Avoid This $20 Phone Call Error – My Costly Sales Blunder | John Wetmore #DSH 523

Even though I wasn't that great, one day I divided one by the other and it came up to like 17 bucks a phone call.

I was like, huh, interesting.

But I was so frustrated, I thought I was doing poorly.

And so I just started running the model differently and looked at it as straight numbers.

You know, I was trying to be people who weren't me.

You know, these elite sales trained guys.

And I'm like, I'm not that.

And dude, I just started going after it.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe.

It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team.

Truly means a lot.

Thank you guys for supporting.

And here's the episode.

All right, guys, we're talking life insurance and health today.

We got John Wetmore.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Appreciate it, dude.

Happy to be here.

Yeah, we just talked earlier.

You're training for some intense stuff.

I am.

I am.

I like doing hard things, dude.

So

did my first marathon ever in March.

I wanted to do it before my 47th birthday a few weeks ago.

Did you run the whole thing?

I did not run the entire time, but I finished it.

Okay.

Funny enough,

I'm not a runner at all.

I just like doing crazy things.

So I sign up in like October.

So I gave myself like four months.

And the furthest I'd ever run was a 5K, just three months.

I'm like, I'll figure it out.

So I start running a bunch.

I sign up to it.

My daughter signs up to it.

It's on the border of Mexico, like right along the river.

So I sign up and I'm like, all right, I just want to do it before my birthday.

We sign up like early March.

I start prepping, training, running.

During the training, the most i did was 15 miles

i'm like all right i'll figure it out so you go and it's it's four loops of six and a half so in my head i'm like i can do two for sure i just got to get through the third and then i'll definitely finish the fourth one yeah it is what it is so i do all this training and i get out there and you go down and first of all it was in the desert which i didn't know i thought it was gonna be like on the road you know i mean just on grat on uh on pavement oh so it was on like straight sand dude it was on like rock it was like gravel in the desert on rock dance so it was a complete trail marathon that I did not know about.

That sounds intense.

It was insane.

Yeah, that's not that doesn't sound like a beginner marathon at all.

It was not.

But I would say, if I looked into it, I wouldn't have done it.

Yeah, I would have overthought it and not finished it.

I think the fact you booked it helped a ton because if you just said you were going to train and then booked it the week before, correct?

It would have been worse.

Especially if I found out it was on rock.

Yeah.

So I ran about 60% of it.

Okay.

It's pretty good.

A 46, 47.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's impressive.

It's not too bad.

I just my goal was to finish.

That's a good first step, but now you're going to climb a mountain for 20 hours.

For 28 28 hours.

29029, Jesse Itzer's thing.

Yeah, it's like

climb a mountain as many times as it takes to hit the equivalent of Mount Everest.

That's his objective.

So it's in August, so I'll fly out to Whistler and

you got 36 hours to hike it.

I think it's eight times.

Four miles, 3,000 feet.

36 hours hike that sucker eight times.

That's impressive.

Would you rather climb or run?

Climb.

Interesting.

I hate running.

Okay.

But I do it.

Yeah, climbing, you could socialize, right?

Yeah.

if it's not too steep, you can talk to people, yeah.

I mean, you can there'll be a ton of people around, and running is I only run because it's hard and it's difficult, you know what I mean?

It's like a challenge to me, yeah, but I'm not, I don't love running, I actually like hiking, so that one I feel that's some uh, that's some goggins mentality right there.

I don't know about that, he's 100 miles stuff, he runs out here.

People talk about seeing him out here all the time.

Yeah, he spoke at an event at our conference this year, and dude, he's he's a different level, yeah, he's a different level.

What was it like getting to meet him and interview him?

I didn't get to meet him directly, but he spoke from stage at an event that our company puts on.

Got it.

And just seeing his mentality, dude.

It's just a different level.

Yeah.

You know, just the way he thinks and fights through pain and the mental, like, so what?

It hurts a little.

Yeah, he's different, man.

Yeah.

It's a different breed, dude.

Want to talk about the business side of things?

You've coached over 6,000 agents, right?

Yeah, dude.

How did it get to that point, man?

And how long did it take?

It's funny.

It's like, it feels like it took forever, but when I tell people,

I've only been in the business like 12 years.

Okay.

So not crazy long in in that context but going through it it was insanely slow and painful some days yeah but I got in the business life insurance I was an accountant before like like a staff accountant crunching numbers paying bills for a company making like 40 G's a year and miserable five kids like an hour and a half commute each way working for a boss I hated

and uh I was looking for just a side gig just to make extra money to pay the bills.

