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Culture King: The 23-Year-Old Redefining Insurance (Ep. 235)
What happens when a struggling college student receives a misdirected Instagram DM about insurance? For Kyle Yee, it became the catalyst for an extraordinary transformation from USC economics student to the owner of a thriving insurance agency in LA's Fashion District—all by age 23.
Kyle's remarkable journey began when he answered what he thought was a message about solar consulting. That fateful connection with industry leader Jacob Gardner opened his eyes to the potential of the insurance industry. After selling just a few policies during Thanksgiving break and receiving his first commission check of $955, Kyle made the bold decision to drop out of USC and go all-in on building his business. Fast forward 18 months, and his team now issues over $400,000 in monthly premium, with ambitious plans to expand throughout Southern California.
What sets Kyle apart isn't just his rapid success but his unwavering commitment to team culture and leadership by example. While many agencies try to extract additional profits from their agents through lead markups, Kyle negotiates better deals for his entire team. His personal non-negotiable—selling at least one policy every single day without exception—has created a contagious work ethic throughout his organization. "I'm not letting any of these guys outwork me," Kyle explains, detailing his 7AM to 10PM schedule that begins with team workouts at 5:30AM.
Kyle's refreshingly straightforward advice cuts through industry noise: focus on work ethic and coachability rather than fancy tools or shortcuts. He's never used an auto-dialer, preferring manual calls to stay fully present during conversations. As he puts it, "It's not a very hard business. It's just how hard are you actually willing to work?" This mindset has helped his team members achieve consistent success by focusing on activity metrics (300-500 dials daily) rather than chasing the latest industry trend.
Hello everybody. Andrew Taylor, here we have Kyle Yee with us today. Thanks for coming in, my man, thanks for having me. For those of you who don't know him, how old are you? I just turned 23. 23 years old. You did your grand opening in LA. Your office is in the Fashion District, which is super cool, like tell everybody about that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for those of you who don't know downtown LA that well, so the fashion district's kind of like a little bit outskirts of where the you know high rises and whatnot are in downtown LA. So it's pretty close to like all the high rises but it's just a little bit outside of it. The fashion district itself is it's an interesting area where you have a lot of people um, that will sell your off brand. Uh, you know, designer suitcases, suits oh yeah, 99 for three suits. Um, you know you can get about any food you'd want in the world for pretty cheap out there. So I mean, it's a it's a different world it's cool man, it is cool yeah yeah, it's different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like another country.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, if you've been to like europe, like the black market, like places in europe um, that's exactly what I compare it to do you have suits from there.
Speaker 1:No dude, I want to rock those I would.
Speaker 2:We might have to wear one. You might have to try it, yeah yeah, I'll go get three.
Speaker 1:Do they fit them there?
Speaker 2:I believe so yeah, yeah, I think so that's crazy.
Speaker 1:I would totally do that. Watch.
Speaker 2:I look better than everybody I mean they might be good suits. I haven't worn one personally yet, but maybe I'll have to get one. Maybe you'll see me at a convention or something. One of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll go with you perfect, we should do a suit day down there, let's do it, we'll get jacob in there as well. Yeah, okay. So you did your grand opening and you did it at the Four Seasons Penthouse Suite. You had fire dancers there. You had a DJ. I was trying to recruit the DJ Do you know him Somewhat.
Speaker 2:He's a pretty big DJ. He's like 1.5 million on Instagram.
Speaker 1:I was talking to him. I got his number. We got to close him, dude. Oh, we can make that happen. Yeah, we'll follow up on that. But great event, how much did you spend on your grand opening?
Speaker 2:It came out to like $43,000.
Speaker 1:$43,000,. Grand opening, letting everybody know what you're doing. Yep, you had a few hundred young, young kids that were just I mean, not young kids, adults that were fired up about life insurance. Tell everybody what you're doing and also just to kind of highlight, if you're in LA, you should hit, you should hit a, you should hit them up and talk about coming and seeing your office, cause you guys can expand that thing, right, yeah, we can. And, dude, there's like how many millions of people there?
Speaker 2:uh, eight million people in la county alone yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's so many people we can help, so tell everybody you, you were in usc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whole story yeah, um, like, even like previous, yeah, yeah, okay, um, yeah. So I mean usc, ironically, is like my dream school. Um, you, you know, I always wanted to go there. I wasn't the smartest kid in high school, but I always want to go USC. So finally got into USC. Um, first year at USC I actually did solar. Um, I didn't get an internship. I mean, I was, I was, I barely got into USC let's just put it that way. Um, but I, I did okay, but I didn't get an internship. So I ended up doing solar.
Speaker 2:I saw the guy who's actually joining us now. Ironically, he was at the July 25th event that we just spoke about, but I saw what he was doing and I did solar actually that first summer and that's where I got started. That's the first time I ever did anything in sales. So did that, did really well, wanted to drop out. Then, actually, parents didn't want me to drop out, so I had to go back to school and then did a corporate internship the next summer in investment banking, hated it.
Speaker 2:Then that summer I got a text from Jacob Gardner or an Instagram DM, and this is an interesting story as well. Instagram DM was actually not about insurance. His recruiter had sent the wrong message. It was actually for a solar consulting job Because the recruiter works for two different people Crazy. So it was completely wrong and I would have never answered a DM about insurance. Just being transparent, I just had no interest at that time about insurance and I got why did I not have interest? Yeah, at that time I just didn't understand the lucrativity potential of it. It just looked dumb to you. It looked like something that you know, not people my age would ever do and it looked like something that, like you, kind of just do for like a mediocre life. Like that was my general, you know, transparently, that was my general perception of insurance at that time.
