The Truth About Building a 2 Comma Business

If you’re doing great work but nobody knows it, you’re not being “humble” you’re being invisible. Dave and Mike get honest about what separates the agents who grind forever from the ones who build real momentum: they let their authority shine, they back it up with proof, and they show up with conviction that clients can feel.

Dave shares how a non-compete pushed him into the Medicare space when training was limited, information was messy, and even carriers could steer agents wrong. That early chaos turns into a lesson every insurance professional can use: know the facts cold, read what beneficiaries read, and protect seniors from bad guidance. From there we talk insurance agent marketing that actually respects your time, including qualifying prospects by phone so you stop driving all over the place and start walking into the right conversations.

A major theme is credibility. If you have hundreds of clients but no Google reviews, no testimonials, and no content, you’re making your business harder than it needs to be. Seniors trust other seniors, and social proof is one of the simplest ways to build insurance agency visibility. We also dig into mindset and routines, how negative conviction can poison your growth, and why authenticity beats copying someone else’s script or stage persona.

We end by reframing the “two comma” goal: not just income, but impact. If this helps you, subscribe, share it with an agent friend, and leave a review so more invisible agents can become unstoppable.

Transcript

From Unknown To Unstoppable

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Invisible Agent Podcast, the show for insurance agents ready to go from unknown to unstoppable, where visibility, strategy, and real-world execution meet. Hosted by Dave Cheatham and Mike Sorensen.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Welcome to the Invisible Agent, going from unknown to unstoppable. If you want to have a two-comma business, then listen up.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Because there is a Dave, I know your your background is pretty extensive when it comes to just insurance and business in general, but your rise, at least in your first two to four years, was ex extremely well where people tried literally following you, like almost forcing themselves to go underneath you.

Dave’s Medicare Pivot And Early Lessons

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Give us, tell us a little bit about what happened. How did you get there?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, uh it really was, you know, a little background of before that again, I I had a small insurance agency with a partner of mine. And uh it was really on the life side, and we s we did, you know, small group and individual health insurance and end up, you know, he took it over. Um, I had some non-compete. I said, What am I gonna do? And I went into the Medicare space. It was, I was too young. I said, What am I gonna do? And I really thought I was only gonna do really help individuals on Medicare, sell Medicare for two years. And I had a goal in that two years what it was gonna happen. And I realized a lot of stuff happened in that two years, but in the very beginning, there wasn't what we have today. Like FMOs, I would call an FMO, they couldn't train me on Medicare, Medicare supplements. I would call a carrier and they couldn't even give me the right information. I was told, oh, submit this application, it'll be accepted. Or here's what the rule of law is, and I found out that wasn't it. And so, and again, we didn't have the we have internet and internet. I'm not that old, but uh, you know, it's 20 years ago, but there was still a lot of missing information compared to today. And so I really said, again, I was already in the insurance business, I already had an idea, but I was going in an area that I had no idea about. The only thing I knew about Medicare is Medicare didn't cover long-term care because I used to sell long-term care policies. And so I'm sitting there, I'm getting into it, I'm learning, I'm talking to my dad, and my dad goes, Oh, I found the uh insurance agent instruction manual. It was the choosing a Medigap book that Medicare gives to insurance to the beneficiaries, not to insurance agents. But you know what? I realized something is most insurance agents never read the book. Most consumers never read the book.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Yeah, consumers definitely not, but from or not from agents, definitely not. But the consumer said it's kind of like a they really didn't read it. And that's like a big thing that I even require agents to do the moment they like want to get into Medicare is like you read Medicare and you'd be choosing a Medigap because you don't know what's in the book, how they're reading it, but you're not reading it, you have to know. But go on. That's a hot topic in general when it comes to it.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah. Uh so I really kind of got into this point of figuring out how to market and how do I market to that? And and we've covered a lot of that in the in the episodes, and we'll cover more about it. But I said, this is great. And I was like I said, I was gonna pivot out after two years. If I I just wanted the number of clients, I was gonna pivot out and really sell more of the what I used to sell. And my heart just sank when I kept on seeing people and they were put in wrong plans or they were lied to, or there's so much was bad information. And uh I grew pretty fast in the first two years, and my name was getting around the area from other companies, other carriers, other agents that just knew who I was. And I had a couple agents come to me, and I kind of alluded to this before, but they came to me and they said, uh, hey, Dave, would you show me what you did? And I said, sure. Like I didn't care. There's so much business out there, I don't care. And I sat down with them for a number of weeks and taught them and was just showing them marketing. And they would call me every once in a while about some other questions about the Medicare business and that. And it wasn't until, you know, a little bit later they they both of them asked to sit down again with me and said, Hey, would you, would you like we have to pay you somehow? Yeah, we don't have all this money. Can can we put contracts under you? And I said, No, I don't want agents.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I didn't want them at all. And I don't think people need to have insurance agents to to make, you know, have a two comma club business, right? Don't get me wrong, they don't need that. But what I did figure out was there's so many agents that wanted that two comma business. And how do they get to that two comma business? And what I realized was your value of your business could easily be over two commas, right? But you can also make an income over two commas if you do this business correctly. The question is what you want to do, but wherever you're at, I think there's some just tips that you should be following if you want to grow your business to whatever size you want that to be.

