How you ended up in insurance. I was always in an entrepreneurial type mindset. Like I was flipping Pokemon cards at like an early age or trying to resell sneakers. I broke everything down in terms of when I had a door knock. How much was a door knock worth? If you were talking to another insurance agent, they get into the business recently. What would your advice be? If you're practicing a crappy presentation, you're only going to perfect the crappy presentation. What's going to change in the industry later on that might screw me? Some government entity might wake up and be like, it's illegal to market for life insurance leads. I'm going to be okay. Are you going to be okay? Before you became a mentor, who did you look up to? Insurance can be a very selfish industry. So it's hard to get that mentorship from someone that's not reaping.
SPEAKER_03What would be the number one piece of advice you would give any insurance dude or do that out there? Keep to a process.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, man, man. How you doing? Good, good, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, Peter. Is that right?
SPEAKER_01Fournier? Yes, yes, sir. With the French flair. With the French flair. Fournier.
SPEAKER_03Well, welcome to the insurance. Welcome to the dudes. Yeah. You want to just dive right in? Dive it. Let's do it. What it was your first we like to do a little icebreaker. What was your first concert that you ever went to? I want to preface this with like where did your parents take you? Oh, yeah. Was it like a Barney concert, or was it like, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00The first one ever was probably uh Britney Spears, 98 Degrees and the Baja Men. There we go. All together. I think I was like 12.
SPEAKER_03The Baja Men. That see, that's what I'm looking for. Those are the nuggets, those are the good nuggets that I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_00Oh, who let the dogs out? That's it. No one knows who they were. And then the song blew up. I was like, who are these guys? Or that was pre like the Bahaman open for Britney Spears and 98 Degrees. And no, like we it was in Arthur Ash Stadium during the US Open. Like they had this Arthur Ash Kids' Day, and uh they went on and sang that song and like four or five others, and people were like not even in the stadium. Like no one knew who they were. It was wild. Wow.
SPEAKER_03I I didn't even know they had other songs. Right? They did like a half hour set. Yeah, wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And then 98 degrees. It's amazing when you go to these shows and um and and the opening band is just, you know, that ends up being big. Like there people aren't there. It makes no sense. Jane's addiction where nine-inch nails open, and and we were like nine-inch dildos. I don't want to, I mean, part of that, you know, like it was and then here you go. Wow, you know, I mean, one of the biggest bands of the 90s. I mean, just crazy. Dave, I went to a Grateful Dead where where Dave Matthews opened, and we were like, Who the hell's Dave Matthews?
SPEAKER_00I went to a Dave Matthews, I'm a huge DMB fan, and uh, I went to a Dave Matthews concert where Jack Johnson opened and like no one was in the stadium. Oh clueless, right? Yeah, clueless. Like played Taylor, you know, all those like throwback Jack Johnson acoustics on. It was just him by himself with a microphone.
SPEAKER_03With no shoes on.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, with Berkeley socks on.
SPEAKER_01So awesome.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, cool, man. Well, Peter, thanks so much for hopping on. Um, you know, for anybody who hasn't heard of you or is living under a rock, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, like where you came from, how you ended up in insurance?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So uh I've been in insurance since uh pretty much college, which is kind of crazy. Um, I got roped into that college intern game for a captive um and got paid like I think it was 150 bucks a week at the time. Actually, even before that, I interned for ING, which no longer exists, um, which got absorbed by Boya. And uh at that point, I was getting paid like, I think it was like nine bucks an hour at the time to cold call for the producers. And uh, you know, they were driving around in like Porsches and shit. And I was like, uh, am I allowed to curse on this? This is good. All right, sure. So uh they were driving around like Porsches, and and I was like, what is going on? And then I saw the opening um at Northwestern Mutual uh for the intern program, and I was like, all right, let's see what this is all about. Um so I got paid like 150 a week. Uh I wrote down, you know, 300 people that I knew, and then my college unit director was like, All right, uh, go sell them something. I was like, How do you do that? What do you say? I was like, okay. So I mean, that arguably that could have been like the best training you get is like, oh, you can't swim, just throw them in the deep end, see what's happening. Um, so I did that throughout college, and then uh after college worked for another captive, and then finally went independent um in 2013 and uh kind of never looked back. So I was at two IMOs before I found uh Innovative Financial Group, who I'm with now. Uh, but yeah, it's been almost a decade, which is crazy.