Speaker 1:Right, Thank God.
Speaker 2:No, no, not $70 million. Penthouse, fire, dancers, ice sculptures, djs, 250 people, all white party, uh, with people in there making eight, nine figures. You know it not at all. My perception Right, Um, it was.
Speaker 2:It just didn't sound appealing to me at that time. Luckily, I did get on the phone, uh, with jacob, and he's like what the heck, are you talking about solar consulting? Like no, we're in insurance. And I was like I was about to cut him off. I was like, oh, no, I'm not interested. But he kind of hooked me a little bit. He's like, oh, like this is you know what we do. He kind of started telling me about, like the commissions, the money, and I'm like, okay, you know, now we're having an interesting conversation here and the virtual element. And he just talked about the scalability. And that's what got me, because I had started a couple startups at USC and all I know about startups and business at that point is how big can you scale? Right, it's like you find a market, but how large can you scale in that market? And he talked about the scalability of insurance, obviously the way you actually build a business, and insurance as well, and that really was enticing to me. So I obviously didn't know what I was getting myself into.
Speaker 2:I had no relationship with Jacob. This is a cold DM. He's some guy that lives in Chico. That's all I know at this point. That lives in Chico, that's all I know at this point. And I um, I took a limb on it. So later this fall I'm in my junior year at USC, I uh get my license and this is about November and I remember I go home. I finally had my license. I go home for Thanksgiving break. I sell a policy in like it took me a couple of days but I sold a policy policy. I think it was like two days in three days into Thanksgiving break. And I remember the Friday I got back to school, I got my check and I sold three policies after that like three more days. So I did like pretty decent for my first week. I got a check from prosperity the next Friday because you get paid quick on like solar. I got a check from prosperity next Friday for 955 bucks and I dropped out of college that day you dropped out of usc.
Speaker 2:Dropped out usc for 955 bucks uh, yeah, and there, yeah, I mean there's a little story behind that. I mean, I had to pay for a bit of my tuition, so I was extremely broke at the time, um, and I really wanted an avenue that you know could either get out of college or pay the tuition. What were you going to college for?
Speaker 1:Economics Interesting. All right, I gotta ask this because I went to college for like a year and I dropped out and I was supposed to go back, but then I basically went all in on life insurance, like that's all I've done. Yeah, like my 100% focus on business and work has been in this industry. Yeah, but I'm always like man, I wonder what would have happened if I went to college. Yeah, so what was it like at college, especially USC?
Speaker 2:Uh, I mean, college is cool. I mean it's uh, um, I mean, I had. I mean, if you go to USC, you're going to have an interesting experience, no matter what. I mean you're in the heart of LA with just scenes everywhere. It's not a college town, right. You're not in Ann Arbor, michigan, where the only thing there is the college town. There's the biggest nightclubs in the world. There's the craziest Hollywood Hills parties in the world. There's every influencer in the world. There's every celebrity in the world. You go to dinner at Nobu. You're going to walk into Bezos. You're going to walk in. You're going to run into, like the craziest people right.
Speaker 1:So your network is crazy and that's the place to network.
Speaker 2:That's a great place to network, Um, absolutely. And USC is a great place to network. So if you want my general, honest um opinion on college I'm not, I mean, I dropped out so like I'm not a big advocate I mean I think that, like, there's some value for sure, in the education side, but I think the value really lies in the network side. And the way I think about it is like how did Jacob Gardner find me? He found me on a entrepreneurship fraternity page through USC, right, Obviously-. How did he know to do that? I was a recruiter, that's smart yeah, did he know to do that.
Speaker 1:I was a recruiter. That's smart yeah.
Speaker 2:But that's how he found me right. It was an entrepreneurship fraternity page because I was in the biggest entrepreneurship fraternity at USC as well, and that's how he found me. And obviously I have an extensive network outside of just our cold DM, you know, like that. But I think there's a lot of value in that side of things, not as much on the education side that's huge yeah were you in you were in a fraternity.
Speaker 2:I wasn't actually. Well, I was in the entrepreneurship one, but I wasn't in like a, a bigger scale fraternity. Um, we had a, a company that ran a lot of the fraternity um events and stuff. So we would get paid. So I mean, I was at the events, of course, but we were on the other side of things where we were getting paid. Uh, it was me, another usc guy and a ucla guy. We started a company where we, um, you got paid for basically the production, because we I mean usc is different. They, I mean the parties there, like they are 45 000, like that is a regular party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so cool we're working with a massive budget and obviously you know we'll take out a cut of that because I was broke, I didn't have, I didn't. I mean that's why I wasn't in a fraternity. I didn't have money to be in a fraternity. Usc fraternity is 3500 semester. I had like a thousand dollars in my bank account and my parents, sure as hell, weren't paying for me to be in a fraternity. So, uh, you know, I took the opposite approach.
Speaker 1:Like what do you do if you get an economics degree degree, though? Like what do you do after?
Speaker 2:Um, most people investment banking. It's a really common profession after, uh, usc. So investment banking, some kind of financial I mean, like I said, I did it, I hated it, it just wasn't for me.
Speaker 1:But it's funny though, cause now you do annuities and you do IULs and you do life insurance and it's like it's kind of up your alley if you're yeah, if that's what you were doing.