We were broke as a joke.

And like, yeah.

And a buddy reached out to me and he's like, hey, I found this thing you might be good at.

It was insurance.

So I started selling on the side part-time, after, after work and weekends, just to make extra money.

And that was in 2012.

Made like, made more selling insurance part-time than I did on my job full-time.

Wow.

First year.

So like, damn, there's something to this.

So I quit and I was introduced to the model.

I was in, I don't know if you're familiar with mortgages.

Mortgage business.

Yeah, mortgage business.

Yeah, mortgage business.

So I was in in that for a hot minute before the whole world fell apart in 08.

And in that industry, you can sell mortgages or you can hire, like, I could hire you to sell a mortgage and I make a little spread if you sell.

Middleman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like brokering, right?

So insurance works the same way.

So I can sell, make what I make, but if I train you to sell, I get a little piece of the sale.

Got it.

As a broker.

And so I understood that from the beginning when my buddy introduced it to me.

And I'm like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to, I don't want to sell.

I'm not a sales guy by trade, but I got into sales to get out of the rat race,

out of the nine to five, and did it for a year part-time, got into,

started recruiting to bring other people in and had some good mentors that helped with that side because I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I was terrible at it.

I would get like kicked out of houses.

I would miss sales.

I would, I was a train wreck the first couple of years selling.

And,

you know, started, started studying other people that were good in the industry, that were making great money.

Started seeing people at conferences and events and on stage and making multi-six figures.

And I'm like, you know, I want to be that.

Yeah.

And so I just started looking into, you know, improving myself on the sales side.

And,

you know, I had a, I had a buddy who's been a great mentor of mine.

I got to meet him.

He was the opening speaker at the first event I went to and has since become a good buddy.

And I started asking him, he was making like half a million bucks selling insurance.

I'm like, dude, how do you do it?

And we start talking and he starts analyzing like my numbers and my activity and and how many clients I'm seeing and things like that.

And I tell him how many clients I'm seeing a week.

And the dude laughed in my face.

Like not mean, but he just found it comical that I expected to make half a million bucks, but I was only working this much, you know?

And it's a numbers game, right?

Yeah.

So I had to learn that, you know, hence the do more thing.

I was like, you know, we made, I made what I made, you know, I cracked 100 grand my second year in the business, but that wasn't, that's not a ton of money when you got five kids and

five kids, definitely not.

That's 20 grand a kid.

Yeah.

So, you know, I started looking at the thing and I was, I was going through some financial issues.

I've had a bankruptcy, two foreclosures, car taken away, divorce.

And I'm like, dude, I got to figure something out.

And I'm super analytical by nature, accountant.

Yeah.

I was always trying to find like the magic way to overcome objections and scripts and the next little CRM to make magic and just all the stuff that didn't matter.

Yep.

And after talking to this dude, I was like, I started looking at my numbers for the year.

And I learned that even though I wasn't that great, I was making like, if I looked at the deposits I was making, so that part-time year, I was making like five G's a month.

And I was calling like 300 people a month.

And one day I divided one by the other and it came out to like 17 bucks a phone call.

I was like, huh, interesting.

But I was so frustrated, I thought I was doing poorly because you'd get cancels and no shows and people tell you to F off.

And, you know what I mean?

Like, it was just the middle stuff between calling them and the sale was hard for me.

I was super emotional about it.

One day I looked at that and I'm like, dude, what if I just do more of that and just worry about getting better at it later?

You know what I mean?

Just run straight numbers game.

Because if you paid me 17 bucks a phone call, I'm like, who cares what they say?

You know what I mean?

I just didn't care.

You can tell me to F off.

I made 20 bucks in my head.

And so I just started running the model differently and looked at it as straight numbers.

and put in more activity.

And I increased the amount of appointments I started running.

I stopped worrying about all the other stuff and the noise and the things I was bad at.

And I was, you know, I was trying to be people who weren't me, you know, these elite sales trained guys.

And I'm like, I'm not that.

And dude, I just started going after it activity-wise and,

you know, tripled up on how many clients I was calling a week and ended up that year.

My income tripled and

I started getting a lot of traction in the recruiting side.

When you go from like, terrible for three years in sales to making half a million bucks.

Yeah.

I was like, damn, there's something to this.

What a jump.

Did you blow it all right away?

No, no, because I did that the first time in the mortgage industry, which is why the foreclosures and the bankruptcy came.

I made money in mortgages for like six months.

And dude, I bought a big house and the car with the rims and, and that all got taken back.

