EXECUTIVE TLDR
40 years building inside Primerica
Recruit through appointments, not interviews
Focus primarily on life insurance and securities
Build width in your base shop
Stay in personal production longer
Hold strict accountability to numbers
Work only with motivated people
Save aggressively
Create massive long-term passive income
VIDEO SUMMARY
In this powerful Q&A session, Hector Lamarque breaks down the principles behind four decades of sustained success inside Primerica.
He explains that recruiting should begin in the living room, not in an interview setting. Instead of trying to convince someone to join the business first, he focused on setting appointments, closing life insurance and investment business, and then recruiting clients who already believed in the products. When people see value firsthand, recruiting becomes natural.
He emphasizes that nearly all significant income comes from life insurance and securities. Leaders who scatter their attention across minor product lines rarely build massive income. His production history showed that approximately 98% of his earnings came from those two core categories.
When discussing RVP promotions, he simplifies it: teach recruiting, teach field training, and build width. The wider your base shop, the stronger and more stable your hierarchy becomes. At his peak, he maintained dozens of direct producers actively writing business.
Accountability defined his leadership culture. His direct question to leaders was, “Where you at?” Everyone was expected to know their exact numbers — premium, securities volume, and recruits. Conversations were short, clear, and production-focused.
He distinguishes between being direct and being destructive. Leadership requires clarity, but also professionalism. Winners think like winners, and leaders communicate expectations around measurable results.
Hector shares his biggest regret: leaving the field too early. If starting over, he would build a 200-person base shop and promote 100 RVPs before slowing down. Staying in personal production longer, he believes, would have multiplied his long-term income.
He maintained a near 60% recruit-to-code ratio early in his career by aggressively field training new recruits and helping them close meaningful business quickly. When new representatives experience real success, they commit and get licensed.
He also credits disciplined saving and base shop expansion for creating lasting passive income. Even during extended periods stepping away to care for his wife, his hierarchy continued generating substantial income — proving the power of building it correctly from the beginning.
His philosophy is straightforward:
Recruit strong people.
Train relentlessly.
Focus on life and securities.
Build width.
Track numbers daily.
Work with motivated individuals.
Save your money.
Teach others how to duplicate your success.
FAQS
What does Hector Lamarque say drives most income?
Life insurance and securities generate the overwhelming majority of meaningful income.
Why recruit through appointments instead of interviews?
Clients who purchase products already believe in the system, making recruitment easier and more natural.
What is the key to promoting RVPs?
Teach recruiting, field training, and prioritize building width in the base shop.
What does “Where you at?” represent?
A culture of strict accountability where leaders always know their production numbers.
What was his biggest regret?
Getting out of the field too soon instead of continuing to build a larger base.
How did he maintain a strong recruit-to-code ratio?
By field training aggressively and helping new recruits close real business quickly.
Why is saving emphasized?
High income combined with disciplined saving creates true long-term financial independence.
GLOSSARY
Base Shop – A leader’s direct hierarchy of personally recruited representatives.
RVP (Regional Vice President) – A leadership level within Primerica representing ownership of a hierarchy.
Width – Building a large number of direct producers instead of relying only on deep downlines.
Recruit-to-Code Ratio – The percentage of recruited individuals who become licensed and active.
Field Training – Training new representatives by working live appointments together.
Securities – Licensed investment products that often generate significant long-term income.
Passive Income – Ongoing income generated from a developed hierarchy without daily personal production.
Professional Closer – A trained representative who consistently generates premium and production results.
Transcript:
You know, this is my 40th year in Primerica, so I started when I was 12, so it’s been an amazing ride. I’m excited for you guys. You guys are part of an amazing hierarchy. The Ottos are just amazing people. I love them. I’ve known them for a long time. And it’s watching his career explode and watching all the phenomenal people they’ve developed over the years. And, you know, although it’s gone, but this is. You guys are just beginning right now. This is just starting for you. You guys look at this as a new, like a rebirth, okay? And you take this amazing business, it offers so much. It’s changed my life in a dramatic fashion over the years. And when my kids, when I got started in the business, My kids were 4 and 5 years old.
Now they’re 46 and 47 years old and four grandchildren later. My daughter has two girls that are 12 and 17 and my son has two boys that are 10 and 14. And it’s been just. It’s been such an amazing thing, amazing life that we’ve been able to create because of Primerica. So many amazing experiences over the years. I’ve been to 70 plus countries. I’ve, you know, done so many things that are amazing in my life. And I, you know, I haven’t been around for a while. You know, I was one of the reasons. And maybe I’ll show this there. But my wife Jan, were together since I was 17 years old, so. And.
Excuse me.
I miss her so much. You know, it’s like we built this business together. She was just. My wife was just amazing person. She was her high school and college valedictorian. She was so much smarter than me. It was amazing. And she was a great mother, great business partner. I mean, we had an amazing life because of Primerica. Thank God I had Primerica because I was able to take almost, I don’t know, close to 20 years off because she was dealing with cancer the whole time. And were able to travel and just do great things. It was really. We did four of these. I’ll talk about this later too, with Selling the Dream. We did these four of these around the world in a private jet, tours. I don’t know if you ever look into that. It’s not sheep, by the way.
Yeah, you looked into it, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Anyways, we did those and we saw so many amazing things. The world out there is waiting for you. Those of you who decide to really do it. Build A business, build a big base, produce a lot of successful people. There’s a lifestyle that will just blow your socks off. And it was so good. I would always tell you, my whole life is so good, it’s almost too embarrassing to talk about, you know, because it’s incredible. And you have that at your disposal right here. You could change your life in a dramatic way. And you need to look at this, you need to really be excited about the business that you’re in. It’s not error proof.
There’s problems, there’s challenges, but overall, if you do things correctly and you build a big base and you really develop people. I’m really big on sales training. I’ve always been big on sales training. Yeah. Yes, that’s what I said. I’ve always been really big on training, sales training. Because my experience, my personal experience is the business for me was always easy. I’m sorry to say that, but it really was. It was not difficult for me at all. But the reason it wasn’t is because I could sell, I could close, I could get people to say yeah, I could get people to say yes. You know, and that’s what you. That’s what to get big, you got to get people to say yes, right? Yes to coming to your meeting, yes to joining, yes to buying, yes to come into meetings like this.
You gotta get great at getting people to say yes and this. So the sales part for me was always the most important part because I, I grew up shy. I’m introvert by nature, very introverted. And I remember I used to be like walking down the mall and I would see somebody I knew and they were in the distance, but they hadn’t seen me yet. And I duck into the store so I didn’t have to talk to them because I didn’t know what the hell to say. I mean, literally was doing that. And so I listened tom Hopkins, how to Master the Art of Selling anything audios. There’s 12 of them. And I listened to that two hours a day, five days a week for three years, over and over, that’s all. I listened to my car, I didn’t listen to the radio.
I, I just listened that over and over. It got to the point where the selling part for me was really easy. You know, when you get so good at it and you have it down, then the sales part, which is the sales part is getting people to meet with you or getting people to come to a meeting or getting people to buy or purchase a product of ours. The sales part for me was always really easy. But the only reason it was easy because I did the work to get my skill set up to the level that made it easy. And all of you have the ability to do that if you want to. I mean, if you want to just really grow, grow your sales skills. But.
