roasting me when she was talking, when she was talking to ignite, by the way, she was like saying how she got recruited and she's like I called Andrew and he was just like oh yeah, we have leads, that's it, that's all you need to know.
Speaker 1:And then it was funny. But I got all these texts. Everyone was like dude, why is Nina roasting you on stage? But I am that simple, but I do also like to be like this is what can go wrong. Do you guys do anything like that?
Speaker 2:Or do you tell?
Speaker 1:them just the good part.
Speaker 2:Very similar because I always call myself a simplistic leader. It's really simple if you really break it down. And that's the big thing is when I'm on these recruiting calls, I'm kind of structuring them around having them grow in scale of business. We don't want people who want a summer job, we want people that want to grow in scale of business. So like that's the big thing is.
Speaker 2:I talk about everything negative because at the end of the day, over the past couple years I learned one roll up that sucks. You know, if you ever get roll up debt. And like for me, I had this kid I hired from Primerica. He wrote 100 bands in four days and then just was gone. So like that all hit me and it was like it was still a really good year for me, but I was. I mean that's that's annoying and like.
Speaker 2:So when you start breaking it down and making it simpler and telling them everything that's bad about it, you start getting no roll up debt, you start becoming more profitable and like that's the big thing I'm chasing is I'm not chasing IP number, I'm chasing profitability and how much my team's actually getting paid. Not only what they're getting paid but what they're keeping, because you can write 20 grand a month or you're paying 18 grand for leads. It's like, okay, it's just a number on a screen, now you didn't make anything, and like that's. The big thing I try to show my people is how you can get at least a 10X return on your leads, but also how you're going to grow the business into legit, um, what like what's driving?
Speaker 1:I know what's driving you, but what's driving you guys to blow this thing up?
Speaker 4:today, my future family. They just just taking advantage of being the best, like the best self. I feel like um, I feel like just setting up my, like my future, like for my parents. I feel like for me, like it's always came back to like um, like my parents. You know, like, like you were saying, like so many young people, it comes back to like um, like my parents. You know like, like you were saying, like so many young people, it comes back to their parents.
Speaker 4:Like, growing up, like I watched my dad have to work two jobs, like my parents are both from poland, like they didn't know english when they first came to america. And they came to america like to build their future, like to build their family. So you know, like for me, like that's what I want, like I want to do. I want, want to give it back to my family because they sacrificed for me. Why wouldn't I sacrifice for them in my future? Do you have siblings? Yeah, I have an older brother. He sells insurance with us, and then I have a younger sister who's in high school Nice, yeah, so for her.
Speaker 4:She just turned 16. I gave her my moped, my motorcycle.
Speaker 1:That's cool Legit.
Speaker 2:That's a good gift. What about you? So, like, the biggest thing for me I would say there's. There's two big things like one I want to help my brothers succeed, no matter what, kind of get them to open up their own businesses, do what they want to do in the future. Um, and then also like just seeing, like I come from very hard-working people, right, my mom was cutting hair during the day. At night she was a server, and then, and then as I got older, she got a job as something like payroll for a trucking company and that was her big break. And then my dad, he's an electrician.
Speaker 2:I was in and out of work when I was growing up and so seeing him work 3 in the morning, leaving out, coming back at 8 o'clock at night, and then doing it every single day, six days days a week, whether it was negative 30 out or not working outside, and just seeing them never really be able to to get ahead until more recently, and it's like one of those things like I don't ever want to have, like my kids, like I don't want to ever have to tell them like we're gonna get groceries on Wednesday because that's when I get paid, like I want to be able to, like, give them everything that they want and need.
Speaker 2:Because, like I could only imagine, like when people, when you see, like the, the rich kids, like the kids that have everything given to them a lot of them, you know, are privileged and a lot of them work really hard though, like I know this one kid who's he owns like three rush steakhouses. He's like 19 and it's like dad just put him on there and it's like he's still going to school but he's still grinding, he's still working 100 hours a week doing what he needs to do and, like, I guess, for my future, I want that to where, like, yes, like I want my kids to come for money, but I want them to be respectful or respectable and then also be able to add value to whoever's around them.
Speaker 1:We need to get that kid's dad on the podcast, because I don't know how he did that. I haven't even met him. That's a big thing. I've thought about a lot Because I have kids and it's like what do you leave them? The best thing you could leave them is you work hard and they can watch you and you do things that they would respect. They watch you do it.
Speaker 2:But I think the worst thing is to not leave that and just leave a bunch of money. That's the good thing too, because, like this kid, he comes from money, obviously, but the reason he works so hard is because he doesn't have any pressure. You know, if you jump into insurance and you lose some money like somebody loses five grand on leads and doesn't sell anything that's huge for a lot of people. Well, he could afford to make the mistakes, and I think that's what he takes advantage of is he knows he could afford to make the mistake, so why not go for it?
Speaker 4:And I think that's like the blessing of like starting in insurance. So young is like like starting out for me, like I never cared what was going on in the beginning, because you're nothing.
