Executive TLDR
The Psychology of Directed Imagination: Grajales teaches that Fear and Faith are identical energies used differently. Fear is imagination left undirected (creating anxiety), whereas Faith is imagination consciously directed toward a specific goal (creating certainty).
The “FU Proof” 1099 Strategy: This is a universal recruiting tool. It highlights how a 1099 business allows individuals to deduct daily life expenses—like cell phones, internet, and gas—from their taxable income, effectively providing an immediate legal raise that a W-2 job cannot offer.
Wealth Through Distribution: True wealth in capitalism is not found in labor, but in the distribution of products and services. Employees fail to build wealth because they only distribute their own limited time, which is mathematically capped at 24 hours a day.
Video Summary Harvey Grajales delivers an intensive blueprint for building a high-output base shop by shifting the focus from corporate presentations to personal value. He details the “One-on-One Interview,” which uses a structured “Dream Sequence” of questions to bypass a prospect’s natural skepticism and reopen their “Dream Center.” By asking about travel, homes, and specific lifestyle desires, he forces prospects to confront the reality that their current employment “vehicle” is insufficient for their goals. The second half of the training focuses on the mechanics of 1099 tax advantages. Grajales explains that since employees pay taxes before expenses, they are at a permanent disadvantage. He positions the Primerica business as a financial solution for everyone—including high-earners—by utilizing the tax code to lower their taxable income through business deductions.
FAQs
Q: What is the technical difference between “Learning” and “Discovery”?
A: Learning is the passive intake of information (watching a video or reading), whereas Discovery is experiential knowledge gained through field action. You only truly “own” a skill once you have discovered how it functions in front of a live prospect.
Q: Why does Harvey call the W-2 model a “trap” for wealth accumulation?
A: In the W-2 model, the government takes taxes first, and the individual must pay for their life with what remains. Because they have no deductions for cost-of-living expenses, they are unable to leverage the tax code to build a surplus for investment.
Q: What does it mean to “leave the back door open” in a business context?
A: It refers to maintaining a “Plan B” or a mental escape route. Grajales argues that this allows for procrastination and half-hearted effort. To reach the “Land of the Extraordinary,” a leader must close all exits and commit fully to their own success.
Glossary
1099 vs. W-2: The fundamental distinction between being an independent contractor (where expenses are deducted before taxes) and an employee (where taxes are deducted before expenses).
Directed Imagination: The high-level mental discipline of consciously focusing your thoughts on successful outcomes (Faith) rather than allowing your mind to wander into potential failures (Fear).
Distribution System: The business mechanism of moving products or services to the marketplace. Scaling wealth requires a distribution system that leverages the efforts of a team rather than just the owner’s personal time.
Transcript:
This, right? Before we get to Million Dollar Earner, you need million dollar energy. That’s the mentality. That’s the mindset behind it. So you find yourself doubting yourself. You want to kind of like Trigger, right? You want to program yourself to believe in you, right? And so that is like a trigger. You remember back in the day, they had the bands that you would snap, what would Jesus do?
Right?
Don’t ever do nothing. You want to drink Snap, what would Jesus do? You get what I’m saying? And so you kind of want to trigger yourself, right? So I was in the back. You got to love Primerica, right behind the scenes, right? I was in the back. And you got to get up here on stage, man, because this is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, John, right? I was in the back. And you won’t believe this, but I was getting some good old Dick I mean, Dick Walker. I was in the back, right? And so Dick has been around for a while. Dick has been around for a while. And he can go long, right? And he was going so good that he almost put me to sleep, right? Gotta love it. Gotta love it, right?
Wherever.
Dick is in the room. But let’s get to work. Does anybody in here have fear at all just by raising hand? Let’s be honest. I want you guys to see some. Raise your hand if you have fear. Fear of prospecting, fear of booking appointments, fear of building a big base shot. Fear of success. That’s real. So look around. Just keep your hands up. I want you guys to take a mental snapshot. Screenshot around. Check this out, right? Look at this, right? Then put your hands down because this real quick is going to be fear versus faith, right? Well, check this out. If I ask the same question, how many of us have faith that we’ll become a regional vice president?
Right?
So I want you to understand that both fear and faith are made up. Are they real? Is faith real? It’s imaginary. It’s very imaginary. This is real. You see? This is real. Like in reality, imagination is something that you make up, right or wrong. So a lot of us were grown and we still have little imaginary friends. We call them fear and we call them faith. Now, I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes if you have faith in whatever it is that you have faith in or whatnot. But I do want you to understand the premises is that fear is imagination undirected. Fear. Think about what I’m telling you. Fear is imagination undirected. So you’re imagining a problem. Anybody ever thought, oh my God, I’m about to get into an argument with somebody and you have this imagination of things going a thousand different ways. Anybody ever been there before?