Speaker 2:I mean, end of the day, right, I think sales is is kind of sales, you know, at the end of the day, like we're selling a product, um, and the product does enhance obviously some of those skill sets. But I don't think you need any kind of background necessarily, um, in economics to work with any of these products. Maybe it helps me a little bit, but I don't think it's like, uh, necessarily like if, if someone's new and they're like, oh, like, do you have to have like some kind of crazy degree? Do you have to have like this, this, this, this qualification? No, it's just a work ethic and you're coachable. That's all I tell everybody every recruiting call I've ever been on work, work ethic and you're coachable and you'll be good, you know so because, like dude, I think you could take over southern california.
Speaker 1:I obviously we can recruit everywhere, but I think you could take over Southern California. I mean that's that's the envisionment right now. Yeah, and if somebody's watching like, and they want to join your team, what does that look like? What's your plans?
Speaker 2:So our plans right now? So obviously we just opened the office in downtown, but, um, our plans right now, um, in terms of, like, expansion. So we are obviously onboarding a massive solar team right now. We have another massive team coming on from the Anaheim area, the solar teams out in Rancho. I ultimately would love to have an Orange County or a Inland Empire office in the next six months and then maybe even a San Diego one there in the future.
Speaker 2:So you're right, I mean the plan is to take over all of Southern California, but I don't, I mean I got in this business because of scale, even beyond just one state, one area. Yeah, like Boca Raton, we got a guy out there right now who's just building a. He just recruited an entire health team because, obviously, health, they don't get paid. I don't even know why you would get health insurance after if you know about life insurance, I have no idea why I'd ever get in health after hearing, like, how they get paid. So he converted this entire office 30 guys, um, they're all getting licensed right now and they're all you know converting this office to a life office right now. So I, um, I like to be all, I like to be all over and I like to um, I'm still extremely involved with every single one of our teams, but I don't like to just keep it necessarily just one area. I like to have that involvement. If I need to get a place in Florida, I'll do it.
Speaker 1:There's no limitations. No limitations whatsoever. So I grew up in Victorville. Do you know where that is?
Speaker 2:I do. That's where I did Solar. Oh is it yes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a little town in between between. It's like 80 miles from la um, I always tell people it's where the hills the movie the hills has eyes was filmed. Have you seen that movie? No, oh, you haven't. It's like this scary thing about these dudes that live in the hills. But basically what it's saying is it's the middle of nowhere. Um, did you do good in solar there? Yeah, dude, it's a good little spot. Yeah, like, yes, yeah, it's a good spot. Um, but yeah, dude, that was our home base and then we just would. If we found someone who was really good all over the country, we would just help them open up an office or recruit or all these different things. Yeah, um, but yeah, if you're, if you're on this call, give them a call. How can they reach you?
Speaker 2:um. Best way to reach out would be um either social media, so my instagram, my twitter, all the same thing it's um at the kyle yee or you can just text me.
Speaker 1:Phone number is 925-336-4304 now, did you look at other companies or did you just jump into ffl?
Speaker 2:I had no idea what this space looked like. I just heard about f. I mean, I didn't even know, didn't even know, I don't even think. Jacob told me it was FFL, to be honest. But it's more about it's like the same way you sell a client, right, you're selling, obviously, the feelings of it rather than just selling the product, right, he didn't sell me FFL, the brand. He sold me on what FFL does for you, what know what, that feeling you know you can accomplish here is so, um, I didn't know about any of these other companies and thank God I got with FFL first and didn't have to do like a whole transition, because I know I'm in the right space here, especially just over the last year, hearing some of the stories and stuff that's happened, um, and seeing it firsthand as well, Um, but no, I, I, I probably been been reached out. I mean, I know I've been reached out to by a million different companies, but I made the right move.
Speaker 1:What have you? Why do you say you've made the right move?
Speaker 2:For me, it is the structure and leadership and mentorship of FFL, right? No, I mean, end of the day. I'm a huge believer in culture over compensation, end of the day. I'm a huge believer in culture over compensation. Uh, that's like for me, anyone in sales if you don't have a culture with your team, you don't have a team, I know. So if you're like you know, there can be a guy that can offer me a 150 like compensation or something off the charts right now and I would decline in a heartbeat just because it's the culture that's going to matter. You'll make way more money if you have a culture. Businessmen understand that.
Speaker 1:In my opinion if you're a true businessman, you understand that long term you win way bigger, exactly you win short term. You win, but you really lose.
Speaker 2:It's a trick it is a trick. And on top of that, the other trick is this right, you have, ffl has the bonuses. Yeah, right, these guys offer you these, these comps, and half the time they're like offering you a comp, that's a one, 30, and then you get paid one, oh, five of America, you know. So it's like way below anyway, but they don't bonuses. Right, bonuses are here for longevity. Business owners.
Speaker 1:It's more like a I like to call it profit sharing, because it's actually just a percentage of the annual premium that Family First Life does as a whole, and it's a significant number. Now Like it's a lot. Oh yeah, have you had guys get producer bonuses or agency bonuses?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say we have probably about 10, 15, about 10 guys get producer bonuses every month and it's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is what. This is what I've been telling people. Like what you're talking about is how we built the company. Like I would never go do something behind the company's back for a shortcut, to make a little bit of extra money. Yeah, it was all like, dude, we're doing this together. We're either making it big together or we're gonna fail big time together. Yep, but at least we have the culture of that team and that's actually funner than making money by yourself. 100 like it's actually probably part of the meaning of life.