They're doing studies on this now.

When you come into money too quick, most people lose it.

100%.

It's something like psychological.

Yeah.

It's it's like uh when you watch athletes.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

Yeah, 80% of them.

Yeah.

Crazy.

So yeah, I learned my lesson.

I did that.

And I didn't make money long in mortgages.

It was literally like nine months.

yeah so you got it out of your system yeah i did and then this time it's you know i was afraid of that yeah so when it when it happened this time i didn't change my lifestyle at all for years i just and still really don't relative to what the industry's done for me um but it was neat to see like the people that helped me how much they got out of helping me get out of the hole yeah i'm like i want to do that like i want to be i want to feel what they felt right you know they were more excited for me making a half million bucks than i was wow And, uh, yeah, because you could have kept all that knowledge for yourself.

For sure.

And a lot of people do.

Right.

You know, so I'm like, I'd say most people do.

Yeah.

I was recruiting early, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons, you know, and a lot of people quit me.

So I like in insurance

the first two years, I interviewed like 700 people.

Wow.

Hired people.

Some started, most quit.

And at the end of two years, it was just me still.

I had no agents still after 700 interviews.

Because they would all quit on me.

You know, because I was just doing it for the straight for the money.

I was like, yeah, if I have this many, I make this much.

And yeah, and we get in business for money naturally, but that was the driving factor.

You know, I just changed up my model, dude.

And I was like, what if I just help people make a bunch of money?

What if I just help them make what I was making?

You know what I mean?

And just worry about the revenue on my part later and just let it be, man.

And I

just got really good at explaining how to.

how to navigate the business in a really simple way.

You know, and certainly I can teach sales now and I can, you know what I mean, I mentor a ton of people in the sales side and the psychology of it and all that jazz.

But at its core, most salespeople struggle because they don't put enough work,

you know, especially in, especially in my business, my side.

And I imagine I know people in other sales industries and it's similar.

But in life insurance, dude, it's really easy entry.

You can roll out of bed and go get a license in a couple of days.

Is that easy?

Yeah, dude.

You pass a 20-hour test and pay 75 bucks and you have a license in two days.

Yeah, it's super easy to get into.

And the upside is massive.

I mean, there's trillions of insurance sold every year.

Yeah.

Everyone needs insurance.

Correct.

And there's, I mean, there's tons and tons of people over the 200 years that industry's been around that have made

insane money.

PBD, Ed Miles.

What's his name?

Sean Mike.

Yeah.

So Sean Mike is, I'm under his umbrella.

So I've been with Sean for the entire time his company's been around.

Wow.

So I've known Sean for 12 years now.

PBD,

Integrity Marketing, acquired his PBD and Sean and my agency.

Oh,

we're all partners at Integrity.

So, one company bought all you guys up.

Interesting.

So, they're like a giants player in the space.

Yeah, they're massive, dude.

What, what do you need to achieve in revenue to get on their radar?

Um, they look at, I mean, seven figures net.

They're looking at EBITDA like a million bucks a year, yeah.

Okay, and then

PBD was obviously massive.

It's pretty doable, though.

If you put 50, 100 people under you, you could probably cheat it up.

Yeah, I mean, I was making seven figures within from 15 is when I really, that's the first year I like stepped up, made a half million on my personal production.

By 17, I was making multi-seven.

Wow.

So you did 500K just by yourself, no agents under you?

Yeah, I had no agents.

It was just straight selling life insurance.

How many calls a day were you doing?

I was, my goal was 120 appointments a month.

Okay.

So 30 appointments a week.

Yeah.

So the goal for me was 30 appointments a week, 120 a month, just to hold myself accountable if I slacked, 1500 a year.

Right.

And I would have, out of 1,500, my goal was to, and I was doing it in the days before all the technology.

The AI.

Yeah.

So it was like I was driving to people's houses sitting at kitchen tables.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Well,

remote.

No, dude.

Okay.

I was driving all over the world.

I was going to say those numbers sounded small, but now that it's in person, that makes sense to me.

Correct.

I mean, we got guys knocking down 100 grand a month selling on their own pen now.

Wow.

For sure.

But again, me driving all over.

Hell, I used to fly to Utah to sell.

I would fly to Ohio to sell.

I would do crazy stuff.

You're still doing 500K doing that.

Wow.

Yeah.

So again, it was 30-week, 120 a month, 1,500 a year.

Maybe I'd sit with a thousand my, in my head, because I wasn't that good.

I'm like, if I close 25%, I'll make 250K.