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Wow. So tell us uh tell tell us from that point on um what was that path like? You came out of two independent or two captives.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a wild one. Uh you know, you don't know any better. I think my initial comp is an intern, and and these companies might have changed their comps, so don't take them for gospel. But I think I was paid like 30 to 35 percent initially and had to do joint work. Like I my mentor would like take me out, you know, and we'd split the case. So you're making like 15, 17 points, I guess, on a on a term product that that's ten dollars a month, you know. Uh, but it was money, like I was making money at 21, so I didn't care. And then I went to another captive that bumped my comp. I think the initial one was 42 and a half, so I was making like 15 more points. Uh, I was like, oh my God. And they provided leads, which was like crazy baffling. And then I got approached by uh an independent organization that no longer exists, and the manager uh let me have a 55 on term and a 60 on final expense, and I was woohoo! I'm rich, you know? Yeah. Um, so I stayed there for a while until they folded up, went to uh a Merrill, who was humongous, um, and stayed there for a while and now found uh innovative. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01So so there's so many different directions to go in the in just the insurance space. What gravitated you towards this side of it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so um I knew I didn't want to get like completely stuck in the in the captive model, and I like there's nothing really against it, but um it it was hard selling like one product line, not gonna lie. Uh and I I would consider myself a pretty decent closer, uh, but it's a tough sell. So if you can sell that stuff and you're successful there, I mean, more power to you, that's awesome. In terms of like being on the broker side of things and why choosing that, um, I think it was really like I was always in an entrepreneurial type mindset. Like I was flipping Pokemon cards at like an early age or trying to like resell sneakers or you know, anything I could get my hands on. I used to buy stuff at clearance from like uh Office Max that no longer exists and then flip it at like a garage sale. Like I was always in that like sales, I wanted to own my own business mentality. And the broker side of things, at least initially, um, I mean, it was sky's the limit. It was all on you. Uh, you know, your manager would give you the occasional help at the time, and and that was it. Uh, and then you could write your own destiny. So I think that drew me down that that market path.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Yeah. Cool. Well, do you have a a niche that you specialize in? What do you particularly like to Yeah?
SPEAKER_00So um I specialize in mortgage protection big time. Um did not like personally, uh, the final expense market, uh, did not like uh occasionally sitting in, you know, cat pee and all that nonsense, right? In in some trailer in in East Jabib. Um I also it was tough naturally by course of action. Final expense tends to be a smaller deal size. And coming from the captives, where you might not have made that much money initially anyway. Um I wanted a bigger deal size. Uh so mortgage protection allowed me to do that because as you guys probably know, easy mortgage protection pitch is like term and then term return or premium, maybe, right? Well, I was pitching IULs and whole life for mortgage protection and getting, you know, two, three, four hundred dollars a month and showing the value. So I stuck on that route for a long, long time. And then as um direct mail leads got more and more expensive, I kind of branched out and and went nuts on referrals. So I'm the referral guy. I was trying to average uh at least three to five per household. So that way I didn't have to spend 40, 50 bucks on an MP lead at the time. Because when I first went independent, they were like $26 for a brand new lead. So it was pretty cheap, like in hindsight, right? Sure. Uh expensive at the time, but cheap now. So as those mail prices kept going up, I was like, man, this sucks. Like, how do I get free leads? So I got I got good at referrals. So mortgage protection into more advanced markets. So big whole lifes, big IULs, uh the occasional annuity, that kind of thing is where my specialty lies.
SPEAKER_01Was this going in sitting at the kitchen table or was this over the phone?
SPEAKER_00100% kitchen table. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, lots of I I didn't love door knocking either. It wasn't my favorite thing to do. So I made sure I got really good at the phones um instead of knocking on everybody's door and trying to get in at that time. So uh phoning was really important to me. But yeah, every appointment was in person. So you're driving all over at that time Ohio when I first started, uh, and then New Jersey, where I moved back to uh, but you know, driving all over the freaking state uh to get a point.
SPEAKER_01And so how do you keep yourself accountable in that situation? I mean, obviously you've been doing this a while and you've gotten you've become successful at it, but to people, ladies and gentlemen, or dudes and dudettes cutting their teeth in this world, I mean, it it can be a grind, right? Yeah. And how do you overcome that? How do you stay focused? How do you keep the vision?