And when you get into the ash argument, it doesn’t really happen, right? So that’s imagination undirected. And now what faith is right, is imagination that’s directed. They’re both imagination. It’s just one is undirected. So when you’re in faith, you’re in absolute certainty. You understand, you know? You know what? You know when you’re in fear, you’re not. And so it’s very important, right, as you’re beginning to build a business to use. They’re both different energies is what I’m trying to teach you, right? They’re both different energies, right? And they both help. But which one is going to help you get to the next level a lot faster? Does that make sense? A little bit. But what do we usually carry around, right? And so when we meet with someone, what do you think is sitting right next to them? That’s invisible fear. And so your job is to give them more what, at all times.
Because the second you start stumbling over your words, the second you don’t know how to use the application or describe whole life versus term, guess who comes in on the side, right? Fear starts talking to them. See, I told you this wasn’t for you. Does that make sense? A little bit, right? And so the next thing real quick before we get into teaching you some stuff is try to leave no backdoor open. See, when we leave a mental backdoor open, it allows you to procrastinate, it allows you to escape, right? When you leave that backdoor open, I want you to understand this, right? Live in a world. One of the things that helped me out tremendously is living in a mental state where I want to be extraordinary, nothing less. I want the best in life, I want the best for myself, the best for my family.
So I want to invite you into a world forget about the outside issues, right? I want to invite you into a world where anything that you want to accomplish, you can live in that extraordinary state of mind. Does that make sense to you guys? A little bit, right? That’s what’s going to need that kind of energy you’re going to need, right? And so you got to be careful sometimes we’re so right all the time about everything. Each and every one of us is right all the time about everything. But we have to be careful about being right all the time because you can be right about the wrong things. Does that make sense? And that can stop us, that can hinder us from growing, right? And so what’s being important, what I want you to understand, is be authentic, right? If you want RVP, if you want the extraordinary world, you have to cause it.
No one else has to. You’re the one that’s in charge of that. So if you want to be RVP, you want to be a million dollar earner financially free, we must cause that to happen, right? And so the question is, well, what will you create for yourself in this land of extraordinary. What is it that you are going to create for yourself? Why we’re still here, why we still can? And whatever the answer is to that, well, you have to cause it not no one else, not your upline, not your sideline, not your downline. It’s what you have to cause, right? And so the more that you connect with showing up to this conversation in the land of extraordinary, you show up to this conversation as a person that’s authentic, right? And when I say communication, I don’t mean communication with other people. I mean communication with yourself.
If you show up as an individual, that’s authentic, that you can rely on yourself. You speak to yourself with integrity, it’s just a matter of time before you become a success. Does that make sense to you? Right? It’s not one of those individuals that says, hey, you know what, I’m going to do something and you never do it. That’s procrastination. That’s what I mean by leaving the back door open. You cannot leave the back door open. If what you want to do is become successful, it’s very difficult to get there, right? And so there goes in the difference, I’m going to teach some stuff, right? But a lot of this stuff, I discovered it. You’re going to be learning it. There’s a difference in discovery and learning. See, I can give a man a fish, right? I can give them a fish. And so if I give them a fish, they don’t know how to fish, right?
And so when you discover, you figure out how to fish, you can always eat. Does that make sense? All right, so this is good, right? The last day and a half has been really cool, right? We’ve learned some stuff. But what you have to do is discover. You have to go out on a journey and begin to discover. You see, when you discover something now you have it. You own it. You discovered how to prospect. You own that. You discovered how to motivate yourself. You own that. You discovered how to live in a land of extraordinary. You own that. That’s yours forever, right? And so the moment you discover it, we have access forever. You can take anything away from any one of the leaders. But they’ve discovered how to build a business. They discovered how to stay motivated. They discovered how to stay in a high energy state.
They have access to that for the rest of their life. Does that make sense? It wasn’t like they just watched the video and all of a sudden they can click it on and off. No, that’s not the way it works, right? And so again, that can get a little bit deep, but on surface just wanted to give you that because that’s one of the things that we talk about. So the next thing that I wanted to speak to you guys about is the one one interview. One one interview. W two, verse 1099. And if I have enough time, we’ll get into some things here, right? And so hopefully you guys can see that. Is there a TV right here that you guys can see? Awesome. All right, Bet, so I’m going to be sharing some stuff with you. Now, this stuff right here first, I learned it by watching Hector Lamarck, right?
If you haven’t gone to Hectorlamarck.com, maybe you want to, right? I don’t know. If you don’t. I don’t care. Well, you should, right? That’s where know did a lot of my learning. I learned it there, but I discovered it, John, when I sat in front of a lot of people. That’s when I discovered how it works, but I learned it initially from the video. All right, so knowledge is not power is the application of it. Does that make sense? That’s when I discovered how to fish. Now I have access to it forever. Does that make sense to you guys? A little bit, right? All right, perfect. And so there’s questions. Remember, we have questions. So anytime I meet with someone and I do a one one interview with them, I don’t jump into this whole Primerica spiel, right. As a matter of fact, I’ve gone through numerous amounts of presentations that I’ve never mentioned Primerica until the end of it.
