If Your Best Lead Is Your Mom, We Need To Talk

What if the real reason your pipeline feels dry isn’t effort, it’s invisibility? We kick off The Invisible Agent by naming the trap so many insurance professionals fall into: hiding behind activity and hoping clients will magically seek them out. From there, we lay out a clear, doable path to become findable, trusted, and booked without burning cash.

Dave shares his early missteps with captive models, cold outreach, and business reply cards, then explains how simple, free platforms—Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and Facebook—became the new brick and mortar. Mike pulls back the curtain on why so many agents are unsearchable in their own markets and how a complete, living profile turns into your hardest-working employee. We talk practical visibility: fill every field, speak plainly about what you do and where, collect reviews, and post helpful content that answers real questions.

We also tackle time: the two-week audit that exposes where your hours leak, the difference between money-making work and admin drift, and the small systems that reclaim focus. If you’ve ever lost an afternoon to social scrolls or context switching, this will sting—in a good way. Then we dive into coaching. Too many voices stall growth, so we argue for one head coach with real experience, clear access, and a skill-first approach. Use specialized courses as add-ons, not new playbooks, and let consistency compound.

This conversation blends hard-won lessons with step-by-step moves you can execute today: get searchable in your city, publish before perfect, be yourself, and point your week at the work that moves the needle. Whether you’re brand-new, stuck in the middle, or scaling fast, the path from unknown to unstoppable starts with being seen.

If this helped, subscribe, share with a colleague who needs it, and leave a review telling us your first visibility win. What will you change this week?

Transcript

Welcome And The Hide-And-Seek Problem

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Invisible Agent Podcast. We're on our very first episode. It is the Invisible Agent Podcast and it's inspiration. I am David Cheatham.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

And I am Mike Sornson. And Dave, I have a question for you that I think a lot of agents watching this are really going to resonate with are you playing hide and seek in your business and you just don't know it?

Dave’s Path Into Insurance

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I'm going to tell you what, it kind of brings back some things that I was going over in my life when I got into this business. And sometimes I think we all do. A quick story about how I started in the business. And I was at a time in my life that there's different challenges and different things that were changing in my life. I was about to get married and I didn't know exactly the transition I was going to do as an as an educator and a leadership developer, or um I helped people organize uh, you know, organizations and and do development work. And that kind of all changed uh in my life. I was really struggling on what I wanted to do and where I can make an impact. A friend of mine said, Dave, maybe you should get into the financial services. You know, you can make a win-win, you can help people. You already help organizations with finances. You've helped individuals talk about finances. Maybe you should go in that area. And I actually interviewed with a number of captive companies because I didn't know any better. And the individual that wasn't even in the financial service area kind of mentioned a couple of different area different companies in the Chicagoland area. At that time, I said, okay, so I interviewed with a couple of companies. I actually went on board with a company. I thought I thought it sounded great and I learned a lot about that experience. And I'm going to tell you, we were told to go after family and friends and not really be out there in the community right away. Yet I asked the people in my upline in the organization what they did. And uh I kind of followed their model and just made cold calls to people, which I'm not saying is bad, but I was not out there and I was playing hide and seek. I was hiding and people had to find me. And that should not be how it is in business, really. And so the whole entire premise of this whole entire idea is I believe too many agents are out there playing hide and seek. The problem is the reverse. They're hiding and uh they're hoping the person that they're trying to reach is actually seeking them out. And uh it's really not possible. So our whole entire podcast, and what we're gonna really build on in the theme is the invisible agent going from unknown to unstoppable. And we've taught that. We've been doing it for a long time. Uh I've been doing and coaching agents since 2008 uh in the Medicare space, 2010, even more. Before that, I still helped agents in the ACA or the actually not ACA at the time, it's ACA now, but the individual healthcare, a small group and life side. And so uh today in in today's episode, I really want to kind of really dive into some of that. I want to kind of talk about three main content areas, but really what causes insurance agents business to remain invisible. And we don't want them to remain invisible anymore. We really want them to shine and and get out of that light. So I think the first area for me is agents aren't seen.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