And then the other thing changes everything is when you get really good and you get great at teaching it to your. To your motivated people. That’s when things really start growing and start changing and your income starts going up like crazy. So I highly recommend that. Because the reason we lose people in Primerica is they. They can’t. They can’t sell, they can’t close, which means they can’t make money. And if people can’t make money, it’s not a matter of whether they’re going to quit, it’s when they’re going to quit. And so what you want is you want people’s skill levels so high that it becomes easy for them to make money and easy to train people and develop people. Because that’s what you want, right? Because you imagine those of you, if you’re an RVP, you’re good at the business.
Imagine if you had 20, 30, 40, 50 people like that in your base shop, you know, that were. Had the same skill set you have. We’re able to do what you do. So it’s all about the duplication. For me, that’s what I focused on intently and I. And I recommend you do the same thing because you want to. Those of you that are really great at the kitchen table and you’re able to close and recruit people, you have to transfer that skill set to those people in a clear way, in a way that makes sense to them, the way that they can duplicate that. And if you do that, then they’ll make money and you’ll make money and people will stay. Because the number one reason people quit is they don’t make enough money. That’s what they do.
So my thing was always big on sales training and getting people really competent. I love Primerica. I mean, even though you haven’t seen me for a while, I’ve always loved Primerica. It’s always been great. It’s so great for my family. What’s happened in my family as a Realtor, Primerica is just. It’s phenomenal. It’s really great. And, you know, you have kids. I have kids. Both my kids. My kids didn’t want to get in the business, which is fine. But they both became successful in Their own right. My daughter is a screenwriter and a director, and she does movies and TV shows and stuff. And my son, he went to Wharton Business School and he has his own now, so he’s doing great for that.
So, you know, he’s managing my money, so he has to grow it because he’s going to get it, you know, at some point. So that’s a good thing. But anyways, I’m really excited to be here. I love the Ottos. They’re just fabulous people, as you well know, and they’ve done an amazing job. They’re a tremendous example of Primerica. And you are very fortunate to be part of this group, I want to let you know that, because they’re just awesome people. Is this worth it? We’re going to. I’m going to take questions. Can I do that here?
Absolutely.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, so let’s do. I like doing this part. I love the question and answers because it makes me remember and what I did.
So someone asks a question and just raise your hand, you point to them, and then they’ll stand up and then.
All right, great. Perfect. No questions.
Are the skill you use to build your business fully applicable to the digital world?
Zoom.
And all the things we use today outside of the face to face?
No. Next question. You know what I’ve noticed? What it takes to build a business hasn’t changed in 40 years. Honestly. You know, your skill set, the girl, you grow, your sales skill set, you’re gonna do well at this thing. So I think it’s a hundred percent applicable right now. 100%. In fact, if I came back and started building a bay shop again, which I’m not gonna do, okay, I. I would do the same thing I did before. You know, I built my business one one with people sitting face to face and training people and teaching people what I did. Because the thing is, if you’re good, you want to be really successful, you’ve got to get great at transferring your skill sets, your knowledge, your expertise to the people that you have on your team, wherever they are.
And whether it’s one one or whether it’s in a group setting, it doesn’t really matter. It’s your skill at transferring what you did and how you did it so that people could duplicate that is. Is everything. It’s really, really important. So you should be thinking about, you know, if you’re good, what would your business look like if you had, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 people as good as you are, what would it look like I always ask people that question, what would your business? And they always say, oh, it’d be incredible. I said, well, why aren’t you doing that? Why aren’t you doing that? That’s what you should be doing morning, noon and night, right? Working with people, getting them to grow. Good. It’s great.
I agree with you a thousand percent with, you know, usually people don’t make money. We know what I’m saying. They filter out and you know what I’m saying? So we got to teach them. Skill set.
Yeah.
What is your time frame? Let’s say, you know, you’re working with someone and you’re teaching them, you know, six months, a year or whatever. Give me an example. I’d like to know an example of your time frame.
I think the time frame, if you’re really doing it right, should be, you know, four, six, seven, eight months. It shouldn’t take that long if you’re really working with people and sharing them with the, you know, the right information. So the key is, can you get them to do exactly what you’re doing? That’s what I focus on. I taught exactly what I did, exactly how I set appointments, exactly how I prospect, exactly how I did everything. I was very clear about how I did it. Because, you know, if people don’t get it, then they’re not going to, you know, they’re not going to grow, they’re not going to stay here. So I wanted to make sure that I was as clear as day in teaching what I was doing all the time. I wanted. I wanted to duplicate me.
So I focused on teaching exactly what I did. So if I was working with somebody, I would make sure that they learned the presentation. The presentation I was doing. Exactly. I didn’t want them to improvise or do their own thing. I want them to do what I’m doing. I said, if you want to improvise, you can do it. Once you start closing, take 10, 20 sales a month and you’re, you know, making money. If you want to change things, it wouldn’t be smart to change things, but you can. But right now, I want you to do exactly what I’m doing. I want you to watch me model and mimic me. It’s model and mimicking. That’s what you want. And that’s what I focused on doing with my team, is just getting them to do exactly what I was doing.
Because, you know, those of you are good. It’s not that difficult of business, right? I mean, it really isn’t. So if you can get them to the same level, skill level that you are, then they’re going to make money, they’re going to stay, and you’re going to grow. You’re going to grow your business. That’s the key to this whole thing. No.
Okay, first of all, thank you for being here. I can speak for a bunch of folks that came through this with us that you were instrumental in our attitudes and the way we looked at the business as a business.
Yes.
And so thank you. The other thing is I just, I showed you that I found my data sets. My son was born December 23, 1996. I was frustrated as hell. Cary Ginsburg said, let’s go to California and stalk Hector. So this is a true story. We wet stalked you. We. I was big back then, so I think I swept your legs. I asked you 17 questions. You gave me the answers that you answered so well that we never saw him again. I’d love you to share with. Because I think people think the recruit is the end of the game and beginning. And you plant it in my head like that paperwork or whatever it is. VBS now.
Yeah.
It starts the game.
Right. Right.
There’s so many people chasing recruits without the mindset of what that person means. Right. Distribution. And you looked me in the eyes and said some things which I’m not going to share. You were very kind. But you pointed out to some people who were that.
You.
You. The expression you gave me was chopping down the rainforest to make toothpicks. And it was like this moment for me where I was, I’m wasting resources because I’m selling people a dream and then I’m leaving them out there to flounder. So could you maybe share your idea of what you look at when you see that person makes a commitment to you? You’ve sold them on. Stick with me. I’ll show you the end game here. Exactly what is the mindset of the new, you know, that resource and how you went about, you know, processing it to the end?
Well, what I did with people is I always ask people, what do you want from Primerica? I mean, I think you got to figure out, what do you want from this business? You’re looking, you’re getting ready to invest a lot of time and energy and things. What do you want? What is, what is the end game for you? And hopefully it’s to become debt free and financially independent. You know, that’s what. That was my focus. Right. And so I want to know what they want because one of the things I want to do is I wanted to keep people accountable. So if they told me I want to become an RVP or I want to be, make, you know, 2,000amonth or 5 or 10 or 20, okay, so that let me know because I’m going to push you towards that.
And if you want to do something big, you’re going to have to make a big commitment to this thing and to me, because I’m going to commit to you and I let people know that I’m going to commit to them. I’m going to, I’m going to do whatever I can to help them become successful. But I expect you to follow my direction. I expect you to model and mimic my behavior and my, the things that I say and how I present. I want you to do everything the way I do it. Because the way I was doing it, I was, for me, it was not unusual to close 15, 20, 25 sales personally a month. I did that a bunch of times. That’s what I used to do, you know, because I’m a professional salesperson. That’s what I really am.