Speaker 4:I have nothing to lose. Worst comes to worst. I'm still a college kid and I can go right back home to mom, you know. But it was unbelievable because the opportunity I was given I was able to, like I remember after my first three months and like having that conversation with my parents of me not taking classes that next semester to go open up an office and my parents were like surprised, like my parents were confused because I was already at the point of making more money than both of them combined. So it was just crazy, Like what the opportunity can do for you. But I think a lot of the times like people fail because they, like a lot of people, will make the sacrifice but they won't have the discipline to back it up. Like just because you spend the thousand dollars on leads doesn't mean that you're going to get the five thousand dollars back. Just because you spend the 12 hours in the office doesn't mean that you're going to get the results back. It's about what you're doing during that time.
Speaker 1:So you're saying take advantage of being young.
Speaker 4:Yeah, take advantage of being young and I was even thinking about it at Ignite. Like, I was thinking about it and like to take it. You have to take advantage of being young. But it's also it can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because when I was thinking about it in, like when I see Ign, see ignite, like when I go to the conferences, it always reminds me that like, wow, like I'm so blessed to be here because of how young I am.
Speaker 4:But it's also a curse because I see all of the like, other people who are older and they're just so, so intentional because they don't have that time to mess up, like they have those responsibilities to where they don't have another option. So it can almost be like a curse because, like, you almost have a plan B, but not at the same time, because it's just all about, like, taking advantage of that and like, for me, I always thought about it, like even when I was 18, I was just thinking how can I set myself up to be in the best spot when I'm 22? Like when my friends leave college, like, where do I want to be at? Like when I'm 23, 24, 25, like how can I set?
Speaker 4:myself up. Did you graduate college? No, I didn't. I I went through first semester. After that first semester I didn't go back. We opened up that, our first office in illinois did you?
Speaker 3:no, no, I finished. I got through, I think april, so I may have finished my first year. I think I stopped going to classes, like during finals did you?
Speaker 2:I never went to college. Graduated high school I was big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I was in college and I said I was going to go back. I was like I'm just going to make, like I'm going to do big sales for like a quarter. And then I was like, yeah, I'm not going back.
Speaker 4:Yeah, see me and John always figured like we'd go back to college like just to recruit everybody. Yeah, that's our grand build. Like what's that?
Speaker 1:21 jump street movie yeah they're like fbi agents but they're like, they're cops, but they're like old. Yeah, they go back to college you guys should do that that's.
Speaker 2:That's what we're playing it's actually crazy.
Speaker 4:It's like when we were at our practice company, like I remember some of the some of the guys had like some crazy cars and I was like, dude, just like come pull up to my college, like you'd probably recruit a ton of people, and they actually ended up did recruiting a ton of people in my upline. Um, like I ended up coming to FFL because nobody was making money there. Three months later I ended up recruiting my upline because I just sent him a screenshot of how much money I had and he knew where I was at when I was at AIL. He knew I had no money and that's all it took.
Speaker 2:I want to add in, he also bought him a Gucci bag.
Speaker 4:Yeah, true.
Speaker 3:I could never, buy a Gucci bag. He never told anybody about that.
Speaker 4:I never had no money to buy a Gucci bag there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I've never recruited. I've never actually bought anything crazy like that and I've never recruited like that. I've just recruited with like facts Like this is the commission level, this is what you pay in leads. I've never done any of that. But I want to ask you guys about Jay, because you guys are pretty close with Jay, right? Yeah, so I think he had at the conference, when he at the last conference conference and he was like if you're on my team, stand up. My uncle jimmy called me after and he's like dude. When everybody stood up and then they sat back down, it sounded like a herd of buffalo because there were so many people on his team, right? Um, and when he goes, and then my other friend called me, he's like dude. Jay's like a famous DJ in insurance, like wherever he goes, people go. So I want to ask you guys, like why do you think that?
Speaker 2:is so like that's the thing is. Like it's same thing with me Cause me and Jay have always done things like when he opened up his first office. We opened ours a month later, like we've pretty much been separated until last year when we opened up to Tampa one together and like same thing for us. Like when you guys came to the office, was that eight days before the convention or the ignite? Yeah, I was like really, I only found out about it like two days before that we had 60 people from the office go. Yeah. So it's like same thing for us.
Speaker 2:And I think when you lead intentionally and you show people what got you the results, they're going to want to follow what you want to do, and that's the big thing at the end of the day. It's like if you do this, this is what you're going to get, and we don't beg anybody to do it. It's like this will get you the results you need. Come here. If you don't come, I can't help you. It's kind of the big things is like leading from the front, going there, going to those events and providing the value is huge, and I think that's why anybody that gets around us wants to be a part of that, not to mention like you get around me, you get around Max, you get around Thomas, you get around different. You know we're intentional, like I was like sat down here with you, I just called a vet, lead in front of you like they hung up on you and told you to pound sand let's forget about that one.
Speaker 2:There's another one coming in anyway no, I like seeing those ones yeah, no, no, I like them.