No. You know, you're not.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

I'm gonna kind of throw it over to you. I mean, you've been helping agents for a while. We you and I have talked about, and you've been with us for a while now. And one of the things we talk about online presence and you know, we call it the new brick and mortar. Where, but uh, you know, your job as the director of growth and business development for Family Financial Solutions Group, you've told me kind of over and over again that, you know, sometimes it's hard to find agents in a certain area, not just in the country, but even what they do. Tell me again more about that and and are agents really visible out there?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, I mean, from a from a profile standpoint, it is extremely difficult to help or even find agents, like even the ones that come to us who are actually wanting help. Like I do a little homework before we meet, or even even after we meet, uh, even further to like get a good sense of like, all right, I'm a consumer. How am I gonna find John Smith? And just doing basic Google searches like Medicare agents in X City, Medicare Selfman agents in X City, Medicare Advantage agents in X City. And the amount of reported agents that are doing Medicare in these geographical areas versus what I can find is a extremely large discrepancy. When Facebook, LinkedIn, and a Google Business Profile are all free platforms, it requires literally zero capital, maybe an hour of setup time, maybe a little bit more if you're like going really hard at it. And the amount of people that don't have one of those is overwhelming. When they get into like you know, me and you both started a cap company. Like when we got into the business, they just said, do a high level of activity, and that will make you visible. When I'm sorry to say, being someone who did that and still, for a number of years, still was having a still chase for a long time. High amount of activity doesn't equal visibility, it equals like you're spinning your wheels in potentially if you're doing it right, you may be spinning your wheels probably in the same area. But for a lot of people, they're told to do a high level, high-level activity in a large geographical area, which you're spreading yourself way too thin, trying to be everywhere, trying to build a presence everywhere and still instead of trying to build a presence somewhere. So they miss like these foundational steps. Like, even when they say I'm gonna be an insurance agent, like honestly, like the first couple steps is like if JN Smith, 65-year-old in Monomie Falls, Wisconsin, wants to search for sort of a Medicare person, I at least have to be searchable. And agents who are not seen right now, I can't say don't have social media, but then there's a whole nother level once you have it, once you're discoverable, going to a blank profile actually makes you look even worse. So, like there is there's a lot of things that agents I think there's uh stuffing stones of what they have to do before they even like talk about learning a product or even talk about selling products. I think that part's big because you can know nothing about product but still run appointments.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Just by being visible. And that's that's a that's kind of one of the biggest things I run into on a, I'm not gonna say a weekly or monthly basis, like a daily basis, running people that I can't even find.

Defining The Invisible Agent

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, I I think it's amazing. Uh so you know, I'm not actively trying to get clients. I don't actively market myself. Really, uh, my goal is to help insurance agents grow an insurance business, right? That's what my goal is. That's the goal of Family Financial Solutions Group right now. You know, FFSG's main concept is that, yet to do that, I had to teach agents certain things. So before you ever came on board, I started teaching them, hey, to do a Google business, to do a LinkedIn, to do a Facebook, to do these other platforms that didn't cost them money, and they weren't then doing it correctly. And so I said to people, they still weren't able to be found. So then I had to go and break it down and go, okay, step by step, this is how you do it. And we just had a phone call last week for somebody coming in and asking for me. And they said, you know, the staff just, you know, uh, okay, tell me more about you. How did you find David? And they said, Google business, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

And you're not doing it anymore. You're not, you're literally not even doing it anymore. And people are still calling you just for the sake of you have a profile out of the ether that just has everything filled out appropriately. And Google will literally never sleep. It's your best employee.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Yeah, right. It's optimized, right? So, so you know, I keep on going. So, you know, that that's one of the things we teach agents and we go in depth and walk them through that process because it's not hard. Everyone should do it. It's it's the new brick and mortar that as we talk about as we move forward in the e-com, uh, everyone online. And there's especially now with AI, there's definitely things that have to be done to even optimize even more that. But but we know how to do that. But even beyond that, you know, the marketing that people do as an insurance agent, it's it's not just going after your family and friends. And I'm not against that necessarily. It's not my model. And we have a lot of agents that come to us that that's not their model, and then we're told, oh, just buy these business reply cards and call them. And again, I'm not against it. We have some agents that do it that are phenomenal at it. I think they can tweak it and make it better, but that that's one thing. But they're invisible. They're going finding people and they don't even know the person's name, right? I remember doing business reply cards when I got into business and I sent them out and I received cards back. And I'm calling the individual, hello, may I speak with Jan Smith? This is Dave, or can I speak with Jan? This is Dave. Dave, who? Like, I mean, it's Dave doesn't exist in their world, or you're not Dave, you're not my friend, you're not my son, you're not whatever it is, but they don't know who you are. They just know they responded to something. And I'll never forget going to a house that I made an appointment for, and I I got porched. And so, meaning they made an appointment, I went and they wouldn't let me in. I was I was standing on the porch and they cracked the door open a little. And I said, you know, I'm Dave. We had an appointment. And like, Dave, who? I go, uh, we had an appointment today. And I've got even the time, but it was an appointment. And I showed the card and like I filled that out for everybody. I don't know who you are. Shut the door, right? I remember sitting at somebody's house and them telling me, and they had a stack of cards, business reply cards that they were gonna fill out and send back. And I go, well, you you can throw those away. I'm here. Like, oh no, I'm sending it back. I'm I'm giving, I'm making the post post office money. I'm never gonna respond to these people. So, you know, you just never know why somebody fills them out or whatever. Uh, same thing with you know, internet leads or a bunch of other things. And so, and again, not all those things are bad. It's just you're invisible.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