Oh, yeah, by the way, it is Primerica. Most of the times, I don’t have to say the word Primerica because I can provide a lot of value. If you can provide value for the individual, they’re not even thinking about the company, okay? It’s just when you’re kind of new and you need crutches, you use the presentation. I’m not saying don’t use the presentation, but I am telling you is you can get really good at this, and you could just kind of do napkin presentations. So I ask a series of questions, and the questions are in place to kind of help the individual start thinking. And again, you can go on Hector Lamarck thing. He has a whole DVD, and you can watch the video over and again. Don’t judge me on writing. I don’t get paid to write, so chances are very high this writing is not going to be nice, but it is what it is, right.
So the first question I have for an individual and let me see. Perfect. The first question I’d have for an individual, right? I’ll ask them. I’ll say, hey, after I have their briefing sheet, I’ll ask them real quick. A first question is, hey, if I was to call some of these people on the list, what do you think are some of the things they’ll tell me about you? Now, what I’m doing is I’m allowing them to sell themselves, right? They’re going to, oh, well, I’m a great person to work with. And what I’m doing is I’m writing it down, and I’m going to tell them I’m going to say, listen, I’m just going to take notes. There’s no right or wrong answer. This is about you, all right? It’s completely about you. So you can tell me whatever it is that you want to tell me.
You think, man? I’m motivated, right? I’m a great person. I’m ambitious. I’m determined. Whatever it tells me, I’m agreeing with it.
Yep.
Absolutely right. So I put self there because that’s the way I take notes, right? The next thing that I might ask them is, you know, I want you to think about something really quick. Edward, what are some of the goals that you would like to accomplish in the next five years? Let’s say if money wasn’t an issue, if you didn’t have to worry about how much anything cost, what are some of the things that you would really like to accomplish?
Right.
Start saying, Man, I want to drive a car. I’m going to write that down. Car. He’s going to tell me everything. He wants to tell me a home, maybe a business, travel. All these things he’s going to mention, and I’m going to write them down in front of me, right? The next thing, I’m going to go ahead and ask him, say, hey, listen, if money wasn’t an issue, where would you travel? What type of places would you go?
Right. Why?
Because travel is a big thing for people. When’s the last time people even got to dream about their goals?
Right?
Because you understand when you get a job, your goals and your dreams shrink to the salary that you make on a yearly basis. So now I’m asking them about their goals. I’m getting their mind to start working and start dreaming again.
All right?
I’m asking them about traveling. You know how many people don’t travel? I have, like, a 50 year old lady on my team. She’s coming with me to Jamaica on Sunday. What’s today? Sunday.
Oh, shit.
Tomorrow.
Right?
And she’s never had a passport before. I’m like, you never had a passport? How? Anyway, but the majority of people have never traveled outside of the country, all right? And so now I’m asking, if money wasn’t an issue, where would you go? Where would you travel to? Right? Let’s just feel free to dream, entertain yourself for a little bit, right? And I’ll say, man, paris. You’ll hear everything, right? Paris, right? You’ll hear anything that they write down, right? Let’s just put Jamaica right there, right? Let’s say, is France Paris?
Or what is all that?
I don’t know. It’s a different place. One of these smart people know. Anyway, I’ll put it all down as a point. If money wasn’t an issue, another question that I would ask them, where would you live? What kind of house would you have?
Right.
Now, the ladies are going to give you different answers than the guys are, right? But you have to help them in the system, right? If money wasn’t an issue, what kind of home would you have? Would you have the big man cave in the back? Would you have the pool in the back, the basketball yard in the back? And allow them to begin to know? The ladies are usually going to say something about a garden, right? They’re usually going to say about the nice driveway, the nice fountain in the front, big ass kitchen, right? They’re going to say things like that, right? And guess what? I’m going to be, wow, that’s nice. Would you stay in if I’m in New York, would you stay in Brooklyn? Or would you leave?
Right.
Where would you want to live if money wasn’t an issue? You get what I’m saying? And now they’re starting get what? They start dreaming again. So it’s like I’m giving it to them Tesla, but then I’m going to take it, you know what I’m saying? I’m going to show you what’s going like, this is accessible to you, but then I’m going to kind of, like, take it in a few minutes, right? If you say no to this opportunity, it is what it is, right? So what kind of home would you have? Right? Travel car. The next one is car. That’s a big one. Hey, listen, what kind of car do you drive right now? Are you driving your dream car? If I say no, do you have a dream car?
Yeah.
If money wasn’t an issue, what kind of car would you have? Anybody have a dream car in here?
Right?
A lot of people are into stuff like that, right. Layton makes fun of me because I make 450,000. I still have a 2011 Toyota, right? Don’t mean much to me. I jump out real quick on you, Layton. What up? One day I’ll drive something nice like Edward, right? Edward has like, a Bugatti or something, but I’ll ask him, and I’ll say something’s very easy like, what kind of car? What year is it going to be? Are you into speed? Do you like nice fast cars? What’s the interior like?