Speaker 1:Like you got to have a team, be all in, have your teams back, um, dude. The other crazy thing is this kid called me last, last night. He goes hey, um, I want to leave to come to you, but I only want to get a couple contracts because I like my team. I'm on now and I was like bro, stay with your team. Dude. Like what are you doing? Like you just want them to get a couple contracts behind their back and you're already doing good, and you like them, write it out with your team wherever you are, stick with them, and that's how you build big teams. So, like, what you're talking about is legit. If you're getting in the industry, I would call him. I call you because you have something special Like a lot of people don't have that. Yeah, you know. Now here's a good question How'd you build that?
Speaker 2:The culture, or, like my mindset, no, the culture, um, so the culture a lot of it just stems from. So I played sports and you know, my whole life I played basketball, I played baseball, I played soccer I mostly played soccer, though when I got to high school, um, I was typically um the captain on most of my well, actually all my high school soccer teams. I was the captain, um, and you know, big thing for me was, yeah, we, we had a team. So when I was, uh, a freshman, I want to say, in high school, we had an age group split, um, and I basically got split to younger group because I'm super young for my grade. I got split to younger group with pretty much a team I had never, um, you know, played with before, because the team I was on we were state premier level, which is the highest level before academy in california, um, and I got cut to this, you know, team because my age that, I think, was like bronze, which is like the lowest I think there's a little bit lower of a level, but it was like a super low level. Anyways, you know, I knew the culture we kind of had from that sport and the team that we had built there. I wanted to keep that going. I wasn't going to just like, let sack, you know, jeopardize like I'm here, I might as well be the best. And you know, we kind of built that team up. I was obviously a captain of it and you know I had, you know, really strong other leaders with me as well on that team and we kind of built that team up and we eventually made it to our junior year. We were back. We went from a bronze team to like the state premier finals for the entire state.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think it's just a matter of you know, you having a, you having a solid group of guys, that you get on a very similar vision, um, that you bring a winning mentality to and you obviously are constantly instilling that Like we have the same goals. And a lot of times we'll do meetings of our guys Like what are your goals here? Like what do you actually want to do? Because accountability is the biggest thing in this business. You know, what do you want to do here? It's the same thing I did in soccer and all these sports I played. It was like what do we want to do? What's our goal? This season? We'd have a team meeting before the season would start Like what the heck do we want to do? Right? So we're all on the same page. So when practice comes around, right, we were ready to rock and roll.
Speaker 2:So for me in this business and any business really it's like, when you come in, what are your goals here? Do you want to make 30,000 a month? Do you want to make 50,000 a month? Like, what do you want to do here? Right, and at this point we have the blueprints, right, I don't even just have the blueprints. There's so many people that have the blueprints, right. It's not even just like it's me, right. That's what keeps our people really in line is that they know what's possible. Because we just keep growing. Because, as long as you just keep that work ethic and that coachability, that's the one thing that's never changed about me is, I've always stayed coachable. I still call Jay Mask, I still call Jacob Gardner. I'm always asking for help. I don't care that we're a half a million a month, right, I'm always asking for help.
Speaker 1:Cause I know you're already doing a half a million a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so next? Well, we did 400,000, but we projected we just did 200,000.
Speaker 1:How long you been doing this year and a half, that's legit dude or no, check out this, dude.
Speaker 1:This is crazy, and the reason I'm sharing this is because, like, what took people 10 years to do or five years to do, you're doing in a year and a half, which means, like, the industry is getting better. Yeah, and maybe you're just that good too, like, but that's powerful dude. So if he could pull this up, dude, my first year with ffl was my sixth year in the industry. Okay, and we were doing. We issued that year roughly 80 000 a month. Think about that. I'm 24 years old. We did 80 000 a month. Think about that. I'm 24 years old. We did 80,000 a month with FFL as a team. Yeah, but wait till you see this. If he can pull it up, boom Drew, can you put it on the main screen? You're the man, bro, if you guys are watching this. This is our agency's growth. You can make it a little bigger. So check this out 2014,. Dude. I'm six years in. I start with FFL the first year. Our team issues $1 million a month in premium 2015,. We do 2.3 million. No, 1.1 million a year. 1 million a year 2015, we do 2.3 million for the year. So we're still smaller than you are now. Dude, fast forward to 2017, we do 5.3 million for the year. We're still smaller technically than you are now. You're going to beat that this year.
Speaker 1:2018, we doubled. We went to 9.7 million of issue paid premium and, for anybody watching, the reason I love this industry is because I think a hundred, a hundred to 150 agents will get you a million a month in premium, roughly now, nothing's guaranteed. This is just my opinion off of things I've seen. So, like, for everybody watching, you can't go. You said, if I have this, we'll do this much premium because I don't know what you guys individually will do. But, um, check this out, though, dude. So 2019, we did. We're basically doing 2 million a a month. 2021 hits dude. We go to $179 million of paid premium. Crazy. Now why, though? Why do you think that is COVID? Yeah, covid. What did COVID do, though?