Why Agents Aren’t Seen Online

SPEAKER_02 9:17

So if you become visible and you're out there in the right ways and people know what you do, I tell people all the time if they hear Mike Sorensen, they should know Mike Sorensen is in this area and does this immediately, right? So there shouldn't be a question in that. And so too many agents are invisible. They don't know how to become visible. And I think one of the things that we've always tried to teach agents and coach agents on is how to become visible but true to you.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Right? Because it's different. Everyone's a different. And I am not comfortable doing certain things because it's not me. And we have other agents that are very comfortable doing things that I'm not comfortable with. Why? It's just me. And it's okay to be you instead of forcing something out there and being who you are not, because the reality is people will know your heart. Um, people will know in their knower, as a a friend of mine used to say, who you are, and if you're being genuine with me, are you putting a facade on? Right. So, but you know, uh kind of we can talk about that forever, but really that is the crux of why this came to be in one way. The other one was in all transparency, we we're out there, we're we're talking. I've been talking on national stages, people know me in the Chicagoland area and other states, and some people know me on Facebook and LinkedIn and those type of things. And one of the things we keep on seeing is over and over again, um, as we try to help agents and coach agents, how can we help more agents?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

I started Family Financial Solutions Group and helping agents because we wanted to help more beneficiaries, be it Medicare, life, whatever that is. We needed to help more beneficiaries out there. And we wanted to coach agents and celebrate with agents success for them and what that meant. And we're at a level now that uh we we have all these things plugged in. We have a lot of things dialed in to be able to help agents in so many different ways. We've knocked out the marketing, we've knocked out some of the a lot of the training and uh in the contracts. We have those, I think, really set up well. And we've really have a track record of the things that I've taught over and over again to see and show how agents are successful, that I know that we can coach somebody anywhere in the country and they can be successful. And so we have to be out there. And I apologize to everyone that's out there that's listening today, that's that's an insurance agent. I apologize because I wasn't. I wasn't out there. I remember to this day a friend of mine in the industry said, Dave, why aren't you talking more on national stages? Why aren't you on Facebook more? Why aren't you on LinkedIn more? Why aren't you on YouTube more? Why aren't you out there more? Because you have so much to offer people. Why aren't you just out there? And uh honestly, uh, I will tell you that was my fault. And I said no more. Mike, you came to me about that as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, but I was tweaking before we started. Yeah, we we we talked about that. And I think there's a there's a level of like, I want to make sure this is really, really, really good, where this just can't fail before I put it out there. But I think you've talked about a lot of it's better done than perfect. And we've been to a point where now we've gotten to this a pretty good level where it's like, now if we put it out here, we can jam a lot into the system and take on people and do it the right way and make sure we give agents a fighting chance to to kind of grow a business. And not say it wasn't like that before, but I I think we're 246 is a really good we're in a really good place to do so. And putting out like podcasts like this to ultimately help agents kind of give some direction without having to like be with us, but hopefully you kind of see the value here and say, like, you know, what would it look like working with you guys? And I I think that that's ultimately a question that we we'd love to answer. But yeah, I think that's why the whole reason like we're going out into and becoming now, even ourselves going from unknown to unstoppable. We're we're kind of documenting this in real time along with you because we're we're in a we're not going after Medicare beneficiaries, we're we're helping agents, but we're doing this in real time and documenting it kind of in stuff. So we we've got to kind of we kind of relate on that stuff a little bit. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Right, right. And then not just the podcast. I mean, there's other things that we're doing that we teach agents to do that we're doing just we're our avatar is different. And we know it works because we're doing it and uh and we can teach you to do it. We can coach you to do it, we can do all these things. And throughout these, this whole entire thing of with this podcast, right? The Invisible Agent Podcast, uh, we'll share those things. As I say, I I don't want it to be a fire hose of overwhelming an everyone and anyone out there. We want to, you know, drip on you and hopefully you'll take what's natural to you to be able to do, and maybe you'll ask questions and we're open to that. A good friend of mine, he he kind of opens the door to and and teaches all of his strategies. And he's he's a coach of mine. He is my business coach. And he says it to us all the time. There's this inner circle of mastermind group that we're in, and and he says it, he reminds me on a regular basis of hey, you have to be out there, you you have to share the strategies and and don't worry about all the other stuff. Just go out there and teach it. Yeah, and be transparent in that, in that, and that's what we're gonna do. And so uh it kind of it's why we're doing it, that was the inspiration of this. I want to give a couple other nuggets before we even like end this whole entire episode. And there's two other areas I really want to go into. But but the next one is if we're gonna stop being invisible, we have to start realizing we're spending time in the wrong places.