All right.
You like trucks? Wow, that’s a nice truck. What kind of truck would it be? Is it the year truck? Right? The inside interior, would you have music on it? Would you be rolling down on your friends banging music on it? You can see that, right? Awesome. And I’m taking all that stuff down, right? The next thing that I’m going to put down, I’m going to say, hey, let me ask you this question, right? What’s the most amount of money you’ve ever made in a year? Income. What’s the most income you’ve ever made in a year? And I’ll get whatever number, and I’ll say, hey, listen, in order for you to live your dream lifestyle, how much money would you need to make on a yearly basis? So say, for example, they say, hey, about 30,000, 50,000 is what I’ve made and I need to make in order for you to live your dream lifestyle, for you to travel, have the car, live in the place that you want to live in.
How much money would you need to make on a yearly basis in order to have that right? They’ll say somewhere around, let’s say, a quarter million dollars a year. And I say, okay. Great. Does it make sense in order to go from 30 to about $250,000 a year, you’re going to have to learn a few skill bills? As long as it’s legal, ethnical, you’re not hurting anybody, is there any reason you wouldn’t want to learn how to do that?
Right.
They’re going to be like, yeah, absolutely right. Is there anyone next thing is charity, right? Is there anyone that’s important in your life that you would want to help if you were making this kind of money? Do you have a mom or something like that you would buy a home for? I’m getting into the emotions, but not only that, I’m also getting a referral base from them, right. They’ll say, oh, you know, my kids church, I would love to be able to give more back to the church. Okay, great. I’m sure the church will love that too. And so I’m writing all these things down and at the end of know, those are probably the main questions. We’ll have a good conversation about it. And what I’ll say is like, look, Edward, the reason I ask you these questions is not to barge into your business.
There’s no right or wrong answer here. Oh, the next one that I would ask them is retirement. So I’ll leave that there.
Right.
At what age would you like to retire?
Right.
And what do you think? Most people’s answer is 65, 70. A very few people say tomorrow or the day yesterday, but most people are going to say 65 or 70. And what I’ll have with Edward, I will say, hey, listen, Edward, what I found is retirement is not an age, it’s a certain amount of income. So if were able to position you in the next five or ten years where you can have a business that’s currently paying you a quarter million dollars in passive income, could you retire at that point? Yes or no? Absolutely right. And so I’m getting him to start thinking, right. It’s not necessarily an age. Right. And so what I ask him at this point the reason I ask you these questions is because we find nine times out of eleven, if you’re the right individual, you’re goal oriented, you’re ambitious, our company will be able to help you get to where you want to be.
And the challenge is, most people know Edward, where they want to go, but they’re stuck one side of the railroad track. And if you’re the right type of individual that we’re looking for, I’ll be able to help you get from one side of the railroad track to another. Let me introduce you to Primerica and what we do. You guys got that? I always have those questions before I jump into the interview, before I say anything. I’m trying to get that out the way, right? The next thing that I’m going to speak to you guys about really quick is I believe everyone’s recruitable. And the reason I believe that is because in this country, we’re all in a capitalistic society, right? And the way we correct me if I’m wrong, the way you capitalize here is you capitalize through a distribution, right or wrong. The person that can distribute the most makes the most money in America or in business per se, right?
And so what do you distribute? You distribute either products or you distribute services. Either or. You’re either going to be on either or the spectrum, are you what I’m saying? All right, now, the person that can distribute the most products or services is going to make the most money. You can take a mom and pop shop and compare it to an Amazon. Obviously, Amazon has more distribution. They’re going to make more money. Does that make sense? You can take a local medical store and compare it to one of the big firms, one of the big hospitals, right? Which one’s going to make more money? The one that distributes more what? Services and products, right? And so in capitalism, that’s the way that it works. And guess what? You’re in capitalism. Does that make sense? Now, the biggest challenge this is what I say. The biggest challenge with whatever industry they’re in, the biggest challenge with if you’re a nurse, the biggest challenge.
If you’re in sanitation, the biggest challenge if you have an MBA or a Master’s is the only thing that you can distribute is your time, because it’s just based on you. And do you want to be wealthy? What do you think they say? Yes, I want to be wealthy. Well, if you want to be wealthy, the biggest challenge is that you break rule number one when all you do is get paid based on the distribution of your time. See, it doesn’t matter if you have an MBA, a bachelor’s, it doesn’t matter how smart you have or how long you’ve gone to school. If you only have 24 hours in a day, you broken rule number one, because now you’re only getting paid limited because you have what? Limited amount of what time. I want you to think about something really quick. Who lives in the house that you want to live in?
The employee or the business owner? Who drives the car that you want to drive? Employee or business owner, right. Who takes the vacations that you want to take? Employee or business owner? This is what I’m doing when I’m talking to them, right? Who makes the money that you want to make? Employee or business owner? You have children, right? Do your children go to the school you want them to go to, right. Or do the business owners have their kids going to the schools? You want your kids to go to the businesses? I never thought about that. So very clearly, you know exactly where you want to be. You just don’t have a way to get there. Is that right or wrong?