Speaker 1:They build character no, and like if a new agent sees you get hung up on, they don't think something's wrong with them. If they get hung up on, they don't think they're bad, they're just like yeah it's just I gotta go through the numbers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a hundred percent, yeah it's a numbers game, it's part of the process and I think proximity is power and I think that's like one of the also like the blessings with sales is that it's a copycat business, like. If I'm well when I started, if I was saying exactly what john was saying, doing exactly what he was doing, buying the same leads that he was doing, at some point I was going to get those same results. So it's just a matter of actually like duplicating that and having the patience, but also the same, the persistence, um, to stay consistent and build the discipline, build the habits to get me to that same point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it goes back to like the, the vision and like the dedication.
Speaker 3:Going back to your question of why um like the, the kind of the impact that thatay and john um have is so have, is so strong, especially because, like I said, five, six days before convention or before ignite, there's 50, 60 people that we have going and it's because of you know, not only the event itself and the impact that it had.
Speaker 3:Like I had a, I had a agent go to the one we had last year and he'd never done 5 000 in a month before next month he did 30 000. So it so it's like not only do you have the opportunity to learn a lot, but you have a bigger opportunity, I would say, to kind of see from all sorts of perspectives, like the impact and the vision that we have here in this industry and seeing how willing, especially for us as young people like Max said it was a blessing and a curse, but especially what you see as far as like the blessing side, that there are young people that are as committed and um like as as persevering, as there are around you. Like you know that you have no way to fail if you're around those people.
Speaker 1:It just rubs off on you 100.
Speaker 3:You're the, you're the like. They say, you're like the. What is it? The? Combination of five closest people you spend your time with, so it's funny.
Speaker 1:I was golfing with six people and you're not supposed to golf with six people. They don't want three carts out there. But we were betting $100 a hole and all of us were playing terrible dude hitting the ball in the woods. It was awful. And then we split up with the other three people because the marshal was like dude, we're going to kick you guys out. So we split up with the other three people and then we started playing way better dude, like birdies, pars. And then I was like dude, maybe we just needed to get away from those other three. And then my buddy was like you know what's weird? When I golf with my dad who's good I golf way better. When I golf with my dad who's good I golf way better. When I golf with my other buddy, who's terrible, I suck, I'm like dude. Maybe it is just like a standard thing of the people that you're around.
Speaker 2:I think that's also like I'm glad you brought that up Like me and Jay work good together, because like we're at trying to be better than each other and like that's the thing when you get somebody like that, it's like there is no limit, because you guys are both just trying to like outwork each other and it's impossible.
Speaker 1:Well, like, what you guys don't know is your office setup with all the different agencies that are competing with each other, is the best thing that could have happened to all of you. Oh yeah, because it drives you to compete with the other offices and you don't want to lose.
Speaker 2:yeah, but if it was, just you there, you wouldn't be as good. Yeah, you need that. Yeah, and we're in the the middle of a lock-in right now. We got a bunch of new people out and then us we had yesterday our first day there. We had 13 people close, we did 36,000. Our average agent was doing 2,700.
Speaker 2:And that's like why I like to do the lock-ins, because not only are you teaching them how to dial intentionally, but now you have that competition Like you get off a seat and you want to walk around and say hi to everyone. Everyone else is on a sit. You have no other option to go, sit back down and make more money, right? And that kind of like sets the tone for everything. And that's kind of how you grow a massive business is. Now you have 13 people competing with each other on a high level. Even today we knew we had to step out.
Speaker 2:So what do we do? We gave away $2,000 in leads. So this is what I did I had everybody who didn't sell yesterday partner up with somebody who did sell today, and then whoever's underdog whoever's underdog sells the most today gets $2,000. And then on top of that, anybody when we get back, we're going to outright everybody. Anybody who we outright has to eat that world's hottest chip challenge. Oh yeah, we did that in here. Yeah, so anybody, any group that we outright, has to eat one of those. So it's like everybody back there is working as hard as they can because the $2,000 are free leads. How many of those hot chips do you have? I didn't get any yet. I'm going to Walmart.
Speaker 3:We're going to go right now, like after this Bro, a kid ate them on the podcast.
Speaker 1:He ate one and then he fell over, Do you?
Speaker 4:You should eat one, right now.
Speaker 2:No, I'm good, I'll watch you eat one. We got a time one. That was good. I'll do it if you do no. No, he didn't do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that what you do? Yeah, no, it was good. Who's going to drive? That's hilarious, All right, so I love that dude. You got your. How can somebody work with you guys if they want to get ahold of you? Oh, you should reach out to me on Instagram.
Speaker 2:It's official. John J-O-H-N, egan, e-g-a-n, just reach out, I'll answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we have our. We have our website. I have a website for Family, First Life and then Instagram as well. What's?
Speaker 1:your Instagram.
Speaker 3:ThomasFox01. So T-H-O-M-A-S-F-O-X-0-1.
Speaker 1:And we'll put this in the description too. Sounds good.