Free Profiles: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah. I think too many agents work in the wrong direction, and they don't know it. I mean, it's like they're just told, like, hey, do this, follow what John did, because he was super successful. When ultimately that that could be a seriously like that could be a mud pit of them just spending the tires in the same spot. They but they'll you're you're gonna try to chase every single opportunity. You're gonna listen to anyone that'll actually give you time, you're gonna pour a bunch of time in there, pour a bunch of energy, even maybe your budget if you have one, to realize that wow, this wasn't even a a strength to mine in the first place. But and you just spent a whole lot of time really not evaluating you and like what you bring to the table and how what you can actually do successfully and what you feel comfortable, even even what you really like to do, because you ultimately, if you really like to do something, and as long as it aligns, like you will essentially grow and you'll be able to do it a lot more consistently and at some point, you know, maybe even scale it. So that is uh yeah, that I see that quite often because the needle doesn't move if you don't do it consistently and it's the wrong thing to do. Just doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah, it doesn't. And I think what I even see in agents spending time in the wrong places, and and here here's a one thing I'm I'm I really recommend people doing. If if you're not at the level you want to get be at, or at least if you want to grow and you feel like you're not growing, maybe you're stuck in the mud, maybe it's efficiencies, effectiveness, and you're not seeing enough people. I was really struggling at certain points, and I finally did time studies and I took two weeks and I just started blocking what I did, right? And so every single day, from the time I started working to the time I ended working, I put down exactly what I did and I realized I had inefficiencies in my business. And one I see on a regular basis is individuals on social media. They go onto Facebook or they go on LinkedIn or they go on YouTube, and I'll tell you what, you can get trapped in that spiral for 30, 20, 60, two hours, uh TikTok, right? It's so easy to go down that rabbit hole and just sucks you in. And believe me, they do it for a reason, right? They know what they're doing, uh, Facebook or Meta and TikTok and YouTube. They they purposely keep you engaged for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

They get paid to keep your attention. That's the whole point.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They want they want the revenue, they want the ad. They want you to click on something. Uh, you know, really, but the point comes into I can't tell you how many agents said, Yeah, I worked over 40 hours in my business this week.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

If they time audited that and you're trying to grow, how much of that time was actually spent doing money making activity, admin work, scrolling social media, that that time audit is important because I mean, I I've done the same thing you do. They they used to in corporate America a bunch, like time audit our week. The amount I mean, it's very easy to slip into that going from like money to like, oh now I have these tasks or I have these emails, oh now I have to do that. Especially if you work from home. Like, how easy is it if we just walk upstairs to use the bathroom and then I see dishes, I see the laundry. Like, you know, you slip somebody so fast that that's super important to like do that time audit because you'll probably be shocked at how much time you are not spending doing the one thing that makes you money.