Right.
And so now I start talking to them a little bit more about W Two and 1099.
Right.
I often ask them, well, who works harder, the employee or the business owner? The employee, right. And so very clearly, I know where you want to be is you want to be a business owner.
Right.
Why haven’t you start a business? You hear that conversation come out, and then we’ll dissect that. Right. Now, in this part, what I start talking to them about is this, right? In becoming a Primerica rep or an independent business application, right? I’ll say there’s two ways that we get paid, and there’s two ways that when it comes to this country, there’s two ways that you get paid, right? You can either get paid on a W Two, you can get paid on a 1099. Have you heard of both of them?
Right.
And this was what I do. I always use my hand gestures. I say the challenge is this, right? When you work with a 1099, you have no deductions. I always use 1099 over here, a W Two, you have no deductions. When you have a 1099, everything is deductible. All right, you guys following me with this, right? Okay, good. And so the challenge is, if you make $50,000 on the W Two, the biggest challenge is you’re going to have to pay what the first thing is you’re going to have to pay what? Taxes. And if I made 50,000 on my 1099, I’m not paying taxes right away. So let me show you how this works, right? With your W Two, you can deduct your kids, right? And if they have older kids, I’m like, you can’t do that no more because they’re already grown. Unless you know some people who know some people, it happens, right?
And the other thing you can deduct sometimes is your 401K. Your 401, right? Now, let me ask you a question, right? Do you have any bills? What do you think they’re going to say? Yes.
All right.
Do you pay for your phone? They’re going to say yes. All right. Do you pay for your Internet?
Yes.
Do you pay for your car note?
Yes.
Do you pay for gas?
Yes.
Do you pay for your car insurance? Right. They’re going to say yes. Do you pay rent? I do. What else do they have? You have electricity here, right? You have water that you got to pay for, right? All of these things, right? Now, you made $50,000 a year, and you have to pay for all of these. And I can go down the deductions of what it is now let’s say at the end of the year, let’s call it maybe you’re paying 30% here. So let’s say you’re left behind with 40,000, right? That’s a good day, especially here in Florida. You ain’t got state taxes here, right? It’s like come to Florida, harvey hear that all the time. And let’s add up all of these, and let’s say these add up to about $15,000 by the end of the year. The challenge with this is you cannot what?
There is no deduction. Deduction, right? However you spell that.
Right?
And so correct me if I’m wrong, you’re still going to have to do this regardless. I’m not telling you to jeopardize your career or anything right now, but what happens is when you put in the 124 to work with Primerica, now you get paid on the 1099 and what the IRS allows you to do for the next five years, right? Even you have to make some sort of money, because if you don’t make no money, they’re going to tell you can’t do it after five years, right? So for the next five years, what’s going to happen is this. When you meet with your and guys, get this. This is why I tell them when you meet with your tax guy, what’s going to happen is now you tell them you made $50,000 on your W two. But let’s just say this was 15,000, right? But you lost $15,000 on your home based business.
You bought a computer. You guys following all that other stuff you lost.
That right.
So now what good old Uncle Sam is going to say is instead of you paying taxes on this $50,000, now you’re going to deduct that from that. Now you only pay taxes on $35,000. And your job, really, and financially, is to learn how to get your taxes down to the legal minimum. Do you have anyone that’s showing you how to do that? Not at all.
All right.
And I guarantee you, if you work with us, you’ll be able to take advantage of that tax law. Does that make sense? Can you see how everybody’s recruitable?
You see that?
And so learning how to have these conversations with individuals, it doesn’t matter if they have if they’re a lawyer. Well, you’re good at being a lawyer. That doesn’t mean you’re good at your finances. Guys, I’m telling you, it’s amazing what we’re allowed to do. If you learn the basics, if you learn how in debt, we can go with helping somebody when it comes to their financial game plan, right? And this right here allows me to recruit anybody. I don’t care if they’re a business owner. And it doesn’t matter. This right here, I’m fu proof, I really am. You’re a doc, you’re a surgeon, man. That must mean you make money, but you probably pay even more in taxes, right? Let me show you how to get that down, because you’re good at being a surgeon. But that doesn’t. Mean you’re good at having money work for you.
Does that make sense? A little bit. So you guys got that already, right? Now, I usually do a deeper training with a PowerPoint and all that, but for today’s time’s sake, we’ll get into some other fun stuff really quick.
All right.
And so that’s my recruiting part, either which way, I’m going to find a way. There’s nobody that should be telling you nobody that should be telling you. Like John said, there’s no such thing as a good job. Right. And that’s really the truth, right. The way the taxes are broken up, there is no such thing as a good job. Now let’s get into this really quick, which would be the last thing that we cover for. We got to get up out of here, and it’s going to be this one of my faves. So from the start, building a big base shop, right? Now, we talked about this earlier. Start off with optimistic energy, and you want to stay there as you go through the business. Guys, it’s important that you stay coachable a coachable student. No matter how much income you make here, you’re always a student.