You make about 1,000 bucks a sale.

Yeah.

You know, and that year I messed up and did like 468.

Is it recurring when you get the thousand?

Some of it is.

Okay.

Yeah.

It depends on the policy type.

Some you get renewals, small renewals.

I mean, it's not massive.

Most of the money's up front the first year, and then it's small renewals, but you know, 12 years into the business.

It adds up.

Nice.

Is the business still thriving?

Dude, it's killing it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We did, our agency did 209 million in production this year in 23.

That's crazy.

So you've scaled to nine figures in 10 years.

Yeah.

It's been nuts.

That's impressive, man.

Yeah.

It's one of those things where everyone needs it, so it makes sense.

Yeah.

And there's always people looking to make money.

You know what I mean?

And now it's like, all right, if you want to work hard and get out of your situation,

we coach them on selling and make them wherever you want to be, whether you just want to sell.

Some people don't want to build an agency, but you can.

And I've been very fortunate to be around some really cool people.

And we've got it that size because I have great people on my side.

Love them.

Recruited recruited some, taught them how to make a bunch of money selling, then they wanted to build, so I taught them how to build.

And now I got guys in my group that, hell, they're better at it than I am.

Wow, that's cool to see by far.

When the mentee passes the mentor, yeah, I got a lot of really good people.

That's one of my goals in life to have someone like that.

Same dude,

enjoy it.

Hopefully, it's my kid, but it'd be cool if it was someone else, too.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I've been fortunate, man, and we've had quite a few agencies that I've helped be a part of developing that they've been fortunate to have their agency acquired.

Yeah, you know, multi-seven-figure exits.

And so that's a pretty common thing in the space these agencies.

For sure.

Yeah, especially in today's age.

Yeah, it makes sense from a competition point of view to want to acquire them so they don't eat at your

revenues.

Yeah, you may as well add it to your bottom line.

Yeah.

Did Ed sell his yet, Ed Milette?

I don't know his full, he doesn't talk about it a lot, dude, but I think he was part of, I mean, I know the company he was part of for sure, and I think they ended up like under Trans America.

I feel like there was some kind of purchase, but I don't, I don't really hear, I follow his podcast, but he doesn't, I don't know him.

Yeah.

I met him once just at an event.

You heard it in like passing, but he never really owned up to it.

No, I wonder why that.

I've not heard deep, like, specifics from him.

So I don't, I would just be assuming.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Because PBD was pretty open about it.

Sean Mike's very open about it.

And they share what they sold them for.

Right.

I'm like, yeah, they got some jack.

Is it pretty expensive to get into this?

No, not at all.

Yeah, I mean, licensing, again, you can get all, if you get a life insurance license between,

they make you do like a pre-license exam, right?

B between the pre-license, your state license, and you need like a little E ⁇ O insurance.

Yeah.

It's like 200 bucks.

Damn.

So the upside is really massive.

Yeah.

You know, but it's like, we're looking for people that want to really work hard and make a difference.

And it's 10, everyone's 1099, right?

So it's like, if you're looking for a job, this ain't for you.

Yeah.

But if you're willing to, what's the whole deal?

Like, eat what you kill.

Yeah.

You know, that mentality where I really want to go out and

what you make is dependent on how much much you put into it.

Right.

You know, those types of people do really well in this business.

Athletes, military guys, you know, door-to-door sales guys, people like that.

Like, dude, they kill it.

Sean Merriman, I think, is.

Craig, he's part of the agency, too.

Right.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I've always had that mentality, to be honest.

I can't stand when people just collect a check.

Yeah.

It just pisses me off.

You do knock out a ton of these.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got today's a light day.

I got six today, but usually it's eight.

Yeah.

And that's the mentality I have, man.

These guys are filming one a week.

I'm like, got to get your number.

That's crazy.

It's not enough, man.

That's bad.

Let's go back to your origin story, man.

Raised by a single mother on welfare.

Yep.

Single teen teenage mom.

I was born the day after her 18th birthday.

Wow.

So unplanned or?

Yeah.

Just whoopsie.

Same with me.

I was a one night stand.

Were you?

Yeah.

I didn't know that until I was 25, but.

Yeah.

Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest?

Well, click the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life.

Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys.

I don't think it was the one I do know my dad.

I don't, he was never really there.

Yeah.

You know, I do know him.

I visit him once every year or two.

Say, hey, but he wasn't really my, so my parents got married when I was four.

They were like on it, on again, off again, high school.

Yeah, whatever.

High school sweethearts.

I don't know if they were sweethearts, but they were high school together.