Stop Being Humble About Value

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And uh the first thing I had to really think about was you don't have to be humble. I'm not to brag about the income or anything else, but I absolutely would let people know that I what I was doing for my Medicare beneficiaries and how I was helping them. You have to let people know what you've done and what you accomplished. And I'll tell you, I I again were doing these series. If you listen to our very first one a little while back, I kind of pulled away from that. And the reason I pulled away from it was I know how much work it is to be an insurance agent. I know how much work it is to do the marketing, to write the business, to meet with the clients, to do the follow-up and do all those things. It's why I created a lot of systems and follow-ups and those things for to help insurance agents, but people have to do the work. And again, a good, you know, agents of mine uh that I have, uh that I've coached and people I know in the business, they would say, Dave, you have to stop being humble. I mean, like, and I'm not saying that in a conceited way. It's the truth is I'm telling you, you you have to stop being humble, not about the money. Uh, you know, I I don't like hanging around people that dump their checks about checks about how much money they have, but you have to be out there telling people how you've changed people's lives. What did you do?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

So yeah, exactly. Because if you don't, if you don't have like a I mean, it's more of like more passionate about what you're doing and what you're accomplishing than it is like bragging. Especially when you're working with uh a a group of like seniors that like are so scared and kind of backed into a corner. Like if you if you don't at least portray confidence, portray like, oh, I can absolutely help you, like don't worry about it, we're gonna take care of you. Like the person that's a that's uh even as a consumer, if I'm working with two salespeople, that one's like super confident can help me, the other one's like you know, kind of in their shell, just not like kind of skittish. Like I'm the only guy who's confident, I'm not gonna risk it. Like I think that's so the humble thing, it's you're you're kind of hitting it right now on the head. It's like you don't have to say, Well, my I write over 200 out peop 200 people a year and I make over 500k a year, like you should go with me because I've helped out so many. It's like no, it's it's more of like the way you're gonna help them. I think that's the humble you need you don't have to be humble about like the way you're gonna help them, how much maybe attention, how much service you're gonna get to them. It's kind of like your value proposition then, like let them know what they're gonna get from you rather than just be very vague or just not confident about it.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Right. Yeah, it it is a value proposition, absolutely. And to me, that's really what it is. You know, when I when I talk to agents on a regular basis, it's you know, what value are you bringing? Yeah, you know, why why should an agent go um with, you know, why should a client go with you as an agent versus this person? You know, um, I don't fear I can go anywhere in the country and I don't fear my competition. And again, that's not to I'm not bragging about it. I'm just saying I don't fear it. One, there's so much business out there, right? I'm also different. And it's okay to be different. You don't have to follow the cookie cutter model that everyone has to be the same. When I was at the captive company, right? I we were supposed to wear the same color suits, the same shirt, right? They they wanted us almost be cookie cutter to one another. Have you ever walked into an office and you can't tell the you know a difference between the people? What is a movie? Uh men in black. I feel like you walk into an office and all of them have the same suit on, the same white shirt, the same tie. Um, you know, you don't have to do that. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna tell you, don't do that. You know, the another tip in that is is beyond that is you have to let your authority shine. You have to let it shine. They should be able to know that you know what you are doing and you better know what you're doing. Don't lie, don't don't have a false, you know, polish on, but let it shine. I am very confident that I can do certain things because I've done it, right? When I first started doing Medicare and I'd walk into a house and I'd save somebody, you know, $2,000 that year. I'm like, wait, what? And then I do it again, I do it again, I do it again. Now it became a point of I'm walking in people's houses and I had a really good knowledge of knowing that I could save a lot of these people money. I can't help everybody, but I knew that I can sell the majority of the people I walked into, which then led me to the point of I had to find efficiency in my business.