SPEAKER_00The easiest way, and I've heard a lot of people do this, like I don't think it's a new uh uh topic or new idea, but uh maybe new to some of your listeners, is I broke everything down in terms of when I had to door knock, how much was a door knock worth? When I had to make a phone call, how much was that dial worth? So it wasn't like, oh, I made three grand for the week and it was just ambiguous, right? And I was appreciative for the 3K and that was it. I knew like every dial I made $65, or every sit, regardless if they sold or not, was worth $400 or something of that nature. Every referral was worth like $40. So that way when you look at your schedule at the end of the week, and I was a big proponent of breaking down my numbers every week so I could get better. When you look at your numbers, even though that money wasn't deposited into your account yet, you could see, hey, all my activity made me eight grand this week. Now I may have only taken home three, but eventually I'm getting that other five. Um, I think that's the easiest way to hold yourself accountable because this business, for the most part, you're kind of on an island. I mean, most guys and gals will have a manager or an organization to help them a little bit, but on the day-to-day, no one's holding your hand or telling you what to do. Um, so you kind of got to break it down monetarily. And if you're not motivated by money, it's a tough industry to be in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it's funny, um, it goes back to that whole saying of uh that which is not measured cannot be approved upon. Like, like it's a very yes, you have to have those measures, like especially with life insurance. And I think that's for the a lot of all the captives, there's some sort of life insurance with it. Um so and for independence, it's a great, I mean, it's a gr it's a great field, everybody needs it. It's something to at least look into if you're maybe in some other niche of that. Yeah, it's definitely something you have to. I mean, there's a tail on it too. Right. So it it's really hard. A lot of people struggle with it. What have you found to be like what what's your formula these days going at it? Yeah. So in terms of scheduling and stuff, yeah, just like if you I guess this. If if you were talking to another insurance agent, they get into the business recently, they're like, man, I gotta sell life insurance. Like, I don't even know where to start. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Well, what would your advice be? My brand new person, uh, especially if they're just jumping into the industry, would be write down your warm market, and I'm gonna tell you like every other captive, and it sounds cliche and it sounds like, oh God, I don't want to do this, right? But write down your work your warm market and work referrals off of your warm market. When you're making commissions, regardless of what comp level you're at, set aside $3,000 into a separate bank account that has nothing to do with expenses, whether business or personal. You can't pay your house with it, right? Set aside $3,000. Once you do that, then get on a recurring lead buy every single week, whether it's final expense, mortgage protection, annuities, whatever leads you're getting, I don't care. It's personal preference. But that $3,000 is very important because the average agent should be spending anywhere from three to six hundred dollars at least in their interim or uh immediate position in this career a week. So three to six hundred bucks a week. Well, if you blank two weeks in a row and at max you spend twelve hundred dollars, there's still 1,800 bucks in that account that you can rely on to buy more leads. People fail out of the industry so fast because they're terrible at money management, right? So if I made $3,000 for the week and I spent it all on a watch or a house or whatever, paid my bills with it, and set no funds aside for leads or a small amount, or I'm using my generic checking account to pay for leads, you start getting in that scarcity mentality of, man, I keep spending money and I'm not making that much. Well, if you have a buffer and you're refilling it like we have Easy Pass in New Jersey, right? If you're just replenishing it all the time, so you take a thousand out for leads, you make some money, you put the thousand back in. So you'll always have that rolling 3K. You could go on a two-week vacation and it doesn't matter because leads are still coming in and you still have that buffer account. So that's the immediate is sell your warm market, sell your referrals, save up some money. My my goal number would be $3,000, and then harp on leads until you don't have to anymore. You might get referrals or whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_01And purchasing leads, um, because we we buy a lot of leads also, Jason and I both, um, but P and C. So a little bit different, which with a quicker sales cycle. And and we do have this longer sales cycle. I I would suppose that the that your lead purchases are a little bit quicker because they're they're higher intent, whereas you have the referrals, which eventually are gonna be your organic growth, and that has that longer six month, maybe a year tail, or even three, four years, right?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And I wanted to, I always had the mentality um in terms of scarcity of what's what what's gonna change in the industry later on that might screw me, right? And one day some government entity might wake up and be like, it's illegal to market for life insurance leads.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00I'm still gonna be here. I got hundreds of referrals, right? Stacked. I'm gonna be okay. Are you gonna be okay, right? So even though you're spending that money on leads, focus on that referral market, average three to five per house. You don't have to sell all of them, but at least you have those prospects stacked and you're bringing again, I bring everything down to a monetary level. You're bringing your average lead cost down. If you're spending 20 bucks a lead, but you get five referrals, it's four dollars a lead now, right? Right. So treat it that way. But I always wanted to make sure that my business wouldn't be affected by anything that changes in the economy around me, you know? Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Recession proof it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 100%. And I think insurance in general, whether in your life, health, P and C, I think it's all pretty generally recession proof. We're not selling luxury watches or cars, right? People are always gonna need what we're pushing, but make it so no one can control your future business. If they turned off marketing because they made it like unlawful, you're gonna be all right if you're good at referrals.