They were together.

And,

you know, they got married when I was four and divorced when I was four.

Damn, that was quick.

It was a killer marriage.

It was like a few months.

Holy crap.

Yeah, she bounced.

So you lived with your mom.

You didn't see your dad much.

You said once a year?

Now, I mean, then he'd come visit every once in a while, take us to McDonald's, visit his mom.

And so we grew up outside of Boston in the projects.

Got it.

So I grew up in like a big high-rise in the hood.

And he would, his, so he was, both my parents are from there.

And he moved out, but.

He would come back, visit his mom, pick us up every once in a while, take her to McDonald's.

I'd go to his house every once in a blue moon, but not, not, not really much there.

Yeah, I had a similar story, man.

I didn't really have, I had a father, obviously, but not like a solid father figure to go to for advice and stuff.

Yeah, no, I didn't have that at all.

I didn't.

I didn't know how to tie tie.

I was raised by a woman, complete my mom, my aunt, my grandma.

You know, they took care of me.

Yeah.

And then I had my first, you know, that show, 16 and Pregnant?

I've heard of it.

Yeah.

So they just follow kids.

Yeah, that was a reality show, right?

Yeah, so I was like that before it existed, before the show existed.

So I was 16 when my first one was on the way.

Damn.

My oldest should be 30 in a few months.

So you have a 30 year old, that's older than me.

Yeah.

That is impressive.

16.

Yeah.

What's going through your head with that?

Man,

weird enough, dude, it was like kind of common where I was from.

Really?

In Boston?

I mean, in the projects.

Shout out to the projects in Boston, man.

You guys be going out.

You're going to have kids young, man.

Again, that's all.

My mom was a teenager.

Her mom was a teenager.

So it was three generations, teenage parents.

So you're going to be a great grandfather.

No, I tell my kids.

You'll still be alive.

When I tell my kids, no babies and don't get married till you're 30.

I beat it into them.

So far, I've made it.

My oldest is 30.

My youngest is 12 and no babies yet.

No babies.

Okay.

Yeah.

30.

She's only got like five, five, seven years.

Yeah.

One day we were joking about kids and she said, she goes, I don't want kids.

I raised yours.

She had to take care of her siblings.

That was fun.

I had to work a lot, you know, coming up.

And my first marriage ended.

I was married like eight years, but we got divorced eventually.

So you were married from 16 to 24?

I didn't get married at 16.

I got married at like 20.

Okay.

I was about 20.

20 to 28.

Yeah.

That's young to get married.

Yeah.

It was young.

It was young.

I had a lot going on.

I had four kids by the time I was like

20

right at the time I divorced.

Holy crap.

By like 26, I think I had four.

So you grew up quick.

Yeah, all I know is kids.

Yeah, you didn't have that phase of 20s of partying and

going out.

Wow.

I was living with like her parents and then we lived in another little government.

I mean, I did dumb in my own house.

I didn't have like the typical experience.

Yeah.

For sure.

I was working at Little Caesars 70 hours a week

from 16 to 20.

Waiting tables?

No, like start making pizzas.

Oh, you were the chef?

Yeah.

I don't know if I was a chef.

I made pizza.

So you can make a mean pie?

I can make a mean pizza.

Yeah.

What's the secret to a good pie?

It's crust.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because apparently it's the water.

Yeah.

The water affects it, all that stuff.

Yeah, there's some spots out here.

How long you let it rise and sit?

I mean, you're from part of that is dope pizza makes some trader joe's pizzas sometimes

no but apparently the good spots fly the water from new york to out here i've heard that yeah i've heard that interesting yeah it's insane what what affects it yeah wow so you really grew up quick man i thought i grew up quick but that is four kids by 28 damn yeah it was impressive do you want 10 like elon we're done you're done i'm done top down i have one with my current wife he's 12 single single single child if you will okay so it goes like my kids visit so we're they're all local i put them all in the same the three i have three that are in high school or in school still and two that are out of high school and out of college even and so the three little ones all go to school together and they live local so that's like sometimes he'll be alone Maddox the youngest and then sometimes he'll be the youngest of three.

Got it.

So they go back and forth between house and their mom.

I grew up an only child.

It was very rare where I grew up actually.

Yeah.

It was all siblings in Jersey.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

There was theories on it, but some chemical test or something.

I was literally the only, only child in my school.

There's 3,000 kids.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

What?

Yeah.

And there's some weird studies in that area about, like, there was a lot of twins in that area.

Did you have twins in your school growing up?

No.