Speaker 2:I think it's been preached a couple times by you and I fully agree. The industry was really reborn like five years ago, right? I mean, if you think about it, like people had to obviously call leads, go drive out, but now it's all virtual Dude so good, changed everything.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think about my team. I literally think all the time. I'm like how many of these people would actually go, drive out and go do? Probably not that many, right? How many people will come to an office or work from home and do this? I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't, right? Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Drew, pull that back up for me, all right, so check this out 20. Now, I also think COVID scared the crap out of people, like everybody thought they were gonna die, like so, and unfortunately, some people did die. And what that did is it kind of? For me, it was like, oh, dude, something could happen to me. I got more life insurance during covid, yeah, um, and a lot of people were calling and they're like leads. All of a sudden were sales. They're like, yeah, I filled this out, I want this right now, yeah, so that was one thing. It kind of. It kind of made it more urgent to get life insurance for people during that time, yeah, but then it opened up the virtual world and then check this out, dude 2021, 175 million, 2022, 109 these are this is what we've estimated we've issued in these individual years as a team 2024, $215 million and 2025 projected.
Speaker 1:We've done 164 so far. We're projecting $302 million to issue pay. And the beautiful thing, dude, is like what you see, we did in five, five, really 10 years. Dude, like it took me 10 years to get to where you're at right now. Think about that because I started 2014. It was my sixth year in the industry. That's crazy, dude. Yeah, so you did it 10 times faster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's tribute to the system though that have been built, like you know, before.
Speaker 1:That's nuts, though, man, so what?
Speaker 2:is your day-to-day look like for your guys. So we have like a 90-day expectation that we give all of our guys. So if you're you're full time, it's 8am to 8pm. That's, that's the expectation. This is a business, not a job, you know. So I'm not going to try and pitch you that. But you're doing 8am to 8pm. No, I'm doing 7am to 10pm. Oh, let's go. Yeah, no, I, I, I'm not letting any of these guys outwork me. That's the key, right?
Speaker 2:People ask me all the time like, oh, you stopped producing, right? No, I'm top producer, still on the team. You're still producing, still producing at the top too. Like, I'm never going to let that, you know, stand in my way.
Speaker 2:You know that's something I hold and I pride myself on is I'm going to outwork everyone because at the end of the day, these people you know, maybe that's where our culture comes from is they're going to follow your habits, right? Like, if you're leading someone same thing of soccer I was always the first one there on time. I was the last one to leave. Yeah, I'm first one in the office, last one to leave the office. You know, it's like those habits people are going to follow. Look at Luke right Now that guy actually might even get there before me just because he goes. He leaves his stuff at the office before we meet at the gym. But it's those habits that your team is going to like follow, so I will forever pride myself on that, you know, and that's where our culture might. Maybe that's to answer the question earlier. Maybe that's where it comes from.
Speaker 1:That's legit dude To answer the question earlier. Maybe that's where it comes from. That's legit dude. Now, what are some sales tips you can give people? How long did it take you to get good at sales?
Speaker 2:Like here, it didn't take me terribly long. I mean, we're in a lead-based industry, so if you have a work ethic and you're coachable, I mean anyone can be good here. But in terms of tips, I mean I could probably give you every objection handle in the world. But I think the more beneficial tip I could give is just like have a non-negotiable when you come into this business. That's why we talk about our goals and our structure so much. My goal when I started this year it's not even really a goal. That's a lie, it's a non-negotiable.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:You got to get rid of goal. Yeah, it's a non-negotiable for me is a sale a day, like absolutely no matter what. So you know, for example, there was a day in March when we were traveling from Florida to Mississippi, to New Orleans, to California in the same day, but I haven't missed a day this entire year. I'm sick, whatever the heck happened to me, I haven't missed Right and I'm not going to let it be today, right. So I had to wake up at 5 am, call through all of my East Coast leads and dial through all those super early morning because I was going to get that sale Right. So for me, it doesn't matter what's going on in life, it doesn't matter what happens to me, it doesn't matter what. You know when I was in school, what assignment I was given. It's a non-negotiable. And the biggest piece of sales advice is that you have that and it's not something that you know.
Speaker 2:Something pops up on a Friday and it's like you know what, screw it. You know we, we can let that slide, you know. That's why it's a goal. You know it's not a goal, it's a non-negotiable for me. So we come up with our non-negotiables pretty early on, right? And going back to my point earlier. It's like on a Friday night, if you're cold the whole morning, the whole afternoon. It's like when you have a non-negotiable. It doesn't matter what you know Steve calls you about. It doesn't matter what anyone calls you about, it's a non-negotiable. You're riding the night out, whether it's 11 pm and we're down in Hawaii or whatever it has to be, it's a non-negotiable you stick with. And that, to me, is the definition of culture. It's the definition of how you build a business. It's the definition of how you get people to be inspired by you, because it's like this guy doesn't miss Right.
Speaker 1:And he doesn't stop and never stops. It's not that he doesn't miss, because you probably have no sales, but you don't stop. Yeah Right, never. Dude, I used to call this I like what you're talking about, because I used to have a goal and then I used to have what I called a drop dead goal. Yeah, and they were different. So my drop dead goal every week was 5K. Yeah, like no matter what. Yeah, like I'm not going home, like Sunday night I will door knock people's houses because I didn't get it Exactly, but my goal was 10. And then I would have activity tied to it. So it'd be like these are the activities I'm going to do to make sure I hit my drop dead goal. So what I started to do is. It's funny, because is it Luke that lives in Huntington?