SPEAKER_01How how did you how you're so you're uh like every human, right? We we question ourselves, we're always in our head, we're we're thinking like uh this isn't gonna work, they're gonna think I'm an asshole. Like, how do you get you're on that kitchen table the first time and you start developing this referral, this referral process where you're asking, how did you or when did you finally break through and see results from doing that? And how did you work it?
SPEAKER_00Not to give away your second sauce, but I I obviously had to get referrals in the captives because um one captive provided leads, but there weren't a ton of them because they were free, right? So they gave them to you sparingly, and the other you had no leads. So um I starting there helped out, right? Because it was sink or swim anyway. But I think really where I drove it home personally was my second year um in the independent space. Uh first year, I was buying a lot of aged leads and getting on a plane and flying to different states because the lead returns were better. I didn't have a lot of money coming from captive to independent. I also spent a lot of money like an idiot, which is why I'm I'm harping on money management now so much for myself and my agents. Um, but I was flying all over the country, like trying to sell leads. I was like, I can't sustain this. I mean, from 23 to 25, it was cool, like whatever. But you can sort of have a family and do that right later on. So I think it really clicked like my second year in the independent space. Um, and really all I did initially, and this is a little tip for everybody trying to learn how to get referrals out there, leverage your beneficiaries on your sales. So all I did was get a primary, and this is obviously for life insurance, but a primary, a contingent, and a tertiary beneficiary, or two primaries and a contingent, or three primaries or whatever, and leverage those and let your prospect know listen, I just need to reach out to your beneficiary, speak with them for 15 or 20 minutes, let them know what it means to be a beneficiary, how to God forbid file a death claim if you if something happens to you, give them all my contact information. And if it's okay with you, Mr. and Mrs. Prospect, I'd like to go over what you purchased, if it's okay for me to tell them, uh, because maybe your kids want the same product that mom and dad has. Is that cool? And they'd be like, Yeah. And you'd start filling out their application. At that time, everything was on paper. There's no EAP, right? Or limited EAPs. And while I was filling it out, I would ask them, hey, can you text your beneficiaries or give them a call? Let them know what you're doing right now, and I'll reach out right after this appointment's over. And that was it. And it's it's very non-invasive. You're not trying to, you know, crush them sales-wise. You're just explaining what it means. And a lot of the times, if you got two or three in a house, one of those referrals would be like, give me the same plan mom and dad got. You'd be like, okay. And then you're a glorified order taker at that point, right? There's no selling, um, which was cool. And then I got brazen enough to start full-blown asking for referrals, you know, telling people this is how I make my money, blah, blah, blah. Give me some people. But the initial crutch, for lack of a better term, leverage those beneficiaries and make it super easy to get referrals. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03And I think referrals is something that nobody does well. You know what I mean? Like every time anybody, anytime I hear about referrals, I'm like, dang it. Like that's the that's definitely the biggest weakness that we have. And I think a lot of agents, it's especially when you're on the sales train, you're buying leads and stuff, you have a process and you follow that process, and there's then you start thinking about wow, with all the volume that we're doing, there's all these different areas that we could uh and I think the problem is too, is uh you guys probably see it in the P and C, right?
SPEAKER_00Either with yourselves or with agents or whatever. No matter what, as a salesperson, you could be selling toilets. I have no idea. Right. But you once you get the okay and you made the sale, you feel inside like, I don't want to jeopardize this. I'm not gonna ask any more questions, right? I'm just gonna get the sale and go. You already closed it. You can't say much that's gonna turn their mind around as long as you did a decent presentation, right? You already got the yes. So go for the second money. I think that's a grand card on thing, is like second money. But the first purchase is always the hardest. The second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, whatever. Is always easy. So you might as well ask, right? For sure.