Qualify First To Win Back Time

SPEAKER_01 9:07

So I didn't necessarily go to their house for the first appointment. And people go, wait, Dave, what do you mean? Yes, I had an appointment over the phone, which led me eventually to do ever do almost everything over the phone, right? But I did it over the phone. I I I qualified them, I did everything over the phone. That if I was going to their house, I knew a sale was taking place.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah. So I wasn't getting porched anymore. I'm not driving all over the place. Uh, you know, things definitely changed until I had an office that people came to me, but I still was at the point that I said I had to know what I was doing when I was able to speak in front of people, when I was writing articles, when I was doing all these things. You know, I can tell you to this day, I see things that are posted online on Facebook, on and said on YouTube, TikTok, all these things that's just pure lies. People want to know why Medicare beneficiaries are confused. It's because insurance agents are confused, right? But absolutely the kicker is those people are thinking they're letting their authority shine. They're just letting false narratives shine. We have to let we have to get the word out to people when you truly know what you're doing and know it for a fact and know the facts. You have to be out there. And it's not just for your business, beneficiaries need to know. And I don't care if it's Medicare, I don't care if it's life insurance, I don't care if it's disability insurance, I don't care if it's long-term care insurance, I don't care what it is. People need to know there's a reason that that insurance exists. We are we are the used car salesman of the world because um, you know, in in a bad context, because of how a lot of people sold. Build relationships, help people, because I'll tell you what, the products are needed in society more than ever. Um and they have to be understood because people aren't there teaching, but you have to let that authority shine for sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I think one of the biggest gaps in the the you know, letting your authority sh shine is, and this is a personal personal story of actually an agent we we brought on this year, had 400 plus clients of theirs. And when you're looking at getting the when you're actually looking at growing your business and letting your authority shine, who's the one person that a senior is probably going to trust as their word is good compared to like an insurance agent? And it's the person that's the other senior that that worked with that insurance agent. So 400 plus people they had working in this business for 10 years, there's no testimony of those on their website, and they had no Google Business Review. The two easiest ways to literally let your authority shine, they had zero words. So if anyone's trying to figure out if this person is credible and like an authority in the space and knows what they're doing, zero, absolutely zero actually documented history of them actually being able to do the job that they are authority or an expert in the space. And no content, no reviews, no testimonies, no nothing. Almost a ghost. And those 400 people, he probably could have grew years ago exponentially faster just by showing people that he can do this and do it well. And seniors, the biggest trust you can get them to work with you is show them that other seniors also worked with you and had a good experience. Like that is the biggest thing that I think is a probably a a big gap. Working with this agent, now they in and you manage about seven months. He just went back to his clients and got testimonials, and now is the number one raped agent in his area. Just because he got reviews to respond to him and did a bunch of other things to kind of optimize. But now he's looked at as an authority in the space just because he's a track record in a document history of