I’m not, I’m not an snsd. I’m a professional salesperson. I’ve always been a professional salesperson. And that’s what it’s allowed me. You know, I’ve made 110 or 15 million dollars since I’ve been in Primerica. Okay. So that’s from becoming a professional salesperson. That’s what you want to be. That’s what you want on your team. Because those people make money and they stay. That’s what you don’t want a revolving door, right? You don’t want people coming and going. You want them staying. The only way they stay is if they make money. You’ve got to teach people how to make money. Hey, Hector. I’m Harvey.
Growing a master base. I had a question, though. Thanks for everything.
Yeah, you’re welcome. What mental barriers do you see even six figure income earners struggle to break through before they hit the next level?
And if you ever went through that, like, how did you overcome that person?
No, I never went through that. You know, the thing is you got to get people making money. They got to know how to close. So, you know, I don’t know what your situation is, but you have, are you good at the kitchen table? Yeah. Okay. The key is not only that you’re good, but how good are your people? How well do they do in relative to what you do? So because you. You’re. You’re never going to lose people that stay and make money. So I’m on. I’ll repeat this a hundred times this weekend. I have always focused on teaching people how to close so they can make money. Right? And so a lot of people have a problem with that. The selling. We’re not really selling. That’s bullshit. We’re completely sales. Okay? This is all sale. Everything about this is sales.
Somebody sold you on coming to this event this weekend. Somebody closed you on getting submitted an iba. Somebody closed you on getting field trained. It’s always selling. There’s no thing about Primerica that does not involve selling. Everything about it is selling. So if we know that everything about it is selling, it would make sense that you would get really good at that. You should invest enormous amount of energy on getting great at the sales process and getting people to see it like you see it, and getting people. Just getting people to say yes. That’s your job. Yes to the. To the opportunity, yes to the, you know, the products and services, yes to everything. That’s. That’s what you want people. Yes. To come into the meetings. You know, that’s what you got to do.
You got to get grit at getting people to say yes. And that’s sales. So don’t ever be embarrassed about becoming a professional salesperson, because only the smart ones become professional salespeople. The rest of them aren’t so smart. Okay.
We’re talking about sales and closing. Primerica developed a tool many years ago, financial needs in that.
Yeah.
It’s been brought to my attention over and over again that there are thousands upon thousands of people in.
Our company that have never even heard of it. Yeah. That’s sad. What would you say about the power.
Of that tool and should we be using it?
I would make sure you teach that. Teach. Teach them how to. How to do that, the needs analysis, and teach them how to get people to say yes to it. That’s. That’s. You’re probably really good at it, I bet. Right? Okay. All right, well, then, what if you had 20, 30 people in your base or 100 people in your base shot that were as good as you at doing that? What would it look like? Huh? Okay, so then do it. Actually do it, you know, Right.
Starting out, when you’re trying to get wide and build that base, what’s your mindset? What is your standard weekly goals? What are you trying to build as you’re building that base?
Well, my. My focus was all my focus forever Was to. To recruit at least three directs a month. That’s what I focused on. Not like, not 23, three good ones that have good war markets that are credible, right? So that was the number one thing. And then the next thing is I focused on getting. Getting them to duplicate that. You know, that’s it. I mean, if you could recruit three people a month and you can field train those people, and then while you’re field training those people, I was very good at recruiting people for people while I was field training people that I was. I was strong at that. So I.
Not only I recruit you, if you were the right kind of person, I would make sure that I recruited, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 people for you to lock you into the business. Because if you have, you know, if I recruit three or four or five people for you, number one, I’m gonna have to fill training because you’re too new. You don’t know what you’re doing yet, right? So I’m gonna field train those people. So I’m gonna do the same thing over and over with these people, and I’m gonna get them to. I’m gonna get them to stay in the business. I’m gonna get them to grow and stay in the business. And so that’s what I did. I focused on recruiting three people a month. And then I.
And then I recruited another, typically would recruit five, six, seven, eight people, four people that I was field training on top of the personal that I did. So I did both. You know, I always had. I always had a lot of people to field train. And so I was really good at the field. I was good at closing. So I got people to stay in the business because I’d field train them, and then I recruit people for them. And then those people would make money, and then they would get involved. They would stay. So I got people to stay. You know, like I said, I have 16, 17,000 code numbers in my hierarchy. Well, you can’t have that many unless you get people, some people to stay, right? You got to get people to stay. So.
But they can’t stay if they don’t make money. I’m going to keep coming back to this over and over. You like, you know, like the autos, where are they going to go now? They’re screwed. They’re here forever because they make too much damn money, right? They have nowhere to go, right? So I always wanted to help people make a lot of money so that they couldn’t leave, you know, that they have to stay because they can’t Go find anything approaching this. Right. So that’s what you want to have happen, is have people making money.
You talked about field training. A lot of people, a lot of.
Us.
Have been here for a bunch of years. We had to make good at sales, whether we wanted to call themselves or not. Because think about it, we had to recruit somebody. We had to sell them in Jersey on getting a license which cost $1,100.
Wow. Right?
Four year license you had to pay for and licensing school. And I had to pay 85 for the test 15 times.
Yeah.
But if we had to sell people on getting licensed, it’s only going to cost you to get fully licensed. A couple grand.
Yeah.
And then we’ve got to have you plug in. We’re gonna go out, write 8, 9, 10 sales with you so we can teach you how the business works. Well, how much do I get paid? And you go, well, when you were in college, how much did you get paid? It’s kind of like that.
Yeah.
Create all these little, you know, give a shit a T shirt so that we go. Right. Three by three or something.
Right.
And now the company pays them a bonus. So we’re basically bribing people to get field training.
Right.
And some of these guys are getting two, three thousand dollar bonuses and we’re paying for their lifelines.
Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing.
It’s crazy.
It is. Oh, God. We would have recruited so many more people. Absolutely. Yeah.
Thank you for being here.
Sure. Of course.
Putting this together is unbelievable. You know, Keith talks to us about investing our time with the right people.
Yes.
And you said, this is what I wrote.
Okay.
Work to get your skill set up and teach to your motivated people. How do you identify motivated people? I mean, I know we all know how to do that, but I’d like to know.
But I focused on. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I never worked with people who aren’t motivated. I just didn’t do it. I mean, I’m not going to waste my time with some. Somebody that’s not motivated that wants to do this thing. What’s the point? I have this opportunity where you can make, literally make millions of dollars if you. And so I’m gonna make sure I’m not spending any time with an unmotivated individual. And I didn’t, you know, for the first three years in the business, I, I didn’t make a lot of money. I made like, I forgot like 16, 18,000, then like 35,000, then like, you know, I can’t remember the number exactly, but around there, not A lot of money. And what happened at the end of that first three years?
I was one of those people that I wanted everybody to do well and everybody to succeed. But the fact is, most people just aren’t very motivated. They’re just not. I wish they were, but they’re not. So you have to accept reality. So I made a decision after that third year that I wasn’t going to work with anybody that wasn’t motivated. And what does that mean? They show up to all the meetings, they listen to all the audios and stuff that I recommend, they read the books, I recommend, they don’t miss any big events. I mean, I watch their behavior. I wanted to make sure that they were. They’re motivated. And if they’re motivated and I tell them, I said, if you’re motivated, I’m motivated to help you. If you’re not, then we don’t have anywhere to go. Okay? There’s nothing for us to do.