SPEAKER_01It's like what Russell Brunson does with with ClickFunnels, right? You could you sell the product, upsell, downsell, sideways sell, you do all this other stuff because you've already made the sale. Right. And we just had this discussion in our in our meeting this morning with my team because we're doing like a three-pronged process after we close the home and auto, where there's a first swing. So the first line of defense is the producers. So the PNC producers have to ask, no matter what, in every conversation, they have to bring up life, right? It's do you own your house? It's either going to be yes or no. If it's no, then great, we're going to include a hundred thousand dollar term. If it's if it's yes, um, great. How much do you owe on the house? Do you want to see it paid off? Right. So that's very simple, non-threatening. And they give them a rate, they say, we're going to include this in the package, and then we can always back it off. Right. And then the next day, if they say no, the next day I have uh second swing. So I have my sales, my sales manager is calling, congratulating them, going over the discounts, sort of like beneficiaries, going over those discounts and saying, Hey, we want to make sure you have all the stuff, you're gonna get the paperwork. Was everything great? Did they bring up life insurance? By, you know, by the way, it's only boom. So we're hitting them again, right? And they say yes or no. Two weeks later, I have the person that does all our reviews. She's actually back here, um, does all of our reviews, our annual reviews or whatnot. And um, and she also does the third swing. So she's calling them and saying, hey, I want to verify. I know that you know, Lynn does super good. She usually asks the right questions to get you the right coverages. I've been in the business about 10 years, and I just want to make sure that everything's right. So I'm gonna dive a little bit deeper than they did. Is that all right? Do I have your permission? They say yes. And then boom, we go through it. And it's like literally, since we implemented at the beginning of the year, we've uncovered over 15 million in assets. We have a we have an appointment today. I haven't even checked up. That's a $10 million annuity. I mean, it's just like, what? How did this even unbelievable? Right. And then we have several life policies already in the hopper because we're doing it, right? But it's that repetition, right? Developing the process, holding them accountable, and then going through it. So not to hijack.
SPEAKER_00Not one prospect in that funnel would probably be like, well, hey, Craig, by the way, I got $10 million. You want it? Right.
SPEAKER_04No one asked one.
SPEAKER_01Not one. And it was just like, hey, let's make sure you have the right amount of coverage. And they had state minimum. They have it's it's way more than $10 million because they won a giant lawsuit. Something happened, like a seatbelt broke in their car and they won a big lawsuit. And so, but you never you would never when you see these people that you would not think there's $10 million in an annuity that just came out of surrender. Like that wouldn't even cross your mind. And because we did the process, we connected with it, you know, a couple years ago. A million dollar rollover because we did a similar process. It comes down to this not asking. If you don't ask, you're 100% they don't have it. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_00You're guaranteed. And you bring up a good point too, Craig. Like the the especially when I first started out, pre-judging is like the ultimate killer in this business. Like I've sold five, six hundred dollars a month whole life for IULs to people like in a trailer that I didn't think could afford $30 a month. Sure. Just show it to them. You can always go backwards, right? You'd be surprised on like who has money and who doesn't. You know, so never prejudge, just go through your presentation and then ask.
SPEAKER_01And who's gonna connect with that need, right? A lot of times the producers are are not gonna buy that life insurance. They're like, well, I wouldn't get it, but it doesn't matter what you would do, it matters what they need. And doing the proper needs diagnosis, I mean, that's how you land on this stuff. So it's just super powerful to ask the right questions.
SPEAKER_00You guys, you guys, uh that's another good point, too. Uh sorry segueing, but uh, how many agents do you guys run into, either PNC or life, that don't even own life insurance? Like, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01Tons. Yeah, tons.
SPEAKER_00You know, like I'm a I'm a uh I like cars, I'm a big BMW fan. It's like buying my BMW from a guy that drives like a Camry. Like what do you know about the car? You know, you don't even drive it. Right.
SPEAKER_03No, it's so true. It's so funny. Yeah. The the definitely it's the um, I mean, whether or not it's PNC or or life or anything, you gotta the best producers take the emotion out of it and give the best presentation every time, regardless. And then you eliminate any kind of oh, I didn't do it to this person, I didn't do it to this person, I gave so so. Uh I always say it's two prongs. So one is you're gonna miss out on opportunity. So if you want to sell the most, you have to give the best presentation every single time. And then the other part is if you give a crappy presentation, you're teaching yourself to suck. Like that's what we tell everybody. So like reinforcing. Yeah. So if you give 10 great presentations and two of them suck, it eliminates half the good ones because you're teaching yourself to suck. So if those were the last two, you're probably gonna start off the next day horribly. Right.