Reviews And Proof Create Authority

SPEAKER_02 12:28

doing so. Your authority is authority is everything. You're the way you're viewing the industry is kind of everything to a beneficiary, because if they can't again, we were talking about one of those early episodes, if they can't find you, who the hell are you? You have no authority, you have no dominance in the space, you have nothing. You are literally making this job now job because you are now a slave to this 80-hour potentially a week job that you're making your life so much harder, right? Actually grow because you are not using the free tools available to let your authority shine. A very easy way to do so. It's something we see uh I mean to this day, even successful agents not utilizing stuff like that, and which can make their growing ability so much, so much faster.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Oh yeah. I I I a hundred percent agree. I can't tell you how many people that uh we've both come across that you you're like, hey, listen, you've done great. We can we can blow it up a lot faster because there's so many things that you have not done that can be done in a in a very simple way. And it doesn't it it takes a little bit of time, but it doesn't take tons of time. And now, I mean, with different tools and things that we have to help age agents to do it and business owners, uh it's amazing. You know, I I mean 2026 and the classes and things that we go and and will be teaching and and continuing to teach going on and and what we've learned and automated and just you have to do it. I mean, people have to be out there and let, as you said, let other people let the avatar speak to their avatar and they will shine a light on you.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

There's not a better there isn't a better concrete way to show you are an expert than listening to the other people who work with you. There isn't there is nothing like you can say whatever you want to them, convince them that you are the best thing for them, but the one thing they're gonna trust is the other people who work with you before. It's just it's human.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Which kind of is that example that we talked about in the very beginning of you know, the insurance agents came to me and asked to work with me. I didn't want insurance agents, I just wanted to be an agent. And then when I was like, okay, I'll be a G, I remember sitting in a meeting that at a conference, and they were like, Oh, well, you want to be an FMO someday? And I was like, No, I don't want to be an FMO. And now we're an FMO, right? But I let the wave ride where it was. But here's the thing: I was not out there beating the drum on recruiting people. Insurance agents were shining a light on us, and people were coming to us because other insurance agents were saying, go, go talk to Dave, go talk to Dave. Now it's go talk to Family Financial Solutions Group, go talk to Mike, go talk to Mike, go talk to Dave. They will help you grow, right? And we will, we can't help everybody because some people just don't want to be helped. Some people don't want to be coached, some people, there's a lot of things. We're a little different than other people, and that's okay. We're not right for everybody, but listen to what we're saying is let other people shine on you. Let your avatar shine on you, let your centers of influence shine on you so there's a bright light on you, so they can't miss you.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

You can never keep yourself in the dark, even if you tried, because everyone else is going to be shining that light on you. Literally, if you tried. That's why it's unknown to unstoppable. You can stop this thing. If you do it correctly, there is not a you would have to physically try to derail yourself.

unknown 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Stopping. Because that's that's the whole point. It's gaining so much momentum, so much speed that you become unstoppable and you have to literally derail yourself on purpose to get this thing to stop.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah, I I, you know, again, I I stopped actively marketing for new clients a while back. And we had uh I had a a past employee who's who's no longer working with us, a phenomenal person, right? Not with us for different reasons, but uh a truly phenomenal heart, a phenomenal person, truly understood what we were doing as a company. And she said, Dave, I don't understand. I hear you talk to agents, I hear you talk to your clients, and you tell them, hey, listen, you're not necessarily looking for these referrals, yet you get more referrals in one month than some people get in the whole entire year. And sometimes, right? And we weren't running referrals, it had to do with that light that was with it's on. Yeah. And for me to turn it off, it really would be I'd be ruining my reputation. I'm not gonna do that. So I've tried to turn it off as much as possible. And in by just saying, please, you know, we're really not taking on new clients. Uh, you know, that that's not, but we have people that we can hand them to, you know, we can do other things, but but that shining of that light when it's on, it's on. It's that snowball effect, it's going down that hill. And if you're doing it the right way, it's gonna go. Yeah, you can crash crash into a huge tree and it blow up, but usually it's because you did it. You were the tree that that blew it up by something you did. So um, but absolutely, which kind of then goes also though.