Beyond Friends, Cold Calls, And BRCs

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Absolutely. Um, so you know, don't do a time audit during certain times of the year, right? So uh we're we're, you know, in the beginning of 2026 and we're in a time that doing a time audit now, if you're working in your business, is probably a good time to look at it. But we just in the for the people in the Medicare side, they just got out of the annual enrollment period. Don't be doing this time audit during the annual enrollment period. Don't take out time to do that when you have all these other things to do. But do a time audit at a time that you can truly, truly master and put it on paper or in your calendar, on your Google calendar, whatever calendar system you use so that it's really true and accurate and be honest with yourself because the reality is it's you that you're stealing from if you're not. So hopefully you do it. I would love if you guys do it. I would love to hear back from you, your results and and hear possibly what that's like. And maybe we can give you some tidbits and nuggets and things to maybe uh be better. But uh you might be surprised on where you spend your time and where you can cut some of that time out to gain more time in your work day. You know, so um I am definitely an abnormal person, kind of Mike, because you said my dad always used to say, Love what you do and you never work. And I love what I do. So coming into the office at five o'clock in the morning or 5:30 in the morning, or and and leaving at seven or 10 o'clock at night, I get wrapped up and I can just go and go and go. And I mean, there's there's times in which I could tell you that I've worked every single day for for over a couple of months, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And it doesn't feel like work to me. And I'm not saying other people need to do that or should be doing that, but when I'm truly working, doing that audit really kind of helped me solidify it, also put in a perspective for myself where I needed to hire, what I need to cut out, where can I be more efficient in my own business, in my own life? There's things I wanted to do. And I'm like, how do I find time to do it? How do I find time to work out? Right. So I think even doing a time audit from just your business perspective, you might find time that you're you can fit more things in a 40-hour work week. And yes, I work more than 40 hours a week and I love doing it, but you might be able to fit more in those 40 hours than you're doing now and be more efficient, more effective, see more people, write more people, and learn every single day. So I'll tell you, I learned it from other people. I have coaches, which kind of leads, I think, to the last part, right? We are not for everybody, and that's not what this podcast is for, right? But I'm gonna tell you one of the other things I see on a regular basis that I believe hampers an insurance agent from growing an insurance business is they have too many coaches. When I finally said I'm gonna stop listening to the masses, and I'm gonna tell you that my first thing I did was I said, I'm not gonna spend money on these things because I didn't have the money to spend. And then I finally hired and I didn't hire, I bought a program and I learned the program and I learned that methodology, and and it was great. And that then said, okay, I I can learn that, I know that, right? But it was in the life insurance side, a concept within the life insurance that I love and I we have implemented in my business and and other businesses and people's lives. And then I said, Okay, well, I I have that. Now what do I do? And I went to another person, I learned something else. And finally I came down to really understanding. I had one mentor coach in the life insurance side. And when I finally adopted that coach on my life insurance, not necessarily on the marketing side, but the communication side, my business changed. And I did the same thing in other areas. So, you know, I had one on the marketing side, I had one on the life insurance side. I never really had one on the Medicare side. Now, when I started, we really didn't have the coaches we have today.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I was gonna say back in like what you said, 2008, you got in. I don't know if there was a a Medicare coach even available because I think everyone else is still trying to figure it, figure it out, really.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah, it's uh No, and that's why in 2010 I had agents coming to me asking, Hey, how are you seeing these people? I was like, What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

You know, I didn't watch the really successful first two years. Like so, like you just had to be if you wrote just like a lot of applications, like you were looked at as like, you're oh, you're the coach. Like you just wrote a bunch of apps. Like I'm just gonna follow you now.

Be Visible And Stay Authentic

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Right. And it's interesting because I I didn't want to be a G A or I mean now we're an FMO, but I didn't even want to be a G A. I didn't want to be an M G A. I did that for my other with my other business. I just wanted to be a sole entrepreneur writing business, helping beneficiaries. That's really what I wanted. And it wasn't until these agents said, you know, they knew me in the business and they go, Wait, how are you writing this? How are you able to see this many Medicare beneficiaries? How are you able to see these many people? And I just I remember sitting down for bro in br at at a place that's now closed by me. And we sat down and we talked and they asked, Hey, can we meet next week? Sure. And we did. We met probably every week for almost eight weeks. And they went to go do stuff and they called me up and they said, Dave, can we can we go out for lunch? It was different. Lunch? Yeah. I'm busy in the morning. Can we go out for lunch? Sure. So we went out for lunch. And that's when they asked me, hey, can we put contracts underneath you? And I said, no, I don't want agents. And they're the ones that convinced me to do it. Yeah. And so it started a process. And I again, I still never even wanted to go to where I'm at today. I believe that doors open and uh when they open wide open, you just you go through them and you know, doors close for a reason. So for me, finding that coach was great. Then all of a sudden, I kind of was hit a stale spot in my business. And I we're writing business, we're doing good, we're we're bringing on agents, but I felt like I was uh treading in muddy water, maybe even better, treading in quicksand as much as you can tread. Meaning every single time I moved, I was sinking down further and further, you know, in that quicksand. And finally, it was right before uh, well, kind of actually right during the beginning of COVID, I said, you know what, I have to change something. I need a coach for my business. And I hired a coach for my business. And uh people ask me all the time, do we are we are we here? Can we pay you to coach us? No, the answer is no, we don't do that. But uh, which is one of the reasons why we're doing the podcast because we're giving free coaching to uh uh to everyone out there. But I finally said, I I needed a coach. That was the person I was gonna follow. And uh I kind of, you know, go back to I'm a big Star Wars person, you know, um your mentor, your coach will come when you you're finally ready. And uh Luke Skywalker, Yoda finally appeared in his life at the right time, right? And if you if you follow Star Wars, you're gonna realize that Luke didn't always want to follow the coach all the time. And uh you're not always gonna want to follow the coach. I played sports for years and I didn't always want to do what my coach said, but I did what my coach said. I coached basketball, I coached sports, and I had students, I had teammates and players that that didn't always want to listen. I just know that when I had one clear coach and growing my business, it made a huge difference for my business. We we exploded in in in growth. And uh I I said that that's what I needed. And then finally there were certain things that my coach is the one that told me, hey, listen, you probably should start doing this, but I'm not the one that knows that. I go, okay, so where do I go? And uh he either pointed out some coaches to go to um or or courses to go to. Um, so one of the things I've told agents for a long time, hey, listen, I I I have the money now. I'll go spend the money to buy courses and classes and learn and develop so that I can teach. Yeah. Because for you to scale, I'd rather be able to teach you how to do that. I'm not, I don't say I know everything because I don't. I'm still learning on a regular basis. I still have a coach, that same coach that I had then, I still have, right? I do have other coaches or other programs that I purchased to get better at what I was doing, but I never strayed. If my head coach said, this is what we're doing, that's what we were doing. And if another coach came in to try to derail me from that, nope, get away from me. I'm hiring you to do this, to learn this, not to implant you into my business as a coach. So um, you know, I implore people, find the one coach, one clear coach, be it whoever it is. And I have a lot of things and opinions on that. But uh, Mike, I know that you've seen a lot of coaches out there, you see people out there, and we we see a lot of new agents that are coming into the business. What are your ideas on that?