Dude, there was at least.

My assistant has twins.

Yeah.

There were seven pairs of twins just in my town.

What?

Yeah, there's some weird stuff going on there in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Nuts.

They wanted more.

I don't know what they were doing.

There's some scientific lab, and people have theories.

I'm going to look this up.

You should get someone on and talk about that.

I know.

That'd be a good podcast.

It'd be interesting.

I'm into conspiracy theories.

I am too.

Yeah.

I like it.

Which ones do you follow i like what i i i remember watching the first movie the like that was called conspiracy theory yeah years ago it's way i never heard of it yeah because you're so young

go google it okay it was good it was just a compilation of different theories yeah yeah the whole movie itself was a was a conspiracy of government stuff i like watching like the government conspiracy stuff it's wild same yeah i'm the tick tock algorithm algorithms got the moon conspiracy is that the moon is uh flat or something no like the the earth is flat is one yeah yeah Whether or not it is, those pop up, but whether or not they went to the moon.

Oh, I see those a lot.

What's your stance on it?

I don't know, dude.

Some of the video, you see it.

You can see it both ways.

I'm like, yeah.

You know, when they have a video, someone, they're flying away and someone's there recording it.

It's like.

What got me is the call from the house phone in the White House to the moon.

Yeah.

I remember that one.

Yeah.

Like, that is.

I'm like, this is damn interesting.

I don't know about that, man.

So I don't, I don't have a lot of opinions on them because I'm like, you can't win it.

Yeah.

And you're never going to know.

But I know there's way more more you don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole because then you are considered crazy or lunatic, yeah.

But they're interesting, but I'm intrigued by watching them.

I am intrigued, a lot of them are coming out to be pretty true, yeah, recently.

You can't really fake stuff anymore with social media, that's true.

Internet detectives are undefeated, it's just

they find everything, no, for real cameras.

There's people on Reddit, there's a whole section called uh, like unsolved murders, and these people will just team up and just solve murders

from like 20 years ago.

What, yeah, using forensic image and NASA, stuff like that.

That's crazy.

Yeah, man.

You can't get away with it.

Wasn't that what did the I think it's hard to like do any crime these days?

Reddit was the thing where they did the stock.

What was it?

The uh oh, the stock pump?

Yeah.

Yeah, the Wall Street bets.

Yeah.

Yeah, they pumped GameStop.

GameStop.

You get in on that?

No.

No.

I wasn't smart enough.

Yeah, I wasn't early enough.

I missed the Doge pump, too.

You into crypto at all?

I messed with it for a minute.

It stresses me out.

Yeah.

It's too volatile.

Yeah, I don't really mess with the stock market a ton.

I've made some money in real estate.

I like real estate because I can control that.

I feel like I can control it.

Yeah.

And I feel like you've made enough where you don't really need to take crazy risks.

I don't, I, it's, I don't sleep well at night when my money's over here and some dude has to decide if it goes up or down.

I don't understand.

I've played in it a little, but I don't like it.

Yeah, I told my mom the same thing because, I mean, she could retire right now.

She doesn't need to be chasing 10x bags in crypto.

Yeah.

You know, I want to because I'm young and I can afford to lose money.

But do you like it?

I mean, it's a mental game.

Like, right now I'm down millions.

Okay.

So I have to, that's in the back of my head.

I mess you up.

And I can't get rid of it.

Does it mess you up?

At first, yeah.

Like the first month.

Yeah, I lost 10 million, so I was pretty messed up.

But what am I going to do about it other than making my money?

Yeah.

So that's try to what I focus on.

I love it.

Yeah.

Have you gone through periods where you, oh, you mentioned you lost after the first business?

Yeah.

That was the worst loss.

Since then, I've just been conservative.

I like living with my stuff paid for so no one can ever take it no debt i don't like debt stuff do you all your houses are paid off yeah interesting we're building now a new house but where at local to atlanta okay yeah just bought some land up the street

it's fun it is definitely interesting is a good word for atlanta yeah see some interesting things out there's a lot of a lot of different A lot of different backgrounds and areas and a lot of stuff going on.

Atlanta's wild, dude.

My friend just still got the biggest sports card shop out there.

Where?

I don't know where.

It's like 5,000, 10,000, maybe 10,000 square feet.

Really?

Yeah.

You into collectibles at all?

Not really.

When I was a kid, I did.

I liked baseball cards as a kid.

Dude, you still have those?

Yeah, some

sitting in a box.

Those might be from like the 80s.

O Jackson, stuff like that.

I was in that era.