Conviction And Mindset Drive Growth

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I mean, if you listen, if you listen to what we've just been saying and the passion we have, why can I do this both? Show up with conviction. I'm just we believe this so much. I hope that you hear the passion that we have for it. You have to show up with conviction. When you're talking to people about your business, you have to believe in your business. Day of all times in the Medicare space, we hear people basically, you know, talking garbage about the Medicare business, which I think it's a great business. We have people talking about life insurance, it's a horrible business to get into. We have people talking about insurance, the property and casualty, it's a horrible business to get into. I'll tell you what, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

No.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

If you don't believe in what you're doing, if you don't believe that you can help people, if you don't believe in the industry you're in, get out because all you're doing is just gonna die anyways, and it's gonna be very painful.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. I was actually that's I was just like looking up. I got in a thread on uh a group on Facebook of an agent just kind of complaining about the whole industry and how he's in a state that some plans got pulled and he's got to choose between feeding his family and you know, doing right by the client, and and it's you're if you are going to complain and have a negative attitude about this or not like have passion for it, like you will find more things wrong that will happen to you than you'll ever find things that are right that are happening to you. Because there are businesses in his area that are doing fine and actually growing. But since he's got a negative attitude for conviction, like he's got more conviction about how many bad things happen to him than more than how much good stuff can happen for him. And you will just attract all of the bad things, or actually you can't even attract it. You'll just pretty much blow up the fact that bad things are happening to you and actually forget anything that's actually good that could be coming from this. That's uh and they kind of hit your hip nail right in the head as far as at the beginning of we don't talk about this like we're kind of halfway in, halfway out. This is what we do full time. Like if you don't if you don't speak like us about the thing you are currently doing, I would question whether I wanted to work with you or not. Because if you were not all in and if you're not fully passionate about what you're doing, like what happens to me when the day comes where you decide like this agent, this is my last AP. It's like cool. You just promised hundreds of other clients that you're gonna be there from every year, and just because you have a little bit of a tough quarter, you're gonna bounce like full conviction will absolutely, absolutely show when your clients are sitting in front of you versus the person that's kind of like a wet blank of like nah. Yeah, that's that's a the confidence all boils down to confidence of what you think you can do for people and then speaking the truth about what you can do. And if you can't do that, it'll be very hard for you one to sell and one to grow.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, and I think you you you put a spin on this that that is absolutely true, that I hope the people are listening to and understood. It's the positive conviction, right? And and I teach all the time, you attract who you are and what you are. If all I am is negative, I'm gonna attract negative people to me. I'm gonna attract negative thoughts, I'm gonna attract negative stuff, the the things that kill the mindset, the things that kill your business. If I'm positive, I'm gonna repel away all the negative, right? And I'm not saying, don't don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everything is, you know, sunshines and roses all the time. Right. It's never right, but I know for a fact that my business will grow. I know for a fact by doing what we're doing, it's going to happen. And when in when somebody comes to me and goes, I have to make a choice between doing right by my client and putting food on the table, and this might sound harsh. I'm always gonna pick doing right by my client because I truly be believe that if I do what's right by my client, my pocketbook and my family will be able to live and survive and want to be okay. And I've held this belief since I've been in business, since I that's just what I learned. That's who I am, right? And there's that's not even a choice. It's not even a choice.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

It was harder for me. Like when I before I met my wife, my wife is that very like big positive, like always will spin anything negative to a positive without a fault. When I first met her, it was it was a little annoying because I was just that like negative, like, no, like my family struggles, I struggle, like I can't do anything right, like poor me, poor me. And it took years to like shift out of that. Obviously, just being around her just like made things better, but also like getting coaching and help to like fix that. That has been such an unbelievable like fix to how I approach literally everything now. Because I mean, we've known each other for you know close to three years now. Like the amount of times where I actually get on a call with you where I'm like, just a bad day, everything's bad happening, can't stop it, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like maybe one phone call probably pretty much ever. Like that's ever been like that. No, it's you know, maybe pretty bad days. It's not even at all ever happened. Because that does it's a it's a it's a net negative because not only did you have a bad day, you have now have a bad attitude that's gonna create another bad afternoon, which is gonna wake up the next day to create another bad morning. Like you are just compounding negatives over and over again. And to stop that, we talk about the snowball going downhill. Try stopping a boulder of negative energy and trying to stop. That and push it back uphill. It's all almost impossible. And that's what a lot of people get into.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah, it's so true. I wish, you know, uh, and I think and and we're not necessarily you know uh thought about this, but if you listen to what we're talking about, this is a lot of us that mindset, right? If you want that two comma business, the mindset matters.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