SPEAKER_01Like Shaq with his free throws, right? I mean, he sucked because he did the same thing every single time. I mean, until he had taco neck, right? He did land the Taco Bell commercial.
SPEAKER_00So that's like uh I forget who said it, but it's not practicing or practice makes perfect. It's practicing perfect makes perfect. Yeah. Yep. If you're practicing a crappy presentation, you're only gonna perfect the crappy presentation. Absolutely. You're gonna eventually get there.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yep. Yeah, and and uh back when I was a drummer, it'd say perfect practice equals makes perfect permanent.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03And it's it's it's so true with anything in life, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Like I wanted to be a drummer, actually, instead of uh instead of this craziness. I went to school initially, I wanted to be a musician, and then boom, insurance. There you are.
SPEAKER_03You were a musician then, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guitar, drums, a little keyboard, a little bass. Yeah. Wow. Cool, man. Same year in the previous life. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01You know, and along those lines too, um it is it's so critical to coach the team because what happens, and I don't remember who said it. One of our podcasts that we were talking to somebody, they said any any perfect system is gonna decay into chaos if it's left unattended, right? I think it's an Einstein saying, I don't know, it doesn't really matter. But like that's real important, right? If you leave it alone, everything is not a mushroom where it just magically grows in the dark and and everything works out. Everything else does not work that way, right? You leave it alone, it's gonna slowly slip, bad habits are gonna come in, and it's gonna go to shit. That that's just the way that it is. And so, you know, I know that I know Jason coaches his team every day. I I Peter, I'm sure you coach your team every day. I know you coach other teams also. Um and it's the same thing. If when we don't meet, it starts to go to decay. Like I was in I was in Hawaii for a couple weeks uh over Christmas. You know, I get back, there's some bad habits, you know. Even though I have sales made, we actually sold more than when I was there, which is another funny story. But however, you know, that you could hear in the conversations, it was it was being done a little differently that don't ultimately produce the best results. And so um why don't you talk about how you coach your team and what your philosophy is behind that?
SPEAKER_00Sure, yeah. So a lot of one-on-ones. Um, I try to do because I'm like wearing 50 hats right now, but I try to get with the team at least once a week uh on an individual basis. I like group trainings too, but I feel like everybody needs a little different stuff. So I'd rather spend like 15, 20 half hour with each person individually than do like a three or four hour group presentation and have what I want today. You know what I mean? Uh so the one-on-ones are important. And then within the organization, we actually developed uh training university so that way I could replicate myself uh constantly. So if you're up at three o'clock in the morning and you want training, you're obviously not calling me because I'm asleep. But you can log into our university, go through the training videos, go through the quizzes. We're constantly testing the agents at the end of each module. And it's anything from final expense, mortgage protection, advanced markets, annuities, Medicare, basically any product that you want to sell, you can get trained on and tested on. So, and it's all about repetition. Like once they complete one course, they should go back to it, at least on a weekly basis, reaffirm everything. So it's a multi-pronged approach in in terms of training. I the one thing I don't do, and other uh life insurance producers might like shame me for it, is I don't really believe in me doing field training. And the reason for that, like going one-on-one with somebody in my car and going in the house, I used to do it a ton, and I found one of two things happen. Either the agent really tried to impress me and they would like overly push and overly close, right? And not get the sale, or they would crap their pants because I'm in the house with them, right? And they wouldn't get the sale. So either way, we both like it doesn't work. Um, so I actually have stepped away from doing that, I would say, in the past like three or four years. I don't touch the field training uh just for that reason. I know some people do it and it's extremely successful, but I've never had good luck with it.
SPEAKER_01What about what about listening to calls? Do you do you do that in the office?
SPEAKER_00We do a once-a-month national and then we do weekly calls uh on specific topics. So maybe it's advanced markets in terms of IUL pitches or how to fund one, or it's uh the perfect mortgage protection sit or the perfect senior clothes or something like that. Each individual uh thing is a topic. Uh, and then we actually started our own uh podcast so we can do weekly announcements because the the problem with having like Innovators got 5,200 agents that I'm in charge of training with a couple other members of the executive team, right? It's a lot of people. So some people don't connect their email, some people don't log into the Facebook group, some people don't watch the university, right? So we got to blast it on all uh mediums. So it's going out email, we're doing weekly and national calls, we go through the university, we go through the Facebook group, and now we're doing our own podcast too, specifically for our agents.