Scaling Help To More Agents

SPEAKER_00 26:09

I uh I think it's especially give me a an example. When I got into insurance Medicare, specifically back in uh 2019, I I didn't even know Medicare existed a few months before. I didn't know what the process was. So, like going into it, like I went on YouTube, I went on a bunch of different places just to figure out what Medicare was, how I would even sell Medicare. And that was extremely overwhelming for me because like everyone had different opinions on oh, you should sell Medicare Advanced, or you should Medicare Summit, Medicare Sultan sucks, or Medicare Advantage sucks. Everyone had so many different opinions and like even how to sell it, how to like cross-sell. There were so there were so many things that I was getting super flustered with at the very beginning because everyone was singing a different song and they were singing it a different way. And when I finally got into uh the capture company I with, like, I pretty much just said, you know what? My manager at the time, his name was Steve, and he did Medicare, he sold Medicare successfully before me, so I pretty much like surrendered myself to be like, hey, like if you tell me to do something, I will do it, and you just gotta tell me how high to jump. That was pretty much like my first like four months of Medicare was like, you just tell me what I knew, he would just lay out a whole plan about what I need to do. He told me to be on every single training, told me to do or he told me how to structure my appointment, he told me how to sell in person, like and I just followed that one person. It looking back, like there were things that I did that I don't agree with how I did it, but it was a way that I could at least go forward at a quicker pace than if trying to slow down my whole process and look left and right every single time I had to make a decision, because that ultimately slows every single agent down because the moment they like hit to that next roadblock, like instead of just asking one person, like, oh, how do I get over this roadblock? It's wait, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna survey the group and come back around, and then I'm gonna decide how to get over this roadblock. That wastes a ton of time, a ton of money, a ton of energy, and you will not grow or scale nearly as quickly as if you just have one person and say, Hey, how do I get over this wall? Here's the ladder, here are the rungs put on the ladder, this is how you get over it. It's much quicker and a lot easier. So, from a coach scenario, yes, there's a lot of coaches out there. I think there's a lot of brilliant ones, I think there's a lot of very good ones. There are some bad ones out there, but I think it's a as long as they're not doing anything criminal or legal, like I think it's a net positive by listening to one person than it is to survey the group type thing and try to go around to multiple people because you're just slowing yourself down. Finding that coach, I think is going to be important as far as how you guys want to work together, because there are some people that need some extreme hand holding where there are some coaches that will not be a fit. Like you may get access to them maybe once a week, maybe once a month, and some maybe once a quarter. So when you're trying to figure out what you need, evaluate what they can offer you. Because if you need that hand hold, where like may you may need daily touches, if not a couple times a week touches, find a coach that'll align with that. And if you need something less direction, less hand holding, then you can kind of evaluate from there. I think that's from someone who's in that position right now where I'm helping coach agents. My biggest, my biggest critique is like aligning with who you want to be coached by, how they coach, because there's a lot of people where there's like, oh uh, here's a link to a YouTube video, like go watch this. Like that's not that that that's not coaching. Like or oh here, go on Google, type this in, and then the first link it's gonna be that. That's how you that's uh that's how you're gonna learn about the parts of Medicare. It's like that's also not coaching. That's just that's just usually you using a search engine. So make sure the person you are working with, like it's actually coaching, like they've done the job themselves. And I'm not uh I I I haven't found it really super successful. You have to find someone who's never done the job themselves, who is actually an exceptional exceptional coach. You've got coaches like Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson can never be Kobe or MJ at basketball, but he's one of the best coaches ever. I've not really found that to be true in Medicare yet, where you can find someone who's never done the job before or is like wasn't very skilled at doing it themselves that can coach better than they performed. So find someone who's done the job and actually done the job successfully that can meet with you on your timeline and actually give you the either group coach or Linda One that actually is they're teaching a skill and not just sending you links or like pushing you off into Google. Like that that I do see a lot.