You should get that.

Joe Jackson, Kinseio, all those guys.

You got to get that appraised.

Yeah.

Some money in it, man.

I could be a guy.

That could be worth six figures.

Yeah, bring them by the shop, man.

They literally got boxes of them sitting in a room somewhere.

You could be sitting on hundreds of thousands for real.

If they're in good condition, that's the trick with them.

Yeah.

Because when you're kids, you're just throwing around Charizard Pokemon cards, but now they're worth a million dollars.

That's insane.

I saw that dude, one of the Paul's buy one.

Yeah, Logan Paul.

One of them's a million dollars.

It's insane.

Crazy.

I'm not that into that.

Yeah.

Sometimes you get lucky in life, man.

That's true.

I have been lucky.

Yeah.

I'm lucky.

And I mean, I think

if the cards didn't fall perfect, I wouldn't be in insurance.

And I think I got lucky in some real estate deals because I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

You just bought random houses?

Yeah,

commercial, funny enough.

I didn't really get into it.

I know, but I've made some damn money in it.

Really?

Yeah, I got into it just because we had agents that needed a place.

Again, this is pre-everything virtual, you know.

So we needed, we had agents that needed a place to conduct business and make phone calls and, you know, mean be around an environment.

So I'd buy a building and they rent out per office.

So they'd pay a small amount per office, which they couldn't get rent cheaper elsewhere.

But I made more than market value because it was per office instead of renting the whole thing.

So I ended up getting up to five of them and sold.

I have two.

I have two left.

Okay.

But, and I bought one.

I did buy one residential one that I, I made a, like a million bucks on a damn vacation home in the Georgia Mountains in like a year and a half.

Holy crap.

Just when it happened?

Yeah.

This one area in North Georgia became like the hot spot for people to go.

I think my mentor bought a house there.

Blue Ridge.

I think so, yeah.

It's brand new, right?

It's dirty they were building.

Well, it's not a new, but it's new for that many people and people with money from Atlanta to go.

Got it.

It was like a small little town that

really had ton of people didn't go to.

Like we'd go every once in Blue Moon, but it became like the hotspot for local Atlanta people to go

on vacation.

And I bought right before

and then

I bought it for like 900 grand.

Yeah.

In a year, a year and a half, it doubled.

So I'm like, hell, sell it.

Might as well sell that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool, man.

I think that was pretty lucky.

Yeah.

Sometimes you need luck.

Cuban said to be a billionaire, you need a lot of luck.

Yeah.

I've heard him say that.

Yeah, because timing.

He didn't know the internet would take off like that.

That's true.

You've worked over 20 jobs, too.

I have.

You were grinding.

Man, I was,

I mean, I had kids youngs, and I didn't make a lot of money.

I didn't have a good background, so I didn't make a ton.

So I had to work.

And I didn't like, dude, I hated.

I hated bosses.

I didn't like being told what to do.

I just wanted people to leave me alone.

So I was a a good employee in the sense that I would get stuff done, but I wasn't good in that I didn't like the like whole boss employee relationship very much.

Traditional system.

I didn't like it.

So I was probably a pain in the

bosses.

So I just, I

hopped around a lot, man.

I was, I was looking for the next thing and what could get me out of the hole and get me to the next level.

And so I just moved around a little bit.

You know, so I have, I've worked in, I used to, I did like the pizza joint, I've done warehouses, I've done call center, worked in a tax joint, I've worked in just some crazy stuff dude pharmacy just nothing just random stuff dude what was the worst

man the warehouse the ware dude it was brutal man i did that for four years too just carrying head yeah i had to load trucks damn so it was like we we distributed to like restaurants okay so i would um basically go like grocery shopping for restaurants so a big old warehouse like a costco you go to restaurant depot just buy a bunch of stuff no i didn't do any of that the trucks brought them in but it was like I would get an order full, they have the sheet full of stickers, and I'd get an order for whoever, Applebee's, Longhorn, whatever.

And I'd be like, all right, here's all the crap we need today.

And I'd go stick it on a pallet and,

you know, wrap it in the shrink wrap and load it on a truck.

That sounds terrible.

And I did an overnight shift.

So I'd go in at 6 p.m.

and do it till like 4 or 5 a.m.

That's terrible for your health.

Yeah, it was so fun.