And you have to comma mindset.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Two comma yeah, right, right. Two two comma mindset. You have to train yourself for it. I'm listening that's not how I was born, right? I'm not saying I was born to be negative. I'm just saying we can we can teach ourselves, we can we can put ourselves in routines to be in a a spot to train our mind and and be more mindful of what we're doing, to have that positive mindset. And uh and and Mike, I know that you do things in a routine. You have routines in your life to to kind of help you too, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah. That's that's the power of habit. I was actually just talking to another agent about it. Like, if you want to understand like why like things work the way they do, read that book. It'll like it literally changes the way you think about how you do things every single day. And like what a routine will do for you that is positive, like over a long enough time horizon, how that will actually change you fundamentally from as a person. Like it's it's it's profound. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I love the fact that you not only I I've heard you mention this book before, right? But not only did you mention it today, you knew exactly where it was and you pulled it out. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Those are probably like the same like 15 or 16 books that I'll like read, like reread, just because they cover different elements of like life and just how to like approach things. Like it's I don't I don't read a lot of books, but I will reread the books that I think are worth rereading.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Which I I I I'm gonna go into there's another piece of this, and we're talking all these things around right, you know um, you don't have to be humble and you you you have to let your you know the the light shine upon you and you have to show up with conviction.

Authenticity Beats Scripts And Hype

SPEAKER_01 23:59

But there's another part of this, and it you have to be authentic to who you are, right? So all those things you have to be who you are. I have friends that are the rah-rah type, and I really am not. I I'm not the cheerleader. I cheer in a different way, I motivate in a different way, I teach in a different way. And I've just had to learn to be me. Instead of being, you know, listen, I I used to coach basketball. I can't coach like Phil Jackson, I can't coach like Tom Thibodeau, I can't coach like you know one of the greatest. Tom Thibodeau is a is a defensive coach, was phenomenal. He's one of the best defensive coaches out there, right? And I I love defense. I'm I was a defensive coach, right? But I can't I couldn't coach like certain people because they have the unique style. You have to be you. You have to speak with your own voice. Uh, one of the things we do on a regular basis, people go, oh Dave, can I have your script? No, let's teach you how to build your own script because your voice matters. I can teach you the psychology behind a slide, I can teach you these things, but you have to find your own voice. You have to be find your authentic you. But people that go, how did you grow your business? I can tell you exactly what I did, but that doesn't mean that's what you should do. Because I said before, I I truly am by nature an introvert. I can speak to you, I can speak on stages. That's not what an introvert versus extrovert is, by the way. Some people misunderstand that. But I have such passion for what I do. And when I have the passion, I can speak on that passion and I can stand up in front of people. Most people have a fear of public speaking, but yet we can teach ourselves to get rid of that fear. That doesn't mean you're not who you are. So understand that just because you don't like to speak in front of other people, because you fear it, doesn't mean you can't get rid of that fear. But when I do speak in front of other people, I have to be who I am. I can't be some of the greatest orators. I can't be the, you know, uh, you know, Dr. King. I mean, great orator, phenomenal orator. I can't be him. He speaks in such a way that in such in a different way. I that's not me. I hear some of the greatest orators in the world speak. That's not not who I am. I am not the, hey, get up and jump up and down, rah-rah. Now, if you ever see me speak on stage, sometimes I do things and it just comes natural, like boom, it just hits me. But if it doesn't do that, I don't plan it. I can't memorize my speeches word for word for word. They're bullet points and I have a really good idea what I'm speaking on. I have the stories, I have all those things. But if I memorize it, I freeze.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And I have a pretty darn good memory, but I just freeze. That's that's not who I am. Be authentically you, be who you are. Are you a, you know, who where's your heart? Maybe your heart is to work with certain people and just because that's who they are. I have individuals I say all the time, you know, why are you helping seniors? And and we we have some agents that are phenomenal. They didn't know anything about insurance, but they're growing like crazy because they just love seniors and you can tell it. There's some people that just I say they it's it just comes out of their pores. You just know it. Yeah. Uh there's some people that, you know, love just oozes out of them. The hospitality, I should say, oozes out of them. I'm not the typical hospitable person. It's not necessarily a gift I have. Somebody comes in, I'll, you know, I'll offer you a drink, things like that. But in our house, it was, hey, you've come to our house, we'll give you things, but when you're friends of ours, you know where the cups are, you know the refrigerator is, get the drink. That's how we grew up. So that's just what I did. I've had to learn to be more hospitable, not because I don't want to be, it's just because that's not how my brain thought