Done Beats Perfect: Start Publishing

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah, and I I think that's a great point, right? I mean, so Phil Jackson, he's definitely coached a lot of people, and some people he was able to coach very well, other people not. And part of it is personality is a lot of things, right? And Phil Jackson wasn't a horrible player, but he was not a superstar like the the you know, Michael Jordan, the Kobe's, the Shaqs, right? But you know, you you don't have to necessarily find the rock star. I mean, I would say that uh in our company, we're we're really lucky. Like I, you know, I've written a lot of business uh in my day and and not just Medicare. You know, I've done life annuity, long-term care, you know, Medicare. Now I did I've never done property and casualty. I'm not gonna coach you on property and casualty, right? Um, I can coach you on marketing, but I'm not gonna coach you on the the business side of certain things. Marketing I can coach you on, but business side I can't coach you on on all those details. I never sold a policy. I can't teach you how to sell a property and casualty type of policy. I can coach and mentor you how to sell the things I've done and have done well. I know that there's other people that are, I know for a fact, not probably they they are, they've sold a lot more than me. Uh I sold a lot, don't get me wrong, but I have no doubt that somebody sold more than me. If I if I stopped selling when I did, you know, I wouldn't have been successful. I kept on going through and through and through, you know, and then finally, when I said, hey, I'm gonna help agents be successful for different reasons, I slowed down my own selling so I could help agents. And I think that's my other thing. Find a coach that truly wants to coach that's not just there to make money off of you. And uh something I've always said, and something that's very important to me, is yeah, we have to make money. But um, as long as we are giving and we're doing the right thing and we're teaching you the business, we'll make money. But more importantly, it's not coaching you to be me. Mike doesn't coach you to be Mike. You have to find a coach that's gonna coach you and find who you are to be successful in who you are in your own skin, in your own shoes, your own, you know, walk in life. So that's one of my big things. I tell people on a regular basis, uh, you don't have to listen to everything I say. Most people won't. I've also had agents come back to me and said, you know, thank you. We're successful. If we listened to everything you said, we'd probably be more successful, but it wasn't the right time. And I've had agents come to me and go, um, Dave, we should have listened to you, whatever it was. And I go, no, no, no, hold on. Everyone has their own timing because timing matters. It just wasn't the right time for you. Now it is because now you you've recognized it in your business. So if you have a good coach, they might push you, they might, they, they're going to push you. They're going to push you to be maybe out of your comfort zone a little at a time. They're not going to tell you to really get out of your comfort zone to paralyze you. And that that's really what a good coach does, right? They're, they're the cheerleader, they're going to look at your skills, all those things, but not everyone is the right fit. For me, it was important when I was looking for the director of growth and business development to find somebody that was in the business that can write, that is licensed, that had success in writing business, but also had more traits than that. And the trait truly for me, and in you know, one of the things that I appreciate about you, Mike, is you not only have done it, but you've also coached other agents. But you also, like me, love seeing agents succeed.