Where I’m at, I’m learning. I’m still learning more and more every single day. But if I wasn’t, the second you stop learning is the second your income stops growing. Understand that. So always be a student. Be a coachable student. Now, in the same token, I want to be a teacher as well, right? The next thing there is have extreme work ethic. You want to build a big bay shop. It’s about extreme work ethic, being able to work behind the scenes. See, when you leave here, do you go jump into bed and cuddle up and get in a fetal position and say, well, you know what, that was a good know that was a good day or two. Or do you find a way to know, throw yourself out somewhere or make a phone bliss with you and your team? Do you work when no one’s watching?
That’s the most important time, right? So Coach Whittle talks about keeping the pipeline filled. Your business needs to have people going all the time, right. You have to be a proactive person to build a big base shop. Not a reactive individual, but a proactive individual. Right. The next thing is this. Promote district leaders every month, direct and on your team. So what you want to have is checkpoints. And I think most people in Primerica, they don’t have a checkpoint from week to week. See, you get on Monday and you got to look back seven days and say, well, did I promote a district? Yes or no? And if no, then what am I doing this week to make sure that next week I promote another district leader, whether it’s my direct or my team? Does that make sense to you guys? Right? Again, anybody in here interested in building a base shop, right?
This is about getting a business that works without you guys. Coach is interesting. This thing is so interesting. He hasn’t been in the field and Lord knows how long I haven’t had to depend on my personal pen for the last four plus years now. It’s crazy. And our income just continues to grow. But what were focused on is districts, right? And so we learned a couple of things in the beginning, as a representative in Primerica, in order to go from Rep to senior rep or right, let’s just call it district, you got to learn how to create activity, right? Bring me people. I’ll see the people for you. I’m creating activity. Right or wrong. That’s what we learn at this stage. Right? Now, when you’re a district leader, you start learning how to turn that activity into production.
You guys get it.
So now you learn activity, and you learn how to turn the activity into production, where you start getting some results. Now, when you go to division, the division part is you learning how to take somebody and get them licensed and get them promoted. So at division, you learn how to get somebody what, licensed, and you learn how to get them promoted. Now, a regional leader, you learn how to promote others and build teams. But the biggest challenge that I see is this. When we get the regional, we forget what we learned at Rep. What did you go through the course for? You forget to do activity, or when you get the division, you forget what you learned at the beginning. You don’t do the activity no more. All of a sudden, you’re a regional division leader for a national sales division leader or something like that, right.
You forget what you do. At the first level, I was like, It’s not working with Duh, right? They told you what to do when you first came in. Now you all of a sudden stop doing it. You don’t make your favorite meal by just putting all the ingredients in the oven on its own, right? There’s a process to it. Does that make sense? A little bit, right? And so when you’re seeing that your business is not working, have you gone back to the basics and said, well, what did I learn at a Rep level to create activity? Am I booking the appointments? Am I prospecting?
No.
Okay, well, let me check that box and check that box, right? And then you just go, okay, what I learned at district leader how to turn that activity into production, am I promoting anybody, right? No, I’m not. All right, well, who am I going to promote and start having checkpoints? Because if you don’t have checkpoints, it’ll be a year or two later before you realize you’re in.
Yeah.
Damn, I went a whole year. Yeah, I promoted a district, but damn, that was in 1999. Oh, damn. You got to have some sort of checkpoints in place. Does that make sense? Every business would have to, right? So you got to have some phone blitzes in there, right? Big base shop. Right? Number one here is not about me. It’s not about you, but it’s about the bigger picture. Our bigger picture is we want to help Chris H on. I don’t ever make it about me or make it about the individual. So understand, in building a big base shop that’s going to be big, don’t just mean, oh, hey guys, I want you to go to work so that I can get promoted. What? You’re not going to build a big base out like that. It’s going to be a little bit tougher, right? The next thing is growth is expected.
It’s not an option if you’re on this team. Growth is always expected from week to week. Are you growing? I don’t want you to grow 10%. If you can grow 1%, that’s fine with us. But it’s not an option to stay still and stagnant because you’re going to mess up the environment and we’re in business together. Does that make sense a little bit to you?
Right?
So we got to keep growing to keep going.
Right?
The next thing is this value people, like, I mean truly value people, right? As a matter of fact, understand this. When you stop valuing people is when you stop leading. You got to really pour in and care about people. Have value for them. Right. Be responsible for where you’re at in business. Try not to ever play the blame game. It’s not your upline’s fault, it’s not Primerica’s fault, it’s not the society’s fault, right? Take ownership for where you are. That’s the way it works, right? The next one is this, right. Upfront expectations. When you speak to somebody, be clear, right? Be clear. Clear the air. Understand that you must have tough conversations in any relationship. Most people never get big in prime America because they run away from the tough conversations. You got to have that tough conversation sometimes. You’re not working, so it’s not going to work for you.