So I want to make sure everybody that I spent physically spent time with that they were motivated individuals. And I never tried to motivate people. I. I’m not motivator, you know, I’m a leader, I’m a sales, I’m a trainer, all that, but I’m not a motivator. I’m not like, even today, I’m not trying to motivate you. I’m just sharing with you what I did and what you do. But I never tried to motivate people. The rah, rah stuff, you know, that was always one of the things about the most meetings that I went to. There’s a lot of motivational talk, but nobody’s teaching anything, you know, And I’m sitting in the. I’m saying shit. I want to. I want. I want to know how the to do this. All right? That’s what I want to know.
I don’t need you to tell me about your houses and your cars and your all. That’s bullshit. That doesn’t matter, right? Because I’m not going to use any of it, you know? So I wanted to make sure they were motivated. If they were motivated, then I’d spend a lot of time with them. I’d live with them. I spent a ton of time with them. And that’s because it’s hard to motivate people, but it’s really easy to train motivated people. It’s fun. It’s not only. It’s fun when you had a really motivated individual on your team and they’re taking. You see, 20 people and you’re writing all kinds of business and it’s just a blast. But most people aren’t motivated, so you got to get adept at deciding who they are.
And then you need to invest a lot of energy and time with those individuals. Hey, Joe.
So you were just talking about getting free to X with people with good.
Markets that are moving. Yeah.
What I find in our office right now is we have.
Thank you. Okay, go ahead.
We have a couple college students that are bubbling up, no market, extremely loyal, extremely coachable.
Yeah.
And so what I’ve been doing is taking them on my appointments because if I go on theirs, it’s not the right market.
Okay.
What do I do with somebody? Because I joined at 19 and I would talk to whatever I need to do businesses to get it going. What do I say to somebody who.
People are extremely loyal, extremely positive, and.
You would never go into their market.
Because it’s no good.
What do you do with those loyal.
People that are motivated? Nothing. What am I going to do with them? I mean, if they don’t have a market, if they don’t take them to see a decent market, there’s. Why am I going to do that? Because there’s nothing. You’re just going to be spinning your wheels because you’re going to be doing, spend a lot of energy, but getting a really very little, you know, reward for that. So they got to take you to see the right kind of people. That’s why recruiting young people that are 21 years old or, you know, 17, 18 and all that, I never did that. Okay.
If they didn’t have a market, if they didn’t have good credibility within their market, then I, maybe I would have one of my divisions or districts and work with them, but I wasn’t going to work with those people because it’s like pouring water into a bucket with holes in it. There’s no payback. Right. And so you might. Oh, that’s kind of cold. It’s not cold. This is the business. We’re in business to make money. Right. We’re not. This is not a. This isn’t camp. Right. They got to be the right kind of people. Right in their mouth. Yeah. Well, I say. Well, first you got to listen to the. Like there’s audios I have. You need to listen like I have Overcoming objections audio that I. That I did years and years ago. Anybody listen to that? Right? Yeah.
I said, I want you to listen to this like a hundred times. I mean, literally, I want you to. I want, I want you to listen too often that everything becomes just boom, boom. You don’t, you don’t even have to think you can do it because what happens is most people, their sales skills level, it doesn’t help them. It’s not good. It doesn’t go forward. But so I get them to really do that. And then I’m a big Hopkins guy, was a Hopkins fan. I’d have him listen to the thing I listened to as well. Right. I wanted to. I just figured if I had a team of professional salespeople like me, I’m make a lot of money here and I did. That’s what I did and that’s why I’ve made a lot of money here. And that, you know that make sense. Okay.
Okay, I’ll go first.
Okay.
First off, thank you so much. We have a Google Drive for all of our licensed agents with year seven everything. The whole booklet, CD thing.
Right. So thank you for teaching it. Okay.
Question is, what does or did a typical weekday weekend training look like for your bake shops? Like our Tuesday night, Saturday?
Well, I had like three basic meetings that I had a full timers meeting I used to do on Monday mornings. You know, the people are full time and that was mostly. Is all of it about how to think like a winner, how to behave like a winning person. That’s what I spent a lot of time. I’m a voracious reader. I probably read 1500 books on personal development over the last 40 some years. And so I always was reading, you know, I read quickly and I’m. And I just like to read. So I would read this stuff and then the books that I read, I would, on my management, I would teach things that were. I would primarikize the book because there’s.
I take the stuff that really makes, that works with our business and I would teach that to my full timers because I want. I figured if I can get them thinking like me, we’re going to do great. Right. And that’s what I did. And so that’s first thing I did is I made sure I did that. And then what else? What was the question again? Oh, the train. Okay. So they try. And then I had a Tuesday night op meeting. So I didn’t, we didn’t do training on. I know a lot of people do that, but I didn’t do that. So we’d have an op meeting and you know, I would do a great op meeting and close people joining the business. Then the most of the training was Saturday morning.
I would do, you know, from 9 to noon and, excuse me, it would be on all the fundamentals of the business. How to prospect, how to set appointments, how to overcome the objections, how to, you know, how to close, how to do all the things that are fundamental to building a business. I do that on Saturdays. And I did most of the training, the early part of the, you know, my career and as I started developing people, the people that were got really good that I trusted that they could do what I was doing. Then I’d have them start helping with the training on the Saturdays and the Monday. So that’s what I did. That’s how I did it. Okay, thank you.
People set them up for.
So if you’re recruiting like a new.
Person, let’s say they have a 9 to 5 job, good income, what was your expectation of them?
Right.
They would get home at say 6 o’ clock for them to set up appointments.
Yeah, yeah. My expectation was make sure one thing. This is really important because a lot of people miss this. The number one thing you need to do with a new person is get their list, their warm market list. That’s more important than the iba. Get the warm market list. People that are married, children, homeowners, you know, in the market. Not, not young, you know, 18, 19 year old kids that don’t have any credibility with anybody, including their family. So I would make sure that, you know, I. Those people, I would get them, you know, going and make sure that I taught them exactly what to do and how to do it. So how to do the.
Do a training session, how to break down a policy, all the fundamental starts of the business, you got to get people knowing how to do all that stuff and getting competent at that. That’s what I would focus on. My thing was that I would get people to prospect. You know, you should be prospecting everywhere, every day, everywhere you go. If you’re serious about building them, is you got to be prospecting. If you’re at a gas station pumping gas and you see somebody across, you can prospect them. Whether or other people that somebody takes you. Like I go to a ball game, like my kid was playing little league baseball and I would introduce myself to all the people, the parents in the stands, right? And I would say, hey, listen, which is your son? And now that’s a Billy over there. Okay, great.
I said, then I would just ask him, how long have you lived here in Claremont? And they say, oh, we lived here for 15 years. Oh, great. And what school do your kids go To. Did you choose the school based on your neighborhood, based on the school system you have? And they say, yeah. I said, well, great. They said, listen, this is not the time right now, but I would love to sit down with you and show you. I’m expanding my business here in Claremont, and I’m looking some for really sharp people, and you may or may not be interested. I don’t really care one way or the other, but I would love to show you what I’m doing and see if there’s any interest on your part. That’s what I used to do.