Spend Time In The Right Places

SPEAKER_00 33:24

That's the reason I stopped, actually. That was like the number one reason because I got my first my first year, I wrote over 220 applications and my first year in in business. And I was just and that was also overlapping into COVID as well. Like eight months of that were was actually uh COVID. And about six months in, they had me like self-training people, and I was like, this seems grossly inappropriate, but uh whatever. I I didn't know how to sell Medicare seven months ago, but sure. And yeah, my first three agents just popped off. They just I pretty much just had them like sit on Zoom calls like this and just listen to me phone call, and then I listen to them phone call, and then I would stop them and like make full tweets and stuff, and scripting stuff was easy, and then showed them how to do an appointment, a first to second appointment. And when they started popping off, and they got like paysetter awards, paysetter plus awards, which was in our captive company, that was like a super big deal. And it was the first three, it just popped off, and then it just kept happening, and I was like, Okay. Then they promoted me, and then I pretty much only sold and some family at that point, but I did my first year super high volume, so I was still writing a ton of business my second year. But now I could bring agents with me, and COVID was kind of settling. Then they watched me, and then I watched them in-person appointments, and that was that was really nice to see because I I got this as far as like if you're an agent who's struggling or new, like I I can pinpoint pretty much where things are going wrong. And it's usually within that sales efficient uh effectiveness of what you're doing and the sales efficiency side, like there like to figure out real quick where things are going wrong. But I've only was able to do that because I sat through so many appointments over the phone on calls like this and in person to see like where people are going wrong. And plus I did them myself. Everything every mistake you've probably made, I have probably made it. I remember being on phone calls where I would just hang up in the middle of a phone call because I screwed up the script. And that just happened. We just go to the next one. It's just it was always on in the next one. That was uh I think when I when I saw it, you know, working with uh you day was it's all about the agent. Like I never wanted to be outside the curtain where everyone saw the show, like I always rather we've been behind the curtain, orchestrating like the person, like pretty much like making sure the person on stage was just like doing a phenomenal job, like the show was going great. I want to be behind the curtain and just get like that pat on the back from someone back there. I don't want their pause. And I still don't like necessarily want that, but I don't s if we don't show what we can do, like there is no show to put on. So putting myself on social media and you know, maybe this podcast to kind of show what we can do, like it's a necessary evil, but ultimately we're just doing this because we just know how confident we are in like helping agents kind of especially if you're new struggling it, or if you're like just Sue doing a lot of business, you're just not as efficient as you want to. Like, that's like the MO here. Like, day you were a super, super high-baked producer, tons of clients that ran into the efficiency side where it's like, how the hell do I be more efficient? And me, I I sold a high volume of applications in my first few years and just saw the new struggling and agents who are kind of in that middle ground, where those bottlenecks are at, and just I think that kind of made a perfect combination for me and why I was like, you know what? He's got the business side, I've got this side, and I think we've kind of uh gelled together well, and yeah, it's it's worked out pretty well. So yeah, I know we kind of rambled on a little bit here at the end, but I think it's it's important to know where like or why we did this, where we came from, to kind of give us at a position to is like, ah, they've done this, they've seen the world, maybe I can hop along Legend and learn from them. I think that's that's uh that's really important.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah. Um, so I'm just gonna end on this note, and and it really is kind of to an individual that uh I was a it was a partner in business with me and an individual that um it became a very dear friend to me and and truly I I I loved him as a as a as a man, as a person, his heart and is really what he wanted to do. And I um I partnered with him and his organization because he had a very similar mindset. We didn't do everything the same, but you know, Patrick was a man that truly wanted to help agents and wanted to see agents succeed. And he did everything he could to do that within an ethical and integrity boundaries and sometimes went above and beyond. And he and I are very similar, his heart was very open and his mind was very open to those things. And so um he passed away uh, you know, in 2024. And uh, you know, I I still I miss him a lot, and I know a lot of people do. But one of the things he would always say to me, they'll be on the phone and he goes, Dave, you're doing a phenomenal job. And I and I go, it's not me. It's not me doing that job. It's the agents. The agents are doing, and he finally he said, You have to take credit. These agents wouldn't be doing if it wasn't for you. And I kind of honestly, I was like, no, that that's not true. That's not true. And uh, and finally a couple agents have then came to me at at different times in 2024 and 2025, and uh, and I set it to the same thing to them. And and some agents didn't even know that this was gonna happen. And uh one agent in August, I just got back from my coach. We I just flew in and I went to a uh warming, uh housewarming and a and uh in a wedding, and she was introducing me to her family and and that, and she, you know, said, He's the one that my business is the way it is. And I said, No, it's because you worked. And and she said to me, You have to take credit for that. Stop, stop being that that way. You have to take credit for it because if it wasn't for you, I would not be where I am. And again, it was a it was it was this was already in the idea that we were gonna do these.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And it was just a reiteration of, and it's not about my credit. I always say, I listen, I'd like to be the, you know, the wizard of oz behind the curtain. Finally, enough people have said it and said, you have to get out there. You have so much value to give. And I love this business. The insurance business has given me so much. It's given my family so much. And I've helped insurance agents, but it's time for us to give more, and that's what we want to do.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

So, you know, I don't care if you're just an insurance individual that's not even in the insurance space and you want to get into it, or you're in the insurance space and struggling, or maybe if you're in the insurance space and you're highly successful, it doesn't matter where you're at. Hopefully, we're gonna bring value in these podcasts to you. I truly believe at some point we're gonna get stuck and it's who you're listening to, who's helping you, who's guiding you, and uh, and hopefully you don't go under a bushel that you truly won't be that invisible agent and truly go from unknown to unstoppable. And uh, I invite you to continue following along with us. And we're not paying to market this out there. This truly is gonna be organic and uh follow it, share it with other people, and uh hopefully we will keep on helping you and showing you how to grow an insurance business as an owner and uh truly how to go from that unknown to unstoppable. Thank you for listening and taking the time. Thank you, Mike, for today and the first initial kickoff. I love it. Thank you for pushing me to do this.

How To Run A Two-Week Time Audit

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Absolutely, absolutely. I think everyone will benefit from it. So thank you guys so much for jumping on and uh yeah, we'll see you in the next one.