SPEAKER_01That's an internal, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00One is internal and one's external.
SPEAKER_01That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We we get we dive into we actually, and you know, P and C is a lot more phone heavy. Um and we will do hot seats in the office uh where we play the call with everybody around. And and I like it. Nothing will make somebody more uncomfortable, but then also break through, right? You hear yourself just yourself. Like, I mean, the first couple of times editing, you know, listening to our us on this, I'm like, oh man, it's like, yeah, you know, why did I say that? Yeah, why don't it's like you do that with them and they're super uncomfortable. But then when their team is supporting them and we're giving the feedback, you know, usually a little positive, then a here, this is what you could do, and then positive. Um, they it really helps them break through and you see that needle move the other direction.
SPEAKER_00I love that. We do um we have uh similar like live dials. So we'll get on like a zoom or a go-to meeting, and someone will be like ballsy enough to dial all their leads, and then other people will dial in the same Zoom meeting. So you can't like hear each other, you hear it on the playback, but it builds a little camaraderie because, like we said before, a lot of people are on an island. You can be in Florida, California, wherever. So we do Zoom live dials, which it works out too. Some people are a little scared to do it, but it works out for those that do.
SPEAKER_03But I think that that's that's so important though. It it does two things, it brings the team together because you feel oh, like oh, I'm so nervous, and the other guy next to you was nervous or virtually or whatever. And then once it's once that's done, it's like everybody's like, oh, that was crazy, huh? And it's like so not only does it make you better, but it brings the team together. And I honestly that I think that group training has been a game changer for for us since we've done it. Um I think it's a good thing to encourage on here, regardless of what you're selling or anything like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And with this, like this Zoom, like we're looking, there's three of us looking at each other. We're in three geographically different locations in the planet, and yet it's like we're in the same room. Um, we had remember David Merriman Scott, he actually goes on stage with Tony Robbins, and he was on here. He was talking about like the physiology behind Zoom meetings. It's as if you really are connected. Like this is as good as you can get to being in person. And our brain, our brain believes that we're in person when we're doing this, you know. So we're we're seeing the gestures, we're smiling at each other, you know, the so it really is super impactful. I I have, you know, Jason has two locations, I have three locations, and we, you know, we're on at least once daily with everybody on there. And you know, it is from when I didn't do it to when I now have done it, significant impact on the results and the team, right? The camaraderie, like Jason said. Totally.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I think that I mean, with what we're doing or or anybody, you get into like desk drone, you know what I mean? So like those times that you pull away, it's such a good thing. It helps you recharge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think I mean this business, whether you're selling PNC, life, health, whatever it is, I mean, insurance can get super mundane. Like it's it's hard to it is like right? It's hard to sit at your desk and make calls or drive around in the field for nine hours a day and not be like, oh man, this is rough. Yeah. Totally. Music and coffee only takes you so far, you know?
SPEAKER_01Well, so you've been a mentor, you're a mentor to people, but before you became a mentor, what who did you look up to? What what different people did you pull on as as mentors to learn?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, it was a lot of people outside of the industry, I think. Um, I didn't really have the best uh uplines, I guess, for lack of a better term. I had one really good one that kind of took me under his wing a little bit. But uh it's funny, my so I interned for Northwestern in college, and at that time, my dad started working for, so my dad was in corporate America for like years and years and years, and uh he was in HR, nothing to do with sales, whatever. And uh the company got bought out, so he needed something else to do. So he started working for uh Colonial for like work site benefits, and we kind of came up together in terms of uh learning the industry, so it wasn't like mentor mentee, but we like talked every day and was like, what's working for you? I I can't do that, but this is working for me, and like shooting stuff back and forth. So I think that helped out a lot because what I think is broken a little bit with our industry is the lack of people wanting to help other people. Like you guys may do it, I do it, right? There are others out there that do it, but insurance in general can be a very selfish industry, so it's hard to get that mentorship from someone that's not reaping the financial benefits for mentoring you, right? Or being a direct manager. Uh, so I think that's hard. But me and my dad went through a lot of stuff together in terms of like learning the ropes at the same time, which was really cool to be able to do that with family. And now he's doing really well and I'm doing really well. So it like it worked. Uh, but I think that anyone starting in this industry, if you start with a friend or you know somebody or like somebody, I would attach at the same level. Obviously, get coached, get mentored, whatever, but find like a running buddy that like you can recap the field with on a daily basis. It doesn't even have to be from the same company, right? Just someone that you know you like and is on kind of the same path that you are to bounce shit back and forth on a daily basis, makes it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_03100%. Awesome, awesome advice. Um, what would be the number one piece of advice you would give any insurance dude or dudette out there? Like the number one thing.