Speaker 4:Mine's just Instagram MaxKonopka M-A-X-X-K-O-N-O-P-K-A. But yeah, I mean, I think the big thing, too is like also just getting around people. Like I think one of the biggest things that also separates us is like when we're, when we like bring on people, like we're very focused on getting people in and around an office because, like, like I was saying, sales is a copycat business. Like if you're doing exactly what I'm doing and buying the exact same lead saying what I'm saying, then you're going to get those same exact results. So I think that's one of the things that has definitely helped us go from a point, you know, where it took me to get three weeks to get my first sale, to now where we're getting new agents their sale no later than their first, their second day, because all they're doing is sitting right next to us doing the exact same things as we're doing.
Speaker 2:Also like the big thing is we. We put the money in the agents. In Tampa I was spending 20 grand a month on Airbnbs for new agents, like every single month, and also like for Thomas, for example. He came over here, his upline wasn't willing to work with him and when he would reach out to him he would just respond I outwrote you last month. It's like cool, bro, we're trying to build a business and so eventually, you know, we cut ties with him and Thomas was living in his car. In his car I like called him up. I'm like dude, like you're a hustler, you know what you're doing. Like just move in with me.
Speaker 1:Like just come here and move in he's like how much do you have one of those agent houses? No, it's my house. Tell everybody about this agent house thing. With what? With mine, or?
Speaker 2:with the other ones, with the other ones. Oh, I mean they, they get, they're good, I mean. So now it's a lot better because now everyone's got like rooms and stuff, like we do it like a little more bougie, but at first like we would have 20 people in a one bedroom like these are just kids that have like really nowhere to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that they'd all stay in one house. Like like it, it's like jersey shore or something oh way worse well it's like bad girls club.
Speaker 2:You ever seen that one?
Speaker 4:for me like I. Like I remember it was one of our first lock-ins. Like I deposited the first time, I deposited ten thousand dollars in a week at 18 years old, me and john were. We're having to sleep in the same bed, comparing, comparing our americo checks in the morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like that that was the big thing too is like I've always been vocal with how much I'm making and how much I'm not, so like we would compare every time you get a statement. You get America in the morning, you get AMM in the afternoon, you get Moo at night. We were comparing statements all the time. It was one of those things other people around you are going to catch on. But with the team houses it was actually worse than Section 8, to be honest, we would have 40, 50 people in a 3, four bedroom house and like that's kind of-.
Speaker 1:And they'd all sell together. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4:What's crazy, too, is like I remember like people see like us now and they see like oh, it might look like an overnight success, Like I remember Were you guys in these houses, yeah. I remember when I started we didn't have an office. We were working out of John's apartment. Like Jay and John, we're dialing out of their closet like a closet.
Speaker 2:In my apartment.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was the other thing we used my apartment as first and I remember that was one thing that I was always told very early on what kind of sacrifices can you make for the long term? Sometimes you do have to take a step back to take two steps forward.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing I want to go over this one more time. You got like 30, 40 dudes who want to get in sales and have no money All moving together. Right, and what's it like? What happens?
Speaker 4:Oh, we had a trash bag. Tell them about the trash bag of leads, holy cow.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so we used to print out the leads and I'd put them in like 55 gallon trash bags. I'd just hand them out. I'd go through like throwing them in the air Is there videos of this.
Speaker 1:Yes, you don't have to show me now, you can show me after.
Speaker 2:No, there's videos of everything, but I mean kind of how it works is obviously you lose a lot more people that way, living in that type of stress and things. But for me that was a proud moment. I was renting a three grand house, which was really not that nice on Airbnb, and a three grand house, which was really not that nice on Airbnb. That's more of a problem when you're doing it. It's different than when you're talking about it, because now, looking back, it's like, okay, we got an 11 bedroom house for 13 people, but back in the day it was like, yeah, now you're living large. Yeah, now it's not Six grand for three days. To stay somewhere every other week is great, I appreciate it and I'm grateful. But at the end of the day, even back then, I didn't look at it any different.
Speaker 1:Did anybody get in fights?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, my team is pretty rough.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of guys doing jiu-jitsu, a lot of guys doing MMA. We used to do two minutes. If you had a problem with somebody, it was two minutes of slap boxing or boxing.
Speaker 1:Get it out of the way.
Speaker 2:Drop the problems Boxing with gloves or slap boxing with no gloves Just when you slap them.
Speaker 3:It was funny because Did you slap anyone? Yeah, all the time, all the time. But it's funny because, going back to when we were staying in houses, even when we had an office, when I first started, we were driving seven, eight, nine people in sedans. People were in the trunk and we'd always do either A nose goes or we're slap boxing, like if somebody lost nose goes, hey, we're slap boxing. One of you guys is getting in the trunk, so I think that was pretty funny as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that also keeps up the culture. That doesn't sound very safe. Putting your top producers in the trunk.
Speaker 2:It's only for first started Top producers should have had their own car. Yeah, they had their own car. No, but I mean, it's like one of those things where you've got 40, 50 people in a house. They're all 18, you know, stressed out. I mean, throwing some hands is sometimes good, you know, and everybody's like it's not, like it's just like we're having kids fight. These people have all wrestled their whole lives. I've been in MMA, done jiu-jitsu, so they're like it's rough people, they're not.
Speaker 1:But you guys, it's not like that anymore.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's like suits and stuff. Yeah, very civilized now.