thinks. So being authentic, you also have to understand how you think, how you process things, how you speak, who you are, and not try to be other people. And uh, if you do those things, I truly believe you're you're you're gonna be who you are. And one of the things I the first time, one of the first things we did when we talked, you know, I was like, well, I got to know Mike. And I was like, man, you know, Mike, Mike's a kind of a quiet guy. When he spoke, he definitely spoke with the conviction and knowledge and that type of thing. But you know, when I first met him, we we were introduced when he was a in the captive area and what he did in that company. He was sitting there, he was taking things in. I could tell what he was thinking, he was processing. It wasn't like he was just gonna jump in and and cut people off and very introspective in so many ways. And I came to, you know, when I have when I would say, Hey Mike, you want to speak on something now that you're with us, I knew when you would speak, you didn't need to be me. You're who you are. And I love it because it's different.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Well, I mean, I don't think we need I don't think we need two Dave. We got it. We have more than one, we have more than enough Dave in the world. Yeah, yeah. We're we're we're definitely okay on Dave. Uh from from myself, I it is something you have to learn through repetitions, uh, in my personal opinion. Like figuring out your authentic you before you even start doing this business that might be a little tough. Like there are going to be ebbs and flows of like what you'll find is going to work and then what you're not gonna find is not gonna work, and what worked and maybe you were comfortable with, and what did work that maybe you thought you were gonna be comfortable with. It's not this is you know, as much as we we were saying be authentic you, like there isn't that you're not gonna be write it down on a piece of paper and say, All right, going forward, this is me. Like you will make adjustments on based on how you feel what you would like to do. Good example, like there you are probably, I have a really good friend. She's not an agent with us, she's in just at a different stage of her life. And she will not speak to people speak to a small group or even a large group, but she it's like it's like speaking with like your best friend you haven't seen in 20 years. Every time she gets with a client, I've seen it in action. It's like the most warmest bedside manner, like feeling you've ever had, like you are the only person in the world that's speaking to them in that moment. Makes you feel extremely well when you're actually speaking with her, but just doesn't want to talk in front of a group. And she's been a successful agent for nearly a decade now, but she's never spoken in a group or into a small group or even a like a large group, and still a successful agent. Does that like as a trait entering in if you're watching this, if you feel that that's you, don't feel like this can't be successful for you, because it absolutely can. There it's there's more than disgustingly enough, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to do this business, and you can almost, like, almost pick and choose how you want to do this tailored to you. And there's a very good thing, I mean, success is the I mean, if you told me like, hey, Mike, I don't, I just want to like literally just do phone calls by myself in a room, dark room with auto dialer, like, sure, there's an absolute way you can do this. Or if you say, hey, Mike, I just want people to come to me and I want to write 2,000 applications a month, like, readjust expectations. But if you really want to tailor this to you, you absolutely can. There is I wouldn't let anyone tell you you can't do something. If you have a specific vision where you want your business to be, then build this. And find a coach that will help you build it. Like I said, we're not for everybody. Depending on that's why we do a lot of qualifications, we work with people, because like if there are a lot of people that want to do certain strategies that we don't align with, like I'm not gonna morph and Dave's not gonna morph what we do, just so we can like bubble around them so it can work. So ultimately they're gonna get frustrated, we're gonna get frustrated, it's just not gonna work. So find somebody that and again, it might take some searching because there's a lot of people out there, but if there's a way you want to do business, don't stop at the first person you talk to and say, Well, they were nice. Well, I don't know if I jive at them, but you know, my friend Billy, who's an agent, said they do really good work. But there are so many options out there, like you can kind of carve this out however you'd like to. Don't settle for how someone else wants you to do this business because ultimately there's been so many different ways people have been successful doing this. That's that'd be my that'd be my two cents on though being authentic to you, like don't settle for what people are telling you to do. Carve this out how you want and just know like it will take effort. It will take work. Especially if you're trying to tailor it really well, it will take effort, it will take work. But if you really believe in that, like I met a guy who literally is he goes and does seminars at RV parks around the country. Like, literally, it has a camper himself, has Starlink, and drives around the country writing Medicare business and doing seminars at RV parks because he loves RVs and he loves traveling. If he can do it, literally anybody can do this business and tailor to how he wants to do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So that's it, maybe. That that's what I'm gonna do when I retire. I'm gonna go to all the national parks. I'm gonna just get a travel trailer and get I'm gonna do it. I'm telling you, I that I love it. Um, I actually I probably will not uh because I really don't um I love