I just talked to them like that, and then I’d get them. They. I get them to meet with me, and then I, of course, I, you know, close them on the business, and if they have cash value, I destroy that. And, you know, I would. I would. I would make them a client. And then if I can make them a client for me, I rather always make a client first before I recruit them, because when they’re. When they’re a client first, they’re. They’re. They bought into what we do, so I don’t have to sell them on that. Right. So that was my thing. A lot of people just recruit to recruit, but they don’t really. You don’t really show them what we do and how we do it and why. It’s fantastic. I wanted people to.
After they heard me talk about our business and what we do, I wanted people to feel really like, wow, that’s pretty fantastic. I’d like some more information on that. And so anyways, that’s what I did. That’s how I did it. Thank you for being here.
My name is Tammy, and my question is, while you’re teaching people how to make money.
Yeah. Very important.
How do you keep people focused on recruiting?
Because a lot of times when people.
Start making money, they slow down.
Yeah. That’s dumb. Yeah. Oh, you just hold them accountable to it. You know, you got. You need to talk about that all the time, because you can’t, you know, like this room right here. I mean, I don’t know. Most of these people are under you guys, Right. So most. So if not all of them. And they make a ton of money because you are here, Right. You’re part of this thing. So that’s the thing you want to have, you know, get people to focus on. Right. Building a team, recruiting and selling. It’s not just. I don’t. I didn’t just do one. A lot of people thought I was just a sales guy, and I didn’t recruit well. I have 16,000 agents. I recruited somebody at some point, Right. So, yeah, so, you know, just recruit everybody. But you got to do both.
You got it. You got to. It’s like walking and chewing gum at the same time. You got to do both of those things. Both are critically important. One’s not more or less important than the other thing. You got to recruit people, you got to close sales. It’s all the same thing. Sometimes when you recruit and they, you.
Know, they’re very enthusiastic, but then sometimes exam, they’re very careful. So how do you prefer funds like insurance?
So how do I go from the insurance to the investment part? Well, that’s where that FNA comes in if you’re going to use that. Because FNA is really good. The F and A financial needs analysis, because you have to. You’re looking for assets that are there, and you need to do both. I think a lot of. I don’t know about your situation, but I have a lot of people in my business that primarily do investments or primarily do insurance. But most people don’t do both equally well. And I think I did both. I think both are important, you know, and, you know, I make this year, I’ll probably make a million five on securities income and then, you know, a couple million on my life business.
So both of those things are pretty damn important because there’s a lot of money and most people are leaving all kinds of cash on the table because you’re not doing both of those things. You need to do both of those things. This.
So I want to pick you back up this question. You got a recruit top 25. Are you saying bad things we didn’t do, like recruiting interviews?
Appointment? Yeah, I didn’t do recruiting interviews. Yeah. Am I done? Can you hear me still? Yeah. Okay. So. Yes. Did I finish asking that? No. No. I did not know. I never had them set up recruiting. I had them set up appointments to close business because I always wanted to close business. It’s much easier to recruit somebody that’s bought into our product and services and owns them than it is to try to motivate them to get in the business. It’s way easier. So if I sit down with you and you end up I’m doing an investment with you, a life insurance policy with you. You obviously believe in what we do, or you wouldn’t be buying it. Right.
So I don’t have to convince you that this is a great business, Then all I have to do is say, look, if I could show you how to Double, triple your income. Can you think of any logical reason why you wouldn’t take a closer look at this thing and really explore this? That’s how I would go to get to the recruiting part. Just like that. I just asked that question. Does that make sense? Yeah. Somebody was over here. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Can you take us back to when you were a vice president for the first time? You haven’t promoted out any vice presidents. How are you selling your B shop on becoming a regional vice president? What would some of the things that you were saying at the time like really get people motivated to become?
Well, I would, well, main thing I would do is I get, I teach them how to recruit people. The, the reason people don’t go RVP is they don’t recruit anybody or enough people. So I was, I taught people how to actually recruit people and then field train those people. And that’s how, the way you get somebody from zero to an rvp, you teach them how to, you know, how to recruit somebody, then how to get them in the field and how to get field trained. So I, I, I focused on that, I focused on getting people competent and trained and knowing how to, you know, close. Yeah, yeah, they, yeah. And then, you know, and talk to them about what do you expect them to do to become an rvp and what does it take to do that?
So they need to know what to do. Well, you need to get wide. I’m big on wide. I know you guys talk about wide a lot, but I think width is like everything. In Primerica, the wider you are, the more money you’ll make, the easier it is. I was always focused on getting wide. You know, when I had a big bay shop, I’d have like 50 people who were direct to me writing a sale. Yeah, so that’s a business you want because that’s super profitable. Okay. So that’s what I did with those people. Sure. You have somebody set it up for you. That’s pretty cool.
My first exposure to you was, I remember I used to go to Keith’s office all the time when we joined the business in 1990. I would ask him questions, and I would never do anything about the questions.
Yeah, right.
Then he gave me an audio. You remember an audio, which was the double, double cassette tape. Overcoming.
Objection.
So my question to you is keeping it simple. Right. You talked about keeping it simple, transferable, duplicable. Now if you look at Primerica, there’s so many different products now and there’s so many different directions you could go. How can you still keep it simple? Or what are the things that you would concentrate on or really focus on to help somebody.
Recruiting? Life securities. That’s what I would focus all my attention on. I wouldn’t. I mean I know there’s a bunch of products, but most of those products, you don’t really make any real money from those things. Right? Yeah.
I pulled up our income training online. Our 1099 was 5.9 million last year. Not part time. 98% of our income is life and security. 2% is. So I see people like you just said. People get caught up in the answer.
Those are things we can do.
But there’s no money.
You’re not going to build a business off that. The, all the income is, you know, like you say, it’s life insecurities. I make all my income from life insecurities. It’s like that’s it. That’s where it’s at. That’s what you should be focusing on. Big base, big securities. That’s what I’d be doing.
Okay, thank you, Anthony Hines.
Thank you. Thank you everybody.
I tell say your mom is my MJ of prime.
Erica. Yeah.
The question I have for you is that, you know, a lot of times, you know, running a producing RVP can be like a NBA coach trying to manage the superstar personality.
Right.
So how did you interact with your rvp? What was that accountability like and how.
Was that different people, you know. You know what, the number one thing, I used to have a license plate on my car that says where are you at? Near to that. And, and when I would talk to my team, whoever they were, if I call Anthony. Right. So if I called you, I said, hey Anthony, where are you at? That’s, that’s where the first thing I’d say, I would not tell you. How’s your life? How’s your wife? How’s your kids? I don’t give a about in that. So, okay, I want to know where you at. I wanted people totally focus on their, where they’re at production wise. I, you know, so you need, if you don’t know exactly where you’re at securities wise this month, exactly where, you know, premium wise or recruit wise, then you’re off track.
You need to know what that is and you need to know those numbers and get people focused. So, and so I made people uncomfortable because I’d call him on the phone and then I would say, hey Keith, where you at? I didn’t say, hey, how you guys doing today? I just wanted to know where he was at. And then I trained everybody to know that’s what was going to come out of my mouth. Where you at? And then they’d have to go. And if they didn’t, weren’t able to tell me, I say, well, what the hell’s wrong with you? You got to know exactly where you’re at all the time. You need to know your numbers like the back of your hand. I like that.
I like those respond. Communicate them responding like that’s all you care about is just the number.