Speaker 3:So how do you do it now like if there's a problem in the office. There's no problem.
Speaker 1:I think we know it now we don't have them.
Speaker 3:We're mature adults. Yeah, we talk.
Speaker 2:Sit down conversation real quick, kind of come up with some sort of repercussion, if needed, like an actual game plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I remember one time Max was talking to this kid for like 45 minutes. I go back in there and I go, well, what's the game plan? He goes, shit, I should probably come up with one. Huh, I'm like what did you just talk about for an hour? So now it's like we kind of figured it out. It's know, slapbox is not the answer to everything, but at the end of the day it comes down to being rational and, you know, making clear-headed decisions for sure like that was.
Speaker 4:I think that was definitely like a like, a learning point, like for me, like being very young in this industry, like one of the things they say is that your level of income will never, um, will never exceed your level of personal development.
Speaker 4:So, um, that was one thing like early on, that like personally, like I wish, like I was more a part of, and that I had, that was a longer learning curve. For me was just getting involved in leadership, but not not just like reading those leadership books, watching the leadership videos, but actually implementing, like through experience, like that's one of the things is like you're going to get the development through experience and actually implementing what you're, what you're learning. And that was one of the things. Like coming very, very like coming into it very young, like in an industry where there are a lot of people, like there are going to be a lot of distractions, like there are a lot of distractions, especially when you're young and making a lot of money. So it's just about like just having the right circle and having your environment like keep you focused on the right things. That that's going to take you, take you further.
Speaker 1:That's cool. So what do you? What advice do you guys have for someone who's just getting started and they're not buying office?
Speaker 2:So, first of all, if you reach out to me, Max or Thomas will fly you out. Get you your first month's free. We get you an Airbnb, get you a couple lead packs, get you going, Whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:If I start with you, you're going to fly me out, sign the contract. You're going to get me an Airbnb for a month. You're putting in the work For a month.
Speaker 2:So you're not going to be by yourself though You're not going to be like a penthouse by yourself. There's going to there other new people there and that's what I was. Like 50 people, no, it's gonna. You're gonna have your own space. But that's what I like to say too is like you don't have to worry about travel, because now you have somebody down there with the car. That's just gonna. And if you have a car and you're close enough, like I'll pay for gas, because then it's better off to have a car anyway to go to the office. So like that's the big thing we do is like we bring them down. We have systems, we plug them into and before they even are finished onboarding. They've already watched a lot of the training videos, are familiar with the products, know what they're talking about, so they're informed, and then it's plug and play from there. You know, first day you come in sales training 8 am. After that we're script training together. From there, I'm buying you leads, we're getting on the phones together.
Speaker 1:Dude now, who would you not make that investment? For what boxes do you have to check for you to make that investment?
Speaker 4:well, I think we make the standards like very clear for that like we. We make it very clear that like, if if you're not willing to put in the work yourself, then I'm not willing to put in the work for you yeah, but like you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink with that too.
Speaker 2:like the biggest thing is like you're getting them to go to a different state for a month. If you say yes to that, that's good enough to me.
Speaker 3:Good point, I think the standard is pretty much set on the phone call, like, hey, if you're willing to put in this amount of work and you have to see the schedule, they're willing to make the hours they're willing to put in, regardless of what they have going on.
Speaker 3:Because, like I said, john put the opportunity into me where some people like other people wouldn't and it's like okay, because of the work you were willing to put in. So it's like the, the amount that or as much as you're willing to give, I'm willing to put back into you. So the the exception goes to when there's people that you talk to that aren't willing to put the work in, aren't texting you. Like if people ask questions, you know that means they're they're, they're really involved. You know. Know they want to know what's going on. They're texting you every day. You know, no matter if it gets annoying or not, like they're reaching out because they want to know what's going on. So I kind of lean towards those people because you know you want to make sure that they're they're putting they gotta have skin in the game right. You gotta have some skin in the game, you gotta have some sort of drive, dedication. I think that starts with the phone call so as well.
Speaker 2:So and and also like when you're environments, like also to set the tone. When you get down there, I come over with new agent binders the first night, Kind of set the tone, Like if you're not at the office in the morning, you're not staying at my house, Simple as that. You got to go home, yeah, and like I'll pay for your ticket home, Like I'm not, Like there was this one kid. I'm like dude, take that off. Takes them all off. And then Like completely naked anime girls, yeah, like weird stuff. And then after that he gets on Facebook and I'm like yo bro, get off reels, it's time to work. He's like I'm not where. He starts yelling at me. And then I get a text saying that he cooked a tortilla on the stovetop last night and cracked the whole stovetop at the Airbnb. How do you crack the whole stovetop with a knife, With a knife from trying to scrape the cheese off? And then, anyway, I'm like yo bro, let's go take a ride. And I just dropped him off at the airport.
Speaker 1:It's like Yellowstone. Have you seen that? No, they take him to the train station and they just disappear I'm like dude, book your ticket around the way to airport.