Speaker 2:Luke lives in Huntington hey he's a stud, stud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I talked to him for five minutes. I'm like this guy's an animal. I love that guy. What a good dude. Yep, but he was like I like to get my sale out of the way really early at like seven in the morning, and then the rest of my day is really good and it takes all the pressure off. Yep, and I and what I was telling him is I was like, dude, I used to get my sale for the week on Sunday night. That way, monday morning I already had that done. Like all the pressure was off for the entire week. Yeah, and dude, that's powerful If you start early. Yep, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I totally, I totally agree. I mean that's that mindset is exactly. You know what we have it's like. Why I show up earlier is because I know that that pressure gets relieved because, to be honest, if you make a sale before 9 am I'm sure you probably agree with this your day's gonna be insane.
Speaker 1:Oh dude, it's gonna be insane now, if you go to the gym and make a sale before 9 am like get out of here bro yep, best feeling in the whole world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before 9 am you get a sale. I mean, I don't think I've ever had a day where I sold something before 9 am where I didn't sell less than four. You know, like I don't think there's really even been a day, because you just knock it out and it's like you're right, the pressure gets relieved, especially when it's a non-negotiable. Because at this point there was one day where I had the day before the office opening and I was all over the place and my team, by 6 pm, was blowing up my phone. They're like no way, no way, the streak ends. They're like, no, did you not get a sale today? They all know, oh, what Did you get one? So that day I ended up um, I ended up closing. I actually went back and called a lady back and got her bank account and closed to keep it going like it was like that's what I mean. It's just like you'll do anything what about on christmas?
Speaker 2:so I started this january 1st and all and I will be transparent like convention and jacob and caitlin's wedding were the two days that I had set off that I would like I had already marked those out on my calendar, though you know those days were already kind of marked out.
Speaker 1:You should try to do Christmas.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. I mean, I didn't mark it off of my calendar, so you know, at this point it's in the calendar, so it's at this point it's non-negotiable, you would think Christmas, like you can't sell.
Speaker 1:But I read somewhere that holidays could be super lonely for a lot of people and it might be a freaking blessing to help them on that day For sure, you know, yeah. So I was always similar to you. Like, if it was Thanksgiving I still hit my numbers. If it was Christmas, I would work around that day to still hit my numbers. Like it just wasn't on a daily basis, it was on a weekly basis, yeah, but same thing, dude. It was just like non-negotiable, not a goal non-negotiable. If you're watching this, what's your non-negotiable? What if they're not getting results? Which could their non-negotiable be? Activity?
Speaker 1:uh like external activity, like personal development no, like activity and like I'm gonna call this many people or like could they do that to start now? Like let's say they go, dude, I can't get a sale a day. They don't believe they can.
Speaker 2:Well, I would disagree. I think anyone can get a sale a day. But so we have a 90-day expectation guide and in it, right, there's obviously certain metrics for, like a new agent, right? Actually, not one of them, unless they. That's why I talk to each person individually about their goals and I see where they, what they want out of this, because this opportunity is for anybody.
Speaker 2:You can do it part-time. Don't recommend it, but you know there's workarounds and ways that anyone can really work in this business, but that's why I have those calls. But for a new agent that's, you know, if they're following our expectation guide, the activity is 300 dials a day minimum. So they're hitting 150 leads a day minimum and that's the minimum. My expectation is 500, right, if you are not getting a sale day, there's no way you should not be doing 500 dials a day, or you're just not working hard enough, and I'm not talking about you know. So nowadays I don't know if you've seen this like the ready modes and like some of those, the dialing softwares that dial like three, four leads at once, five leads, six seven leads.
Speaker 1:You got to be careful with cause the opt-in language has to be correct or someone could get in big trouble.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, like I'm not talking about those kinds of dials, anyway, I'm talking about cold hard You're actually putting in the reps. I personally, I'll tell you this I have never used a single dialing software, dude please listen to this if you're watching this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people spend five years looking for a dialer and they don't actually call anybody. Never have used one.
Speaker 2:I dial my personal. I'll use Ringy's the only thing I use, but I don't even use it for text trips. I use it for text trips, I use it for phone numbers, uh, but most of it's done in my personal number you just call from your cell phone, correct dude.
Speaker 1:I love that, bro, yeah and it's funny.
Speaker 2:I was just talking to monserrat, right, because monserrat is, uh, she's a beast. She's like you. Yeah, she's a girl version of you. She's a beast. Um, she's hall of fame before me, so she's. She's even better than me at this point in terms of personal production right now for the year, but it's funny, I went in there and I go no way, because guess what she's doing.
Speaker 1:Manually. Dude, I saw the same thing and you dial and then it's like dude. I got these people calling me and they're like I can't do anything because I don't have my dialer. And I'm like dude, please stop. Yeah, ridiculous, ridiculous. I have one dude who's made five different GHLs with dialers and, um, dude, it's crazy. Now do you care where your agents buy leads or what do they? What do they use?
Speaker 2:Um, in terms of like care, if they're seeing results with a certain lead vendor, why? Why would I care? Care, right, I have no incentive for any. I mean, I guess discounts, you know? I mean, I'm a businessman at the end of the day. Yeah, I'll shake a few hands, I'll make something happen for our team, but you want it to be better for them. Yeah, I never take percentages. I know some people that will white label out leads.
Speaker 1:They'll try and sell them to their team Dude that's getting so common, Giving the lead cost up and hurting the agent.