That’s right. That’s right. It’s all I care about. I don’t give a crap about anything else because I haven’t got paid on all this other stuff that you’re thinking about, Right. I get paid on the production. We do. So where you’re at is the only thing that matters. Right?
I do agree.
When I.
If I call one person, I’m not starting off where you’re at, and I might be on the phone for hours.
No, you can’t do. You got to control. This is how you do it. Okay? So if I. Anthony and I. First thing, where you at? And you tell me, I say, okay, great. I’ll talk to you later. Bye. Hang up. I don’t want to have a con. I don’t need a conversation with you. You’re telling me everything I need to know about your production level. Okay? So I don’t need to do anything else. I’m good. I need to call someone else. I got to call, you know, Keith or I got to call, you know, another person. That’s. I was always keeping people really accountable. I made people feel uncomfortable, right. Intentionally, because I wanted to be thinking about what they. What, you know, what. What we’re doing and where you’re headed and what’s important. And what’s important is where you screw them.
I don’t got to worry about them, right? I didn’t worry about that. Because, you know, if you’re. If you’re. If you’re a punk, right? It doesn’t matter. What are we going to do with you? There’s nowhere to go. So you may see, like, this is a locker room, right? Okay. This is stuff. I had a locker room talks with people. I was very, very direct. Right? That’s always was like that. My wife used to go, oh, my God, I can’t believe you’re talking to them like that. I said, what do you mean? He’s Lazy ass doesn’t do what he needs to do. Okay, so look, I’m a coach. That’s what I’m a coach. Right? If you have any good coaches. Did they baby you? Hell no. Right? They did. They. Mine didn’t. The ones I had didn’t, man.
They, they were kicking my ass all over the place, right. Trying to get to do stuff. So sorry about the language and stuff. I apologize if you’re, if you’re not okay with it. Okay.
So in conjunction with Anthony was saying, yeah, all of your vice presidents, were taught to build relationships with people.
I get it.
Not everybody is motivated. You only spend that time and talk.
To the ones that are motivated.
Or is that with all your arguments?
I talk to everybody the same way. And, and I, bottom line, I just talked to them the way that they needed to be talked to. They needed to be focused because I want them thinking like a winner. Right? And winners aren’t pansies. Right? Winners are tough. And so, and this business is a tough business. Come on. You know it is, right? It’s not like, especially when you’re trying to get it going in the beginning or whatever, or maybe you let off the gas for a while and now you got to get it going again. It’s. You got to get. You got to get going. You got toughen up a little bit. Right? I wasn’t, I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to motivate people. I was trying to get people to start thinking like I think, right? And I’m a results guy, period. I don’t.
The rest of that stuff I don’t care about. I want to know the results. Where are you, what are you at? Where are you going to be at by the weekend? How many people you got coming to this, to your next training meeting? How many people you got coming to the next op meeting? What do you got going? Come on, I want to know what’s going on. And so I was pushy, if you will, about that, and I wanted people to know this is what’s important. If you don’t tell them what’s important, they’re not going to know what’s important. Right? And you know, them getting results is the only way you’re going to keep them in the business. And if you really care about people, you’re going to push them.
You don’t have to be rude and mean, but, you know, you got to be direct with people and let them know what’s up. Yeah, Hi, David.
What’s your. You have an incredible track record.
Record, A legacy.
But knowing what you know now, what’s your biggest regret?
I got it right here. It’s getting out of the field too soon. Number one, I was really good in the field, okay. And I. In closing business and recruiting people was easy for me and I got out too soon. You know, if I would have. Knowing what I know, if I would have stayed in the field and kept doing what I was doing, you know, I. You know, I’m making three and a half million, whatever I’m making, but I’d be making double that, triple that. No, no doubt my mind. I would have done that because I would have developed a bunch. If I had to do it over again, I would build a 200 gram base and I wouldn’t stop promoting RVP’s till I had 101st. That’s what I. Knowing what I know and I could have done that, I would.
That was not difficult for me. If I, if I knew then what I know now, that’s exactly what I would do. 200 gram base, 101st. And I would not stop till I got that done. Because you imagine what you’d be earning if you had that. That it’s. It’s huge. Right. And so that’s my number one, that’s my only regret in prime Eric, is that I didn’t, you know, didn’t do that. Yeah.
So your take on how you would like my transition.
Where I’m at right now is getting my RVPs to build hierarchies.
Yeah, I think that’s.
Well, they got to produce. They got to produce. RVPs really make big money, right.
When do you leave them alone?
Never. Why would you leave them alone? Yeah. Yeah. The reason you’re having any issues because you’re leaving them alone, right? You. You got to push people.
You know, we have an issue. So they’re sliding in.
You know, there’s a disease in Primerica.
People stop recruiting and they try to slide into that almost every month. Like last month was. Was chaos. Like it was almost the 20th of the month and there was 15 RFPs that didn’t double digit.
Recruitment. I’m on them all day long, you know?
You know, and finally a bunch of.
Them did double the okay. But if you didn’t stay on top of them, they wouldn’t do that. Yeah, you got to stay on top. You gotta. You don’t have to be an ass either. I mean, you just got to keep asking the questions. Right? You know, I’M not, I don’t alienate people. Maybe it sounds like I do, but I don’t. Okay.
I remember listening to your managers meetings, you know, and that was like I used to be like, it’s a.
Room full of RVs.
There’s guys that is making 5, 6, 700,000 and he’s talking to them like they’re senior reps. Yeah, I remember that.
And I don’t know that me talking that was talking to them like that. Is that what you’re saying? I’m just direct. I. If you don’t let people know what’s important, then they’re not going to know it’s important and they’re not going to do it. So you know. No, don’t leave them alone. Yeah, yeah.
Is that correct?
Perfect. Good job. Good job, Keith.
Just want to thank you for this. So if you’re running FNAS and cruise, bringing security, are you just trying to clone those people’s RVPs? Because sometimes you recruit people who don’t get securities, but then you have people who just love security. So when it comes to like getting them to go to rvp, sometimes like, well, I like this and I like this. How do you handle it?
I just tell them what they need to do. I mean, you need to get a securities license, you need to do securities, you need to, you know, build a big bay shop, you know, and teach people how to close and make money. You know, everything about the business is teaching people how to close and make money, right? I mean, and I don’t care what they like it or not, I’m going to tell them what they need to do, right? Because I did both and I made a lot of money because I did both and I’m still making a lot of money because I did both and I haven’t written a frickin sale in 30 years. Okay? So you need to let people know what they need to do. They don’t have to like it, right?
I mean, you know, if you’re going to get big, you’re going to build a big base shop, you’re going to teach people how to be professional salespeople. You’re going to, you’re going to, you know, hold them accountable, you’re going to have to do all those things. Things, I mean, that’s part of the deal. And you’re a coach, you want your players to win or not, right?
To piggyback on Kodiak, were you doing the whole training or when did you Decide that someone with a certain income.
No, I, I did that, all the training in the beginning because I was good and I was the only one that was good enough to do the training. And then as I started developing people and people become RVPs, I had them to help, you know, help do part of it. I didn’t do all the. Me I didn’t want to do. Be doing all the meetings. The other thing too, at some point. Anybody want to be free in here? Yeah, sometimes I wanted to be free, you know, like really free. So the way you get free is you build a big base, big business that puts off a lot of cash flow and you save your money. Guys, you guys ever talk about saving money? I’m a saver, I’ve always been a saver, you know, and I grew up with my mom.