Speaker 4:You're leaving like I don't want anything to do with you but I think one of the things is like people don't buy the opportunity they buy you. So, like I'm just very real and like transparent about what it is. Like, hey, I put in the work, like this is what the work looks like and this is where it got me. Like, if you're willing to do this, I'm willing to work with you, but um like, if you're not, then this is where it's going to take you. I'm just real with people.
Speaker 1:So you're not scared to protect your culture.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:You're not scared of conflict.
Speaker 2:It's a team above everybody. The one thing about me is coming from the lifestyle I come from. If I think so, I'm going to say it. I'm not really worried about anything. I'm definitely going to say whatever I'm thinking's whether it's a guy wearing a shirt in the poem, like dude isn't going to the gym easier. You're wearing a shirt and a button-down shirt in the hot tub. What are you doing? You know you look weird. If you had your shirt off you wouldn't look weird. You know, and like that's the thing. That's like.
Speaker 2:One of the examples is like if you put in the work and there's a way to put in the work to fix your problem, I'm gonna tell you, not only not to be mean, but because there is a solution to the problem, you're going through Right and like, at the end of the day, it's like I'm going to put the team above anybody else and nobody's above the team, not even me. So if I start messing up, he's going to call me out. You know what I mean. Like nobody's above the team. And that's how I wanted to be from the beginning, because I was in a coma. Our team went down, nothing but my personal production. That month I was in the hospital 60 days. How long were you in a coma? For A week and a half, completely out. Yeah, sleep. Did you have any dreams? Yeah, so I was living the whole time. It's kind of weird. You see the Sopranos.
Speaker 1:No, but I need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should watch that.
Speaker 1:Drew, we were just talking about that. Did you watch? Is it good? I need to watch it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's pretty long, but I watched it after I got out of the hospital. It's that funny. But no, but one of the things was like when he I forgot how he got in a coma. But you like wake up and then everything around you is like kind of empty. It's like a ghost town and there's nothing. But the people like you could really remember. So, like you could really remember, so like I was at the office, like I stole a car, like you know, when I woke up I'm like dude, get the car out of my spot, like I was asleep the whole time. So it was like I pretty much lived the whole time like in, like Like Grand Theft Auto, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I just walked out and like, put the key in the car and now it's yours. You go to the office and you start selling. So everything, I didn't know, I was in a coma, everything was normal. And then when you come to, it's kind of weird because you're like what's real, what's not? Because you're trying to decipher now so.
Speaker 1:I mean that was pretty cool. So you got in a car crash, hit your head, got knocked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had three brain bleeds, six broken ribs, broken back, broken arm.
Speaker 1:Oh jeez, and then my lip was Show them that scar. What is that?
Speaker 3:Dude's a dead man walking, they say What'd?
Speaker 2:they do, dude, I don't know, I was asleep Do you have any they put a 12-inch metal blade in there or something.
Speaker 1:Do you have any pain from it?
Speaker 2:From this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my arm I think it was weird, but um, but kind of recovered pretty well from that. My knees still kind of messed up, but definitely a lot of injuries like my liver got lacerated, my spleen got lacerated, so a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1:How'd you crash? Uh, so I got your fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a scat pack. You know what that is? No, like a Dodge Challenger.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like pretty quick, and I was in a parking like a mall parking lot and it's like a big circle, and you did a donut. No, no, no, I love donuts, but no, I was going really. I was going like was taking the curve and the car couldn't take the curve that fast, so I hit a curb which bounced me into a boulder and then I like pretty much like split the car up and like messed me up dude, thank god you didn't hit no one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's huge. I mean that could be bad yeah yeah, or you didn't have anyone in the trunk. Yeah, there's no, yeah I guess that's good.
Speaker 3:We'll never live that down.
Speaker 1:That's wild dude. Did you have a different perspective when you woke up about life at all?
Speaker 2:No Same. So I actually told my mom you know she was calling me like an asshole and stuff and like mad at me. I was like I'm just going to buy a faster car. And then she started crying. I was like, oh shit, I shouldn't have said that. But no, so what did you buy Right now? I got the Jaguar. After that, I think, I bought like what is it? By the Chrysler next, and then I had the Corvette all last year too. Corvette.
Speaker 1:Ryan Manrique just got in a crash in his Corvette. Did you see that thing? No, some dude like swerved into him head on, dude. The car is like I mean thank God he's okay, but the car was just destroyed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there's nothing up there in the front Like the engine's in the back and stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember even like the first day John got out of the hospital. Yeah, it took me out of the hospital.
Speaker 2:Took me an hour to put my button-up shirt on because I had to wear a suit. My mom bought me a suit for my birthday and I crashed on my birthday, so I had to wear the suit.
Speaker 1:This was on your birthday, yeah, it was like 11 in the morning too. So you didn't even get your birthday party. I didn't get nothing, did you have?
Speaker 2:one. When you woke up In the hospital, yeah, they brought me a milkshake that I couldn't even drink, because I just didn't drink anything for two weeks.
Speaker 1:So your brain was swelling. Yeah, is that what was happening?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was bleeding out of three places and then swelling. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What did you hit your head on?
Speaker 2:Something hard, I don't know, I think the steering wheel no.