But I'm glad I did it because it was like

for my, I was 20 and I was making like 18 bucks an hour doing that, which was good for me at the time in you know late 90s yeah that's probably like 35 an hour right now so um

and then i was watching all the people around in the warehouse at night and they were all older i was one of the younger ones you know i was 20 whatever and all the guys that were been there for a while 10 15 20 years they're all my age now you know mid 40s 50 whatever they're miserable back braces knee braces and their whole goal in life dude for most of them was to just get on day shift eventually but it was so hard to get on day shift because the people there stayed forever right so for someone to get on day shift someone had to retire basically so all of them were trying to get to day shift and i'm like you know i don't want that to be my future yeah you know what i'm saying i that got me that's what got me to go to college so i went to i i worked in the warehouse overnights and then i went to school full-time during the day to get my associate's degree in accounting interesting yeah because just watching these fools i didn't want to be nice guys but i didn't want that to be my future.

You know what I mean?

And I'm like, I got to get out.

So I went and got that degree, started working in accounting, and then I went full-time at night to get a bachelor's.

And then funny enough, same thing.

I worked for the government doing accounting.

Really?

IRS?

Nah, like the city.

Okay.

Yep, city government.

And same thing, man.

I'd watch them and the guys and girls that were there for decades for the benefits and the security of a government job, their upside was like, you know, $76,312.

You know what I mean?

The government, they're weird.

They have these weird scales to pay.

And I'm like, dude, I got to find something else.

It's not enough for five kids.

Yeah.

And that's what got me just thinking again.

Like, I don't want that to be my future.

Yeah.

I always got stuck on watching, I like pay attention to my environment.

You know, when I got into insurance, I was seeing people go from broke to paying off all their debt to multi-six to seven to eight-figure guy, nine-figure guys.

And I'm like, that's the future I want.

I'm in.

You know what I mean?

And that's the first time I looked at it and I was like, I'm in the right spot.

I just got to figure it out and navigate it.

And I had to change a lot, man.

Sales is different.

Commission only.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

And in our world, there's lots of different lines of insurance.

But in what we do to get clients, we buy leads.

So it was like

you can go out and network and generate things.

I didn't want to do that.

Like, that's not my style.

I want to go to networking meetings and cultivate business or cold knock on.

You know what I mean?

I I never do that stuff.

So I'm like, I'll buy, I can buy a lead.

You can, maybe you're good at generating leads.

I'll just buy them from you and I'll call them and go sell them.

There's a leads conference right now.

I'm at it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's what we're here for.

That's what I scheduled this around.

Yeah.

So we're at the lead con.

I just had a dinner with guys that sell leads yesterday.

Some of them are spending 50K a day on ads to get leads.

Yeah.

And they're selling them.

Yeah.

Making money.

They print money.

Yeah.

There's some leads game is a whole nother ball game.

Yeah.

Dude, there's crazy money in leads.

And that's great advice earlier.

You mentioned look at the industry, right?

See what level you could get to.

A lot of people think so short-minded of this salary per year and there's no scale.

Yeah, you can always look the higher ups and where they're at.

You know, now you're going to have to do what they did to get there.

Yeah.

What I've learned, dude, is like people who make money, they're willing to share what they do to get there.

So usually someone helped them.

Yep.

That's what I found.

You know, and if someone's listening and coachable and they're, they're taking the advice I'm giving, like, why would I not want to help them?

I love helping people.

You know, I have plenty of money for all of us.

Yeah.

I have guests that come on the show saying the pod changed their life yeah i love that though that's sick you know what i mean i think it's the more we share

six or eight a day yeah karma man i know that that's going to come back to me 100 yeah it does and i think it stands out you know what i mean it's like when you do that other people notice too and i imagine the people you're around want to help you if they can yeah i mean look at a group chat there's people just helping non-stop i love that yeah i don't even want any piece of any deals to happen there i just want people to help each other yeah that's sick it's cool to be that like conduit for all that yeah it is it's a good feeling that's what it was in insurance for me it's like i play a little role in people's life.

I don't do everything for them.

I'm not there getting them out of bed every day, motivating them, but I can play a small role.

You know what I mean?

I can shorten their learning curve, put them in the right direction, give them advice, tell them the things I messed up, things to avoid.

You know, people are coachable, man.

There's plenty of money out there for everyone.

I love it.

Where can people learn from you, find out more about you, man?

Man, johnwetmore.com is the website where all the all my socials link there.

Instagram's just at John Wetmore.

We have a YouTube same John Wetmore.

We do a podcast as well.

Insurance Insiders.

So, like Insurance Industry-specific podcast, but website's the main main way to get me.

Awesome.

Cool, for sure.

Link below, man.

Thanks for coming.

Appreciate it, buddy.

Yeah,

thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.