She had like a ninth grade education and she, my dad had a seventh, third grade education and you know, they didn’t make a lot of. Holy shit. Yeah, Where’s that button at? On the side? Yeah. So yeah, I didn’t plan that, by the way you called. What was I saying? Oh, saving money. Yeah. This, this is this. Yeah. My dad had third grade education, my mom, ninth grade education. My dad worked two jobs. My dad worked in a factory and then he used to cut hair. We had a barbershop in his garage. And you know, we didn’t have any money. There’s seven of us. I have six brothers and sisters and we lived in a thousand square foot house with nine people in it in a little bathroom about as big as this podium, right?
And so that’s how I grew up, you know, no money, nobody in my. I have a huge, I’m a Mexican American, all right? And, but you know, we didn’t have money, were broke. And I didn’t know that though. But when we, you know, we had food and stuff, right? And clothing on our back and you know, but I never had a new bike, you know, if I had to want a new bike, I had to go find one that’s trashed and fix it up. But so that’s how I grew up. I didn’t grow up with money at all. And so for me to become successful in business is like a, it’s a frickin miracle, okay? And you know, anybody can do that. If I can do what I did, every one of you can do what I did.
There’s nobody in here that cannot do what I did. Okay? Everybody. So I know, I forgot I was talking about Go ahead, save your money. Yeah, save your money. You know what you want to have. Nothing’s greater than massive passive income. Like I told you, I was taking care of my wife because she was dealing with breast cancer for 20 years. I basically stepped away from the business. You mentioned that, I think a little earlier. Yeah, I stepped away from the. I wasn’t totally gone, but it was, you know, mostly gone. And, and I made like 60, 70 million bucks during that time without working. That’s the, that’s Primerica. You’re in the same business. You build it. Right? You do that. You can, you. And we don’t know what’s going to happen. Right? I mean, people get sick, your family needs help.
I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff that takes place that, you know, and I wanted to always to be the go to guy, you know what I mean? That something happened. I’m the guy. You call me, I’ll take care of it. Okay? That’s how I wanted it to be. So all of you can do that. There’s every one of you can do that. Hold on, what you got this guy.
Going back to where you’re at conversation. You’re successful. Success in your life, obviously is all the proof that we need that what you did works. I can argue with that. And I’m guessing that you’ve actually probably built a bunch of really amazing relationships.
I have. I have. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Would you say that the way you chose to run your business was the difference between running and building an actual business that makes the dreams of everybody involved come true versus a social club that dreams and builds the dreams?
Yeah, I mean, that was my intention, is to build a team that people were really good and really confident. You, what you want is a lot of super confident people. The only way you get super confident people is you train, train. Right? I mean, think about like Navy seals. You ever want any of the Navy SEAL stuff? I’m a Navy SEAL fan. And the way that those guys prepare, they prepare because of what they’re doing is life and death. Right. I mean, and so in our business, preparation is everything because it’s not life and death, but it’s broke or rich, you know, one of the two. Right. Which do you want to be? So I don’t. I love Primerica. I think it’s awesome. It’s the greatest thing ever. You know, all of you have a potential to do amazing things in your life.
All right, here we go. See, she spoke up. Hi. You know, I have a website I Don’t. It’s not really that functional. But I have, I think I have like 50 or 80 books on there. There are some of the top books that I, I’ve read over the years. You know, I know there’s a lot of. There’s so many great books. I don’t. Yeah. Think and Grow Rich is definitely at the top of the list for sure. Yeah. Have you heard of you. Have you read Outwitting the Devil? That’s one of my favorite books right there. Because that out. You know who outwitting the devil is. Outwitting yourself is really what it is. Right. Because most people self sabotage and they don’t even know that they’re doing it. But that’s a great book. I would highly recommend you read that more than once. Yeah.
Thank you again for this. I think one thing is that we.
Saw that they have shown before your recruit to code ratio. Probably one of the best in the company.
Yeah.
What did you do specifically to make that happen? So obviously you recruited but you got people coded.
You know the another way how you get people coded. That’s why you need professional salespeople training people because people that get trained correctly and they get trained by somebody that knows how to close and close his business, those people get a license. They’re going to get licenses. If you, if you don’t train people properly and they don’t see results. You know, you want people when they like I get done with somebody, we, I take them out, I close 10, 15, 20 sales with people and they get licensed because you know why? Because they go this thing works. Yeah. Most of the time when they don’t get licensed, they don’t believe that it works. They don’t believe this thing’s really going to pay off for them.
And so you’ve got to get people trained properly and close lots of business with them and recruit lots of people for people. That’s what I was good at doing. And so I got my recruit to code ratio the first five, 10 years was I recruited and got 60% of the people that I recruited coded, you know, very high code ratio. But the reason is because they believe that works. And it was worthwhile to go ahead and go through the pass law getting a license. If, if you believe that you were going to make you know, 100 or 200 or 500amillion dollars a year, you’re going to get licensed. Right. So you got to get people saying this works. You got people believing that it works. And the only Way to do that is show results.
You got to come, you got to get results with them. You know.
How did you, how did you hold your new people accountable?
I understand you were saying same way, call them all. You know, if I had somebody, well, what. First of all, I would only work with motivated people. So I stayed on top of them. I would. In other words, I would, I was calling them. And where are you at this week? What do you got? How many people you are coming to the meeting Tuesday night? How many people coming to Saturday training? I was always holding people accountable to getting results. That’s how I did it. I just, I did that with the new people too, if I recruited them, you know, but if you’re not doing.
15, 20 or 8 or whatever personally, that you’re not going to have that same accountability.
No, no, you’re not. You, you got to do it first. You know, I was a big do it first guy. I, I just, I wanted, I took everybody’s excuse away, right? I just did. I like training people. I like field training people. I like doing it. I mean, some people don’t like that, but I did, I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. It was like a game, you know, like I couldn’t wait for the first objection would come up so I could just, you know. Are these my numbers?
Yeah, yeah.
Here, I’ll show you the numbers here. Where yet? Where you at? Yeah, where ya totally where you at? Okay, this is kind of an idea of where we at. So my cash flow first five years was 18 grand. My first year, 35, 86, 409,000, then 855. Those are my first five years in the business. That’s how my income, the trajectory was. 84, 85, 86, 87, 80. And that’s when those days of average LifeVap was like less than 500 bucks. Yeah, 350, $400. This is, these are, those are numbers. What’s that? Yeah, yeah, sure. My cash flow in 1984 was the first year, so it’s 18,000. 85 was 35,000. 86 was 86,000. Okay. So remember the first three years I was trying to get everybody trained. I wanted everybody to win. I was, you know, I was working with people.
I should not have been working on that year. The next year I said, you know, I’m not going to try to motivate people anymore. I’m just going to work with motivated people. If they’re not motivated, I’m going to go find a motivator. I’m not going to try to motivate anybody anymore. And I have not motivated, tried to motivate a person since then, since 1986. And so then. But I went from my income went from 86,000 to 409,000 to 855. Okay. That’s how my, the trajectory was in my first five, five years in the business. And so my personal recruits wasn’t that big. It was 25, 30, 36, 47, 26. So that’s not a huge number of directs. So a lot of people recruit people, but I recruited people that had really good markets that, you know that they’re really credible people.