Speaker 1:You had no seatbelt on? No, did you go out of the?
Speaker 2:car no, not when I crashed, though. So I started to crawl out, and that's when I started bleeding a lot and fell asleep. So I called 911. My first actual initial thought was after I woke up. The first time was I'm like, should I call 911? Like, is this worth it? I was like, yeah, I'm going to call them. So I call them. Like, is this worth it? I was like, yeah, I'm going to call them. So I call them.
Speaker 2:And then I try to get out, because I couldn't get out out of the left seat and my arm was snapped in half. So I was trying to get out the passenger seat because the door wouldn't open, and then all I seen was like blood pouring on the seats. And then, like, after that, I just kind of fell asleep again and then you got out of the hospital. It took an hour to put your button up, shirt on, to go to the office yeah, because my arm didn't work, yeah. And then I walked in, I closed though everyone was calling me like the dead man walk and we had like a 2,000 square foot office. First thing I did was sit in the in the cubicles and sell a deal first call yeah, it actually was right.
Speaker 2:It was like the first or second go it was like 180.
Speaker 4:How?
Speaker 1:long after the crash was this.
Speaker 2:that was was probably like I got out of the hospital after like 47 days, so like 48 days after the crash.
Speaker 1:Damn dude, Were you tripping?
Speaker 4:No, I mean tripping. I mean, to be honest, no, but it was just like so. It was just very surreal, you know, but I feel like in that hospital we would go every day for lunch. It was like me and like four other leaders that would go every single day on lunch and like it's not like John was awake talking to us or anything like that. But I think one of the big things that like separated us like very early on, like that helped us be successful, is we just had like we just had everybody on the same page, like our leaders were on the same page, we were all on the same, all in the same mindset, all had the same vision of where we wanted to take it to, where, you know, if there was one person that say, like John was in the hospital, we all could step up and run what was good, like where he lacked.
Speaker 4:You know what I'm saying In that time. So we were always able to pick up after each other, each other, and I thought I think that's like one of the biggest things is like that's why it was so easy for us to get an office. When I was 18 years old, you were 19. Yeah, what is it. We had a bunch of 18 year olds get an office, you know, but it was very easy for us because we all did it together. When they saw, you know it was eight, you know it was five of us with all of our income combined.
Speaker 2:It was, it was a, it wasn't a problem and like I, like I said earlier, it was one of those things like I vision cast from the beginning, like opening up your own agency. I don't treat any like you know you have some agents that are like my downline my downline needs to do this Like I don't look at it like that. I look at it as a business partner who one day, potentially, will own a multimillion dollar business. And the reason I look at it like that is because originally, when I used to hire people, I wouldn't want to put money into them, I wouldn't want to do certain things because I thought they wouldn't work out. And then finally this one guy goes well, what are you going to do if you hire somebody good, and over the next 10 years they make you $400,000.
Speaker 2:I'm like you know, that's a good point Like I put bare minimum effort into these guys, Like I can't ever expect that result. So that's when I kind of shifted my mindset to like look at Max and 500, 600,000 a month. And it's like, once you switch it to that mindset, it's like now we're business partners, we're in this together. It changes from employee manager, positional leader to okay, now we're reaching the pinnacle of leadership, people are starting to follow us just because who we are, you know what I mean. So like that was the big thing as well.
Speaker 1:That's huge. So what I'm getting from it is you guys have a really tight team. You're all on the same page. You protect the culture. If someone comes in to mess the culture up, you're not scared to tell them we're not doing this. You reinvest in offices. How much do you guys each spend on offices?
Speaker 2:the one we have now is like 15 grand a month but it's legit because I was there.
Speaker 1:You guys got a soda machine in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just fired it. We actually clean it. Us three clean it now.
Speaker 1:How much?
Speaker 2:was the cleaning. Well, it was only two grand, but they were awful, they were horrible.
Speaker 1:Oh, they didn't even do a good job.
Speaker 2:And then they were trying to mess with us, saying we're in a contract, I'm like paying you guys if you don't clean anything. Then they were like, oh, you can't cancel. I sent them a video of they had 5 year olds in there taking out the trash At like 10 o'clock at night. I'm like we can't have this. It's a business you can't have just 5 year olds taking out the garbage. So we had to get rid of them. And then the next people quoted us 6 grand a month and then we just cleaned it.
Speaker 2:Now you're like we'll just clean it yeah, we'll do a better job if everybody just cleans up, it makes it a lot easier take us 15 30 30 minutes to fully mop it, sweep it every cubicle, every desk the vacuum, you put some music on, or what no, we just do like the colts.
Speaker 1:Don't stare at each other um, one other thing I want to ask about. Jay was showing me a video of one of the houses or something, and there was like a bunch of cold plunges that were like filled with ice. Were you guys at that one?
Speaker 2:I don't think so maybe that's in Montana was it the troughs?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was Montana do you guys like go to the gym together, like every day?