Speaker 2:You know what we do. We make deals that will bring you this much volume. You drop us the lead prices this much down, because I'm here for and that's in my opinion that's a longer term play than you trying to white label out a few leads and you're selling $50 leads that cost $30. You're making a $20 spread on these leads and you're trying to earn spreads here.
Speaker 1:It's short term dude.
Speaker 2:Short term Because these leads and you're trying to, you know, earn spreads here. It's short term, dude. Short term because they're not gonna be. I mean, maybe they will be profitable, but they're also like. I mean, if you're an agent, you start to figure like why am I paying 50 for this lead that you know is typically costing this?
Speaker 1:and then you lose yeah you lose loyalty.
Speaker 2:You know, like our guys know, that I'm going to negotiate for us. You know deals. I have a deal with one of our vendors that's a lifetime deal. It is literally in a contract that says we will be at this price no matter what, no matter how much the lead skyrocket. No, how much? I mean if they go down, whatever. But they don't really. You know the business. They don't go down.
Speaker 1:I mean it's inflation they don't go down, it's inflation and nothing goes down.
Speaker 2:Your chipotle order is never going down.
Speaker 1:chipotle is expensiveotle is expensive. I love it though. Yeah, dude, I took my kids and wife and I'm like how did I spend like $80 at Chipotle? That's it nowadays Like a couple kids' quesadillas and like, yeah, dude, that's why people need this opportunity.
Speaker 2:To afford Chipotle. Yeah, I agree, yeah, I agree, we've door-dashed Chipotle every single day at the Airbnb. There's like eight different Chipotle bags laying out right now inside of our Airbnb right now. But yeah, in terms of leads, I obviously you know I will work hard to get the leads down. I'll never take a spread on the leads.
Speaker 1:Because, dude, I'm trying to teach people, like, if you try to spend your time building a dialer and a lead system that's going to always change, you're missing out on the opportunity to build a huge business with people and, like, that's always going to change anyways, there's going to be a new hot thing. But if you could, if you could get a few hundred people that have what you, what you have, which is you teach them hard work and this culture that you have, dude, no one will be able to keep up with you because they're trying to get the. Can I make money some other way off this person, which it's kind of sad that the industry's turned into that. Like, everywhere you go, dude, someone's trying to pitch you. Some give me $2,000 to do this. It's crazy, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's people that look for like the easy way out and it's like get-rich-quick schemes, right, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it's a. Who is it? I think it was John Panetta.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He was on our Zoom call and he's like it's a get-rich-guaranteed scheme but it's a get-rich-guaranteed scheme, but it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. Yeah, but you just can't say it's get-rich-guaranteed because so many people fail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you kind of follow the systems, though, it's really hard.
Speaker 2:The likelihood is there. The likelihood is there. It's like if you follow the systems and you put in the work, I've never I mean, I'll put it to you like this, like I've never had anybody, anybody that's followed our system forbatum and you, you know, if you're talking to luke later, ask him about this there's nobody on our team that's ever followed our system forbatum, that's ever fallen out of the business. That doesn't. I mean I'm not sure I want to say how much they make, and probably shouldn't anyway, but they make. You know what they talked about.
Speaker 1:They wanted to make, if not more who followed the system, but I've had thousands of people quit for I don't know the reasons why and fail, and I've had people lose money buying leads. They didn't convert sales like. I always want to tell people that, because that's the truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah it is. I mean any commission-based sales job is going to have turnover.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like people have gotten started, got leads, whether they called them or not, were not successful at some point For sure. Why do you think that is? If you were to guess? Because we don't know. But why do you think it is?
Speaker 2:Just for, like, a general agent. Yeah, For a general agent. It's for me, me like. One thing I preach a lot to the guys is is being sharp on the phones. So a lot of these guys they'll come in and they'll sit there and say they dialed 100 leads, but they'll be scrolling a tiktok, they'll be doing something else. So when this, this lead answers, uh, they're slow to respond. They're like trying to catch up with their script. They're like, oh shoot, you know and they kind of are, like, you know, thrown off guard that the lead even answered and that obviously reflects a lot on the client.
Speaker 2:So I would say for a lot of people that you know, follow this business, because it's not a very hard business. It's just, you know, how hard are you actually willing to work? Are you willing to hit those non-negotiables? And then, when you have a non-negotiable in the back of your head, it's like the work that you're doing is actually going to be, you know, sharp. You're going to be confident on the phones. You're going to be doing this. You know you're not going to be messing around on TikTok or doing all these other things that you know I think need to get 300. But they're, like you know half-assed dialing Dude. You know it's so funny.
Speaker 1:Dude like, you're literally speaking like this is the truth right here. When I was new I was calling and scrolling Facebook. That's what I'm saying, you know. And someone answered and I said the person's, the girl's. I was like 20 years old. I said the girl's name whose profile. I was like ooh, who's this girl? It was like Mary or something. And the customer said hello and I was like hey, mary. And they were like Mary, this isn't Mary, this is Susie and hangs up on me Wrong number.
Speaker 1:But if I would have actually been paying attention then I would have probably sold a policy dude, probably would. But check it out. My, the dude that was teaching me this business at the time goes yo, put your phone because I was calling on a regular phone. Like, put your cell phone in the safe because it's a distraction and put it where your guns are because you're shooting yourself in the foot. That's good by having it there as a distraction. I'm like yo, this dude's right. And even now, dude, this cell phone is so addicting, dude, like, if you look at your screen time and what you could do, it's absolutely insane. What could you do work-wise if you weren't scrolling?