I didn’t recruit just anybody to recruit somebody, you know, like a young, you know, 21 year old that doesn’t have a warm market. I didn’t work with anybody that didn’t have a warm market period ever, you know. And so I made sure that they were. And then what else is here that’s important? You could probably get this to everybody if they wanted. Yeah. Okay. So there’s a, my base shop hierarchy premium. This is what went from 47,000. This is 84,153,220 6086amillion. 42,087 2 million, 3 million the next year. Those are the kind of numbers we did back then. You guys can do. This is not like rocket science, man. Everybody could do these numbers, but you got to. I can’t. I don’t think you can really get those big numbers unless you become a professional salesperson and you take.
Teach people to become professional salespeople where they make money and they know how to close and they can retain people. You can’t retain people if they don’t make money. You just can’t. They’re going to quit. So you got to get good at doing that, training people.
Can I ask you to either specify or clarify something? He said to Joe, you won’t spend time with unmotivated people. You just don’t do it. But then you said to Chris, he had RVPs on the 20th of the month that are at zero by zero and you got to get on them. So what do you, like, one could argue an RVP is at 0 by 0 on the 20th of the month. They’re not a motivated person.
No, they’re not. I, I may have misspoke. I wouldn’t be working with that person. Okay. I just, it’s. Or I would just say, look, what are you going to do? Are you serious? Are you going to this is what you’re going to do with your business. You’re going to do zero by zero. I thought when you got in, you said you want to be an rvp, you want to make big money, but you’re not doing anything that, you know, that represents that. What’s up? You know what. What’s up? Yes, exactly. I would definitely come from. Look, you need. You need to change, dude. You need to start working and you start getting results and get wide and build a big. You need to do the things you expect everybody to do, period. Some of you back here. Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah.
What are some things you did to create competition so you can keep that base out, consistent over a period of time?
Well, you know what I used to do with my base forever? I. I ran contests every month. Pretty much every month, you know, like steak and beans or go to a movie or go to, you know, something. Go to a ball game. I always had a contest going all the time. And so what I was. The reason I. The reason to run contests is to find out who’s motivated. That’s why I ran contest. I just want to see who’s motivated and then. But that I could. I could. The ones that got after it during the contest. And I know these people, even if I didn’t like them, I, you know, if they were doing the right things, I spent time with them and I started calling them and focusing on them and helping them and, you know, and pushing them, too, as well.
But that’s what I did. The reason. To me, the reason to run a contest is to figure out who’s serious, who wants to do this thing. Right. So, like, you had a contest during this thing, I’d imagine. Right? Yeah. Well, we’re going to find out who was motivated when you do the recognition.
Hector, could you just clarify one thing?
Yeah.
When I came out to see you, were. I joined about two years after you, and you. You were destroying anything that I was doing and.
No, really.
I mean, I humbled myself.
Yeah.
And you. You were really direct to me in a very kind way.
Yeah.
All right.
And.
And my concern is there’s a lot of tyrant mentality.
Oh, yeah. That’s no good.
And I don’t want anybody in this room to misconstrue.
But what I’m saying, you showed me.
Kindness, but you were concerned about my future, and I could tell that you were concerned, Right. That I was a little misdirected.
Right.
So you didn’t call me a. Yeah.
Right, Right. Yeah, yeah, right.
You didn’t say, dude, you should have just should have wasted your money coming out to California broke ass. Yeah, right, Mike, this is what you need to do. How many directs do you have? What did you do the week before you got here? What are your plans to provide for your new child? Do you want to provide for your wife and your new child?
Yeah.
You didn’t, you didn’t humiliate me. You were strong. You were concerned. I could tell you were a nice person who spent time with me. So don’t mistake. I don’t care about you. I, It’s a business. Yes, there’s a way to do this without being a freaking tyrant, without being a prick.
Right.
So I just want to clarify.
No, no, that’s, it’s true. I, I, I’m, I am, I’m a really nice guy. No, I’m direct with people. I just am, I tell. I, you know, like I said, my wife, she’d go, how could you talk to them like that? Because they need it, they need their ass kicked a little bit to get going right, and do the right things. But I was very direct. I was never angry. Like, you know, there’s drunks and then there’s mean drunks, right? I wasn’t a mean, I was nice to people. I like people. I really do. And I’m, and I, you know, I don’t think I can remember ever having a people problem in my 40 years in business. You know, never everybody, even if they weren’t doing well, I was always, I’d see them at the meetings.
You know, they’re showing up to every, you know those people that show up to every meeting, but they don’t do anything, right? I was nice to those people. Hey. Hi, John. How’s Mary doing? Okay. Good to see you. But then I don’t spend any time with them. I’m just going to be nice to them. Maybe they’ll come around someday, but probably not. Okay. And so I was, I always left people, you know, they were intact. They were. I didn’t destroy them. I didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t interested in doing that. Because you never know, they might come back. Probably not. You know, if they’re not working, they’re probably not ever going to work. But maybe they will. I don’t know. I’ll keep the door open and we’ll see.
But I was always, I believe it’s kindness and being direct and telling people the way it is. I Think that’s an act of kindness? Because it’s. If not, then it’s false. You know, that doesn’t work. And, you know, I wanted people to. I’m really big on treating people well. You know, I always. I always treat people well. And I think that’s important that you do that. And. Are we done here?
One more question.
Yeah. Okay. All right.
When Keith and I came out to.
See you and Jan. Yeah.
You told us a story. I don’t know if you remember this, but you talked about your first trip that you went on. And when you were on the trip, you went around to some of the big leaders and said, hey, you know, can you take me through a little bit about how you did it?
Yes, I remember that like it was yesterday. So the. I won a con. I won. Actually, I was not even. I was a district leader, and I won a contest to go to Boca. Right. And so because the month before I last. Two months before, I wrote like 26 and 30 some sales myself personal to get. Win this contest. And so I was having dinner or lunch or meeting with different people that were very successful back then in the business. Names, you would know. I’m not going to throw them out because I don’t want to embarrass them, but maybe I should. No, I’m just kidding. So. But anyways, I. So I was asking the question, so, how did you build your business? What did you focus on? And then they would say, oh, we just did it.
And then I would ask them, how about, how’d you get your business going? How’d you grow? Like, oh, we just did it. That’s all they would say, we just did it. Like art. You say, just do it. Right? They just did it. I said. And so I go back to the room, I’m telling my wife, Jan. I said, jan, these freaking people don’t even know how they built their damn business. I said, we’re gonna get so effing rich, man. That’s. And I did that. That’s exactly what I thought. I said, these people can’t even tell you how they built their business. And you need to be able to tell people how you built your business. If you want other people to build a business similar to yours, you got to be able to explain it and show them how you did it.
So I told her that. And then I got. I went away from that meeting and I said, oh, my God, we’re to going to get so rich. This is going to be incredible. Yeah. So you have to be able to explain how you do it that you notice you go to Most of my experience going to Primerica events is people come talk, but they don’t talk about how they did it. They tell you a story or something like that but you know, so that they don’t. They don’t tell you how they did. I said, look, I just want to know how you did it. I don’t really care about. You have a beautiful home and a beautiful car and all these vacations you do. That doesn’t help me at all.
I just want to know what did you do to build that business, to be able to have that life? That’s what I want to know and that’s what you should be teaching your people. Those of you that are all RVPs, most of you became an RVP. You did that. That’s pretty damn good. That’s a big deal. You got to be able to explain to people how you did it. Be clear about that. So anyway.