Redefining Two Commas As Impact

SPEAKER_01 32:20

what I do. And people ask all the time, when are you gonna retire? And uh I don't see myself ever full-time retiring. It's because I love what I do, I love seeing agents thrive, I love celebrating with agents' success and how they define success. And so find somebody who wants to celebrate you that celebrates your success and doesn't define what success is. And if if you don't want a two comma business, hey, that's okay. You don't need one. But maybe it's a two comma business, not financially. And you notice we didn't say necessarily financially. Maybe it's a two comma business inwardly that you have.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

You're the idea of what you think your business is worth based on what you wanted to pull out of it. Because success to you will look different than what success to Dave and I will look like. That's it, that is that is the truth. Because Dave's success of a business is different than mine, different than yours. Like, don't stop at what like other people are gonna tell you on how to make this look like. That's up to you. If 100 clients is it, great. You're one. You made it. Walk off into the distance, like you're fine.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Um, and I I think I want to end on this and and it kind of and like led right into it, right? Family Financial Solutions Group, our company, the two, comma, has nothing to do with monetary money. My whole entire goal is impact. We truly want to make an impact on people's lives. We want to make an impact on people growing a very successful insurance business the right way because you actually impact more lives. And I can only do so much in a certain area. And I know that as a company, if we pour into and help insurance agents grow a very successful insurance business, we'll impact more lives. But we only do we can only do that one life at a time. And the more we do that over and over, it has that compounding effect. And I believe truly that the people that work for our company have the same mindset. We're here about impact. We all have to make a living, don't get me wrong. We have to make money. But if we make an impact in the world, the money will be there. And that two comma business is not just two commas on monetary, but how many lives have we impacted? And so thank you for being a part of today's episode. I love it. Remember to just like and share us. If this has had an impact on your life, we would love to hear it. If these episodes make a difference for you, we'd love to hear it. We'd love to take have your input and hear what you guys have to say. Our goal, like I said, it is why we named our this podcast what it is Invisible Agent, going from unknown to unstoppable. We want you to be unstoppable, and we would love to celebrate your success no matter where it is. Thank you for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

See you in the next one. We do not do any paid marketing to promote this podcast. It only grows if you find value in this and share it. Keep following as we show insurance business owners how to go from unknown to unstoppable. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next week.