Speaker 2:I mean, we put it to the test. We actually had. I mean, I told all of my guys, we're, you know, let's delete TikTok. You know, obviously I'm not making them, but like we had a meeting literally one day because I was like I noticed that we had a lock-in in Pensacola, florida, and you know, there was exponentially different results between some guys. Some other guys, right, dude, so what other guys, right, dude? So what we did after that lock-in is we all deleted tiktok, right, and it for some guys that actually kind of were like you know, like, okay, let me take this serious. There was a bunch of guys that crushed at this lock-in. What were their habits? What were they doing differently? Well, they weren't messing around first off, you know, in the common areas, but they also were sharp on the phones and all it took was them being focused. They're looking at their lead sheet, they're calling them and as soon as they answer, they're like who's this? Yeah, hey, mary, you know not. Versus hello yeah, hey, no, mary hey, hey, mary, dude bro.
Speaker 2:That's the difference right, that's it.
Speaker 1:I kind of want to go anti-social media, anti-social media. I know that's not that smart for business wise, but I want to see maybe it is dude, maybe it's like yo, you're a complete animal because you're off social media probably yeah, I might do it. If anyone wants to join, join me, comment, comment on this and let me know we'll do a little experiment I'd be curious to see how it would work, Cause I obviously we use social media a lot for uh, for recruiting, you could still have someone running recruiting stuff on your social media.
Speaker 1:You technically don't have to be there. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll see. We'll think about it, dude, but I love what you're saying. Man, you're a beast. Thank you, I'm excited to see what you're gonna do. Um. So basically, you're teaching people to have a mentality of winning, regardless. You don't care what dialer if the leads work, they work. You don't care. You're not trying to make money by selling them a 49 a month caller system. You're looking at the bigger picture. You're looking long term, um, teaching people to win, teaching people to focus. What's like, do you guys get up early? Do you guys like what's the culture there?
Speaker 2:yeah, so you work out, yeah, you guys meditate like what do you do? So we um our whole squad. For the most part that comes to the office. We all have this um membership of this gym. It's called john reed sweet gym.
Speaker 1:Why, though? Why is it sweet? Because I've heard that before, but I want to know why?
Speaker 2:um, it's just like the. I mean it's it's not like a standard gym like they have. You know, you walk in and there's a. You're greeted by a jungle with a gorilla and you know there's this crazy music going on throughout the whole. You know, john reed, there's a dj, like literally in the center of the gym there's a live dj. What? Yeah, so like 7 am on a tuesday morning I mean sometimes 6 am on a tuesday morning you have a live dj is it?
Speaker 1:so there's a gym in uh victorville that's super popular. I haven't got to go yet, but it's called the gym and like what my friends have showed me is like the lights are dim and they have djs in there sometime and it's like a totally different vibe than you would ever think and like people love it. Is that what it's like?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, it's like pretty similar, like they even have this room that will like, lately we'll do recruiting, like me and my girlfriend will go in and we'll do recruiting calls, sometimes on sundays. It's called the I think it's called the living room or something, but it's this pink room with this clear, it's a giant glass wall and there's these super nice two chairs. It looks like you'd interview someone, something like this actually and it's this pink lit room and then there's a literal meditation sleeping room, like there's a nap room in the John Reed. It's supposed to be like super.
Speaker 2:Do you go in there?
Speaker 1:no, I don't take naps um so um, I don't know if meditating's a nap uh, yeah, I don't know either, but it's it's more like sleep, I guess.
Speaker 2:I mean you can meditate in there. I've seen someone do it, but they sleep in there so like for real. Yeah, there's people sleeping there, not like not like stay the night, of course, but they'll like'll take an hour or two naps because I've walked in there, because I'm always super curious. It's an interesting room, there's these little dividers between these it's like these tofu beds basically and there's these little dividers that they have in between them and it's a super calm. I can totally see why people do fall drew.
Speaker 2:We should try to get that, get a bigger office and get that yep, that would be interesting yeah, um, but we'll, we'll work out there, um, you know, typically, I mean, I like to wake up about 5, 3030, sometimes earlier, it just depends on the day but I like to hold that as, like, the time we wake up, luke will meet there.
Speaker 1:A couple other guys will meet there and Luke's driving far because he's in Huntington. Yeah, he drives far, so he drives every day, every single day. How?
Speaker 2:far. It's about 45 minutes and he's a beast. He's super consistent. He 45 minutes and he's a beast. He's super consistent. He's one of the most disciplined guys you'll ever meet, I could tell. But there's other guys that do it too. We have a ton of guys that come in from Orange County just because they like being around the fire. Dude, I like the area, bro.
Speaker 1:You feel alive down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fun, right. It's not like this one-off office, just you know, stranded in the middle of nowhere. You're in the heart, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Like you could get those bomb street dogs right there, right Like the LA street dogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you go to the fashion district you'll definitely find them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you ever get those? No, not yet.
Speaker 2:Maybe one day ever get those no Not yet Maybe one day.
Speaker 1:Those are good, dude. You should take them and be like hey, come to our office and we'll buy like 50 of those.
Speaker 2:You know we should do something like that. They have a lot of taco ones, so sometimes we'll do like tacos, like as a team or something.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we'll do that. All right, my man, keep killing it. Thanks for coming in. If you're watching this, hit them up and let's grow this thing, dude, awesome.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me you got it, see you guys.