SPEAKER_00If you could only give one. If I can only give one, it would be keep to a process. Um, and like not just your pitch, not just your clothes not just your scheduling, but like why it can become mundane is because the best insurance agents, regardless of the product that they sell, have the same day, the same week, the same month, the same year. Now there's growth in there where you're doing more and more and more, whether you're hiring people or replicating your systems with others or maybe outsourcing admin stuff that allow you to build revenue, but you have to stick to that process. As soon as you become lazy or you think, oh man, I'm the shit. I don't need to do X, Y, Z anymore, is immediately when you start dying in this business. So find a process and as soon as it works, do it. Like I would never have a problem if you showed me how to make a million dollars a year and all I had to do was A through Z every day. I would be like, all right, Craig, all right, Jason, I'm just gonna copy exactly that. And maybe I'll make 1.1 million or 1.2 or whatever. But like I was never of the mindset, well, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm gonna reinvent the wheel. Like, that's so stupid, you know? You don't have to do that. Just latch on to a presentation or a formula that's made others successful and just copy it, man. There's there's, I mean, it's not rocket science. This um the industry is not easy, but it's extremely simple.
SPEAKER_01You know. As long as you dedicate it, yeah, create that process and then stick to it and um don't give up. That's I think a lot of people give up because it just is like you said, it's it can be difficult to do all of that activity to hustle like you need to.
SPEAKER_00Right. And knowing like I'm gonna wake up today and I'm phoning from you know 12 to 7. Like that could be hard to wake up and be like, oh, today is Tuesday, phoning 12 to 7, but like you have to do that. Which going back to the my initial advice of like break down everything to a dollar amount will make it feel better. If you know you have to dial for six, seven hours and every dial is worth 12 bucks, it's not so bad, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. For sure. Peter, this this has been so awesome. How can people find you? What other things are you are you doing? How how are you helping people?
SPEAKER_00Um, we'd love to so um if you're not a part of innovative, like I I've obviously training for them, I'm their president of sales, but outside of that, I also own a coaching and consulting company, so they can find me at petefornier.com. Um, anything from sales training to I literally wrote the book uh on selling life insurance. So I do have it's called the Slingit Playbook. Um it's soup to nuts, the insurance industry. Um, my presentations, my scripts, my closes, my solidifications. I basically took my best year ever and broke it down. Um so if you want to visit the website and check that out, it's petefornier.com. Um and then I'm basically Peter J. Fournier everywhere on social media Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. I just joined. It's weird. Nice. It is weird. Uh YouTube, Facebook, uh, feel free to follow me and tap in. I do a lot of free trainings too. Uh if you visit my YouTube channel, I do uh or follow me on Facebook. I do what's called the daily tip, and it's like 90 seconds to three minutes on just something that's gonna better your business. Uh cool. I I cater it more towards life and health, but I'm sure PNC can use it to cross out.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, uh everybody that's a PNC agent has that requirement. So I think that it's one of these things that we put off to the side until you know November, December when it's like, oh no, we got to hit our our number, you know. And so to be consistent and come up with the process uh is imperative. And it sounds like you put some really good stuff together. We'll put links down in the uh show notes to all this stuff so they can find you and uh don't have to figure out how to spell your name. So um, but we'll we'll get that in. Yeah, for sure, man. Well, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Anything else you wanted to add? No, really appreciate the opportunity, guys. I listened to a bunch of episodes beforehand. You guys had some great guests, so uh pretty humbled to be on the same playing field as some of those other people.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, well, thank you, dude. You're awesome, man. Thank you so much. I think there's a lot of a lot of stuff that a lot of agents will take back and um hopefully implement uh implement and make 2020 an amazing year. Absolutely. All right, dude.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. Thanks, I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03Thanks.