As a matter of fact, it’s working the way it should work for you because you’ve had one recruit in twelve months.
Okay?
So I’m excited for you. It’s working, right? But if you want it to work a lot better, you’re going to need at least probably like two. I’m going to have that tough conversation with them.
Right?
And so it’s important.
Right.
You got to be able to speak to people and have those tough conversations. The bigger the base shop, the more you need to prepare. The bigger the base shop, the more you’re going to need to prepare. So what you want tomorrow, you have to do today. You want the big base shop tomorrow. We got to prepare for it today. We got to put in a lot of numbers today. Put in a lot of appointments. Train a lot of people, right? Always roll with your team. Be consistent at the good things, right? Because consistency compounds. Look, guys, I want you to understand that consistency compounds. We are all consistent. Some of you are just consistent at being lazy. I’m just being honest with you. And honestly, if you’re consistent at being lazy, you’re going to get those results. If you’re consistent at building, you’re going to get those results.
He was like, man, damn, that was harsh. It’s the truth. You don’t have a problem being consistent. You’re consistent. You’re either at one thing or the other. I promise you’re consistent. And it compounds. Right or wrong, it’s going to compound. And so I would rather that you focused on the things that are going to help you get to your goals and dreams a lot faster. Because, again, we don’t have 1020 years to go out there and become millionaires. So let’s just be consistent in the things that are going to get us the results that we want. Because again, compound consistency builds habits and habits build your business, all right? And again, well, I don’t have a big business. You might have been consistent in the wrong area. So let’s just change the focus and have consistency in the right areas to help you bigger a bigger business here, right?
You want to have an encouraging environment, right? And not only are you the one that’s encouraging, but teach others how to be encouraging in that environment as well, right? It’s very important to build in the big base shop. I guarantee you, anybody that has a thriving base shop, they’re operating like a family. Anybody around that has a big base shop, they’re operating. Everyone’s encouraging. They’re playing team ball. They’re not playing individual ball, right? Another thing is this. Every day, contact your teammates. I don’t mean by a text message. That’s very cheap. Give them a call. It ain’t like you have 100 people to call in a day or you already had the big bay shop, right? And so you’re going to sit there and contact them. Give them a phone call, right? You don’t know what to say. Use AI or something like that and tap in there and say, what am I going to say to a salesperson or something, right?
But at least contact them, right? What I’m trying to tell you is we spoke a little bit about it earlier is serve your people on a daily basis, right? Add value to them. Do for them. Check this out. This is very big. Do for them what they wouldn’t do for themselves, like cheer them up. Give them a compliment. Tell them that they’re doing good, they’re on their way, but at least contact and communicate to them, right? Give to them if you don’t have much to give to them in terms of physical recognition. Give them energy, give them enthusiasm. You get what I’m saying? Give them that, right? Understand this. In building a big base shop, nobody is useless. Nobody in this room is useless. No matter if your name is not on a scoreboard, you serve a purpose. Does that make sense? You always going to serve a purpose on this team.
Have that kind of environment, that kind of conversation with people, right? Because they may feel like they’re useless, so let them know that they’re not, right? Because one day, that little shot continues to do what? Take little shots and becomes a what? A big shot, all right? And so help them lift the load off the ground. The best way to find purpose I love this one. The best way to find purpose is to lose yourself in the service of others, right? In the service of others.
Right.
That’s very big over the status, right? Value people, right? If I don’t value people, I don’t have a big base shop. If I don’t value people, I won’t add any value, right? So every day I’m adding value to people, right? And I look for ways to add value. Any little thing that they do. You pass a test. I don’t care if you even man, at least you took the test. You know how many people didn’t take the test, man? I’m excited about you, bro. You’re a champion. What you mean? You booked an appointment? They dark housed you. You know how many people had tried to get to book an appointment and you booked it? Actually, bro, you’re on your way. It’s that’s exciting, right? They don’t see it like that. Help them lift things off the ground, right? So recruiting rule number one. Check this out, right?
If you only got ten recruits or less, your base shop is shrinking, right? I was like, Dang, man, I’m just trying to get the ten. Well, I’m just letting you know, these are some numbers that are important to have in front of you, right? Ten to 20, your base shop is maintaining, right? And so, again, it’s like you always want to raise the bar in this business. What I found, 20 to 30 recruits a month. Your base shop is growing 30 to 40 recruits a month. Now, you’re growing fast, right? And then now you get to the sweet part. 40 to 50 recruits. Bay shop, you’re exploding. Bob Safford says you want to have a minimum of about 50 recruits back in the days every three months. That means you should average at least 17 recruits a month, right? Well, in today’s day and age, you should be doing that in a monthly basis, right?