Speaker 2:yeah, so not every, not always every day together, but like because we all live in different spots, like I live 30 minutes from the office, so we all go to the gym every day during break or in the morning and like, even for the lock-ins the schedule was 4 30 am, everybody up, whoever's not up gets ice water on them and then wait, you guys get up everyone gets up at 4.30?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what time do they go to bed? I don't care, they know they've got to get up and they get hit with ice water.
Speaker 2:If they don't get up yeah.
Speaker 1:Is this at the Airbnb?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the best way to get. Also, you've got brand new people there.
Speaker 4:But also to be fair. We're, you know we're coming we're coming from illinois, where it's two hours yeah, it's so really 6 am is 8 am there, so 4 am is really 6 am in illinois, you know. So it's not like it's really 4 am, you know but who hits him with the ice water?
Speaker 1:oh, everybody, I try not to do it, just because I feel like it's kind of messed up if I do it, so I have Lucas.
Speaker 2:I'm like Lucas get him. That's hilarious. We videotape it too.
Speaker 1:This is at the Airbnb. Nobody's got wet yet.
Speaker 2:Usually it's only one or two people, and it's the same one or two people every day.
Speaker 1:They get hit with ice water every day.
Speaker 3:Nobody wants to get hit with ice water Like how much ice water day?
Speaker 1:nobody wants to get hit with ice water, so where is he going to get up?
Speaker 3:like how much ice water?
Speaker 2:a pot straight to the face yeah, and like last one, there was this kid who was like never getting up. So I finally did it because nobody else was doing it. So I went and poured it on him and he jumps up and he's like what the F? I was awake. I was like, dude, I stood over you with a pot of water with my phone out recording. You were not awake. What are you talking about? I was like we're leaving in one minute.
Speaker 1:Do you guys post this on the internet?
Speaker 2:No, not when I do messed up stuff like that, like the hot chip we're debating. If we should post the hot chip thing, you definitely should. I'm like dude but like yeah.
Speaker 4:I, I'm like dude but like, yeah, I think we're going to post that for sure, cause we're outwriting everybody. But yeah, I think like now, like just like setting setting standards very early on, like what we had like four closes before even 6am yeah, like we had like four people close before 6am and it's like just just seeing what you can actually do with it. Like like I don't know about you guys, but as an 18-year-old I would definitely wake up at 4 am if I could make a couple thousand in the morning.
Speaker 2:I think the big thing too is can your business operate without leadership there? Obviously, us being the main leaders. Since we're all new, I threw in an incentive of $2,000. I do $1,000, I do $500 each. They were motivated, the up-dialing at 3.30, 4 in the morning. I think one of the things is you could use incentives to motivate people to start taking those leadership roles. What I don't think people realize is, since they all paired up with an underdog, now every single person that's selling 30 grand a month, whatever a month they have to step into leadership. Now. A lot of those guys weren't recruiting but writing a lot. Now they took a step into leadership without even knowing they took a step into leadership. So that's huge.
Speaker 4:I think one of the biggest blessings too is like, even though, like sometimes, like some people might look at like starting in a different industry or company as like a negative Like, I think, like some of the things, like like we definitely took away is a lot of the leadership from it, where at first, like, we didn't necessarily have like the the leadership, necessarily have like the the leadership, but the structure of the company was so good where it just made sense, where we could take the leadership knowledge that we had and that we had, that we got, and the experience that we had where, if we plugged it into a company that had structure and that had leads, then it was just inevitable success.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, dude, speaking of that, I like I spent a year and a half at that other company and like I was all in, I was like really big into leadership and things like that and I think if I would have had the results that I had as fast at ffl, I would have never been long term in this industry. The money would have went to my head because I mean, it was my fourth month.
Speaker 1:I started making like 20 grand a month do you guys spend like eight grand on dinner and all that I've been seeing?
Speaker 2:no, I'm so profitable.
Speaker 4:I hate spending money. Yeah, that was one thing. We thing Me and John didn't go out to dinner until what Florida?
Speaker 2:Yeah it was like two years in.
Speaker 1:For our first year and a half two years, we never spent money on anything. I've seen a lot of teams go to dinner and spend like $8,000.
Speaker 2:I'd rather just give $8,000 a league credit. But one thing I do in the lock-ins is hibachi dinner. It's such a cheat code because it's like they come out to the house and everything. So I mean I'll do.
Speaker 1:I mean I will do some nice stuff, or like a taco guy or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like there was one thing in Florida I did probably once a month. So we'd go to this small taco shop and I would just pay for everyone for two hours, like whether they were on my team or just a random person walking in. It'd come out to like 800 bucks. So you're feeding like 70 people. I like to do stuff like that because one thing my dad told me was because he's a foreman now and one of their jobs is to take the team out after a project. He's like you know, the team's just as happy when you go get a case of beer and some pizza and you guys all sit around and bust each other's balls, just as happy as they are at a steak dinner. Yeah, you know what's more practical. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Cool, all right boys, good work. Excited to see what you do. If you're watching this, call these guys if you want to work with them, if you're not scared. If they didn't scare, you call them if you want to work with them. But you guys are getting big results and I love what you're doing. So thanks for coming in, thanks for sharing.
Speaker 2:Thank you for.