So if you’re not, don’t feel bad, but that’s what we’re working towards, okay? I’m telling you, RVP is a day and night is day and night. You think you know Primerica now you don’t know Primerica. If you want to stop working at a regional vice president contract. That’s when you stop working. But don’t just sit here and stop working at District. You didn’t come here to be a district. You didn’t come here to be a division leader. Go make $10,000 a month consistently, then stop working. I’m telling you, this thing gets sick, I swear, every time I use my card. John I don’t know if you guys feel like this, but every time I swipe my card, it’s like, Primerica crazy enough to throw more money in. Like, let me go find something to spend money on. And whoop do not reply, take this. This is an abusive relationship, man.
It’s like, don’t talk back to me, right? Feel a little violated. Primerica, right? That’s an awesome feeling to have, right? Double digit recruiting, right? Realize that you can get so much out of people, out of the people that you have, right? Most people don’t have found a place in the base shop, right? So you can only get so much out of the people that you have.
Right?
Don’t spend all your career trying to turn a ten of diamonds into an ace of diamonds. They’re not an ace of diamonds, man. Go get some more people. Go flip some more cards. You get what I’m saying? The only way to get to the next level is to recruit more people. Number two is this make a decision that you’re ready to start recruiting. For me, it was this, right? I’m not smart at everything else in the business, and I know that. So I was like, if I’m going to mess up in Primerica after RVP, I’m just going to mess up with recruiting. I told you, Isaiah yesterday, I’m just going to override the smart pun, right? That’s just the way it roll. But they make us look good, right? I’m not that good. Recruiting is a mindset, right? Don’t work unless you’re 100% committed to it.
Your people won’t start until they see a change in you, right? So that means we have to do it first. You got to be a reflection of where they want to be. You have to be a reflection of overcoming things, right? They got to see you grow, and they’re going to want to grow as well. You got to forget about the ratios for a while. They say 8531 or whatever they tell you, forget about those things, right? Because in the beginning, that is going to throw you off in this business. Understand that. That will throw you off. They said, do this and do that. You believe that? If you want to. They already got their RVP contract. They just want you to work. I’m being honest with you, man. You should do way more than that. I never followed those numbers, right? I was like, oh, nah, man, you just want me to move slow.
I’m going to double, triple that. Forget that. I’m trying to hurry up and get the RVP contract, right? Just being honest. Now, when you’re focused on recruiting, right, your recruit to sell ratio is off. But they’ll come back. They’ll come back after your base matures. Meaning after you have some solid people in the team, those numbers will begin to balance themselves off in the next six to twelve months, right? You have to sell out to it, right? Building a big base shop does not just happen. Teaching other people how to double digit recruit does not just happen. We don’t focus on selling plpps or auto and home insurances and all that. We’re selling out to building a big team, all right? Because last I checked, the only way Primerica got to being this big of a company is because they only focused on what recruiting and insurance, all right?
So what they did on a big scale, I’m still trying to do it on the little scale so I can become the big fish, all right? I was like, well, Harvey shouldn’t say that. Well, I did. Okay? Your people won’t recruit if that’s not what you’re recognizing, right? It must be recognized. Everything that you recognize grows. So find a way to recognize everything that you want your people to do very big on that, right? And it doesn’t need to take you money. Sometimes you could just be in front of the room and mention people’s name with a lot of energy, and they’ll be fired up to do it again, all right? Or do a nice little slide, right? If it can’t be temporary fixed. Once you start, never let up. It’s all about momentum moving here, right? You got to lead by example to get recruit going.
We spoke a little bit about that, right? Go find a new rabbit on your team. If your team is not moving, right, your job is to go find somebody that will start moving. People ask, well, how do I get this person moving on my team? Go find a new one. That’s it. FOMO is a real thing. Fear of missing out is a real thing, man. All of a sudden, Harvey’s focused on somebody else. He doesn’t love me no more. Watch this. I’m going to show him. Yeah, right. Do that, right? So go find a new rabbit, right? Focus on a minimum of five directs a month, right, to find a rabbit. A minimum.
Right?
Nothing fires up a bay shop like a new rabbit. Recruit to recruit. Don’t just recruit to sell. Big problem, right? If you can get a recruit now, your job is to get them another one and another one. Very simple. Don’t overcomplicate it, right? And if they fall off, then you just go get another direct. But if you do it enough times, not just once every year, like if you do it once a week, it should start working out for you. Okay? Your goal is to recruit someone. To recruit someone, right? Not recruit someone to sell them again. I think Layton may spoke. Oh, no, he didn’t speak about this, right? You don’t want a transactional business, but you want a business that transforms individuals, right? You need to look through the recruiting to their market for more recruits, right? Next thing oh, sorry about that.
Manage your team’s activity, not their results. Very big, right? Manage the activity. You want to condition individuals and so that’s very important. So I condition them, not their results on your income, right? Results are the byproduct of activity. Understand that. So everybody wants the RVP contract, there’s activity behind that. You want to make money, there’s activity behind that. So on and so forth, right? Recognize people based on their new activity for the week and not just the results. And I’ll leave you guys with this, right? Let’s just go build it big, right? I’m super proud to be your teammate. Thanks so much for flying.
