Executive TLDR
Success in Primerica starts with physical presence and face-to-face leadership.
Lead from the front—compete personally in recruiting, life insurance, and securities.
Build full distribution across all three pillars to create a balanced business.
Public recognition and competition drive team performance.
Communication, events, and breaking bread build loyalty and long-term winners.
Video Summary
Cultivating Winners: Strategies For Success In Primerica
John and Sandy Picone deliver a fundamentals-driven blueprint for building a winning culture inside Primerica.
Their message is simple:
Think Primerica.
Talk Primerica.
Live Primerica.
They believe anyone in the room can reset their financial future—and their family’s future for generations.
Face-To-Face Still Wins
John emphasizes a non-negotiable:
Physical presence matters.
Get to the office.
Mentor face to face.
Train face to face.
Build belief face to face.
Zoom and social media are tools—but real duplication happens in person.
If the office is an hour or two away, go anyway.
Consistency compounds.
Lead From The Front
You must be personal.
Compete with your top players.
When leaders produce:
The team respects it.
The team competes.
The team duplicates.
Leadership without activity loses influence.
Master The Three Pillars Of Distribution
John compares Primerica to a championship football team.
Like offense, defense, and special teams, a strong business must win in all three areas:
Recruiting
Life Insurance
Securities
When all three are strong, growth accelerates.
Balanced distribution builds a beautiful business.
Create Visible Competition
Every Wednesday, they publicly post top producers in:
Recruiting
Life insurance
Securities
Recognition fuels performance.
When teammates see rankings, it creates healthy competition and raises standards.
Get Buy-In Early
New recruits must buy into:
The system
The culture
The activity level
Just like a football team cannot win without full buy-in, a base shop cannot grow without cultural alignment.
Communicate Like A Leader
John stresses one overlooked fundamental:
Call people.
Text messages can be misunderstood.
Phone calls build connection.
Constant communication with top leaders and new teammates creates loyalty and clarity.
Do Events And Prospect Together
They take their team prospecting in places like Queens and Brooklyn.
They show up together.
They lead from the front.
Events—whether church gatherings, fairs, or community outings—create visibility and momentum.
Face-to-face prospecting builds stronger relationships than online outreach alone.
Break Bread And Build Loyalty
Leadership is personal.
They invest in their team:
Breakfasts
Lunches
Dinners
Even when it costs hundreds of dollars, they view it as culture-building investment.
Breaking bread builds trust.
Trust builds teams.
Build Future Leaders
Their base shop is producing:
Top personal producers
Future vice presidents
Strong distribution across categories
They believe everyone has the right to become a millionaire—but it requires fundamentals executed consistently.
The Picone Philosophy
Think it.
Talk it.
Live it.
If you stay in the game, lead from the front, and build distribution properly, winners are cultivated—not born.
FAQs
Who are the speakers in this session?
John and Sandy Picone.
What company is their training based on?
Primerica.
What is their core success principle?
Consistent fundamentals executed face to face.
Why is physical presence emphasized?
In-person mentoring and training build stronger duplication and culture.
What does “lead from the front” mean?
Compete personally in recruiting and production before expecting your team to.
What are the three pillars of distribution?
Recruiting, life insurance, and securities.
Why is balanced distribution important?
Strength in all three areas creates stable and scalable growth.
How do they create competition in the base shop?
By publicly recognizing top producers weekly.
Why is communication critical?
Strong phone communication builds trust and prevents misunderstandings.
What role do events play in growth?
Events create exposure, belief, and team bonding.
Why do they take their team prospecting together?
To lead by example and build unity through shared activity.
What does breaking bread accomplish?
It strengthens personal relationships and loyalty.
Can anyone succeed in Primerica according to them?
Yes—if they commit to fundamentals and consistency.
What mindset do they encourage daily?
Think Primerica, talk Primerica, dream Primerica.
Glossary
Distribution
The combined production of recruiting, life insurance, and securities within a team.
Base Shop
A local office unit within Primerica where training and activity occur.
Personal Production
Income generated from an individual’s own sales and recruiting activity.
Override Income
Commission earned from the production of team members.
Duplication
The process of teaching others to repeat successful systems and behaviors.
Buy-In
Full commitment to the company’s system, culture, and activity standards.
Transcript:
Good afternoon, Primerica. Is everybody excited? Come on. Is everybody excited? I know you guys are happy to be here. That’s what I’m talking about. Exactly. Listen, this is the best opportunity that you can ever get yourselves. To bring your friends, to invite your family to. And anybody and everybody that’s in here has the chance to reset their lives forever and ever for generations to come. Remember that. I’m going to keep it short and sweet because I know my husband is a powerhouse and I know everybody can’t wait to hear from him. And I’m just going to basically say, just remember this. Every day you wake up, think Primerica. When you go to sleep, dream primerica. When you meet somebody, talk Primerica.
And I promise you, Primerica will give you everything and anything you could possibly want for you and your family for ages to come. And on that note, I’m going to introduce the one and only John Pakone, the love of my life, my partner in life. Here we go, babe.
Love you. Love you, baby. Thank you. Thank you. Man. Look at this beauty. Look at this beauty.
Look.
Oh, man, I tell you, another exciting event over here. Thank you, Keith and Danielle, Wilmer, Raquel, for putting this together, man. We love you. Thank you. Thank you. Listen, what could you say, man? It’s excitement after. See, the thing that I’m most excited about is all this recognition. All this recognition here, right? There’s going to be. A lot of our teammates are going to be getting a lot of this. And this is what’s most exciting. This is what’s most exciting for us, man. It’s not about us. It’s not about me and Cindy. And she does a tremendous job helping out with the team and the females. I’m excited about what they’re going to be doing. Our teammates. We got over 30 teammates here. Over 30 teammates from all over. And I’m excited about what they’re about to do.
What I’m going to do is Keith wanted me to go over fundamentals, John Paconi style.
Okay?
There’s fundamentals and then there’s fundamentals. John Paconi style.
Okay?
So, you know, Here we go, guys. I’m going to let this rip. Number one. Number one. Okay? You got to get to your office. You got to show a physical appearance.
Okay?
The TV screen is nice. Social media is nice. But you know what? The way you meet people is face to face. The way you’re going to mentor people is face to face. The way you’re going to grow a business is face to face.
Okay?
See, when you’re sitting in an office, especially on a Saturday, because usually most spare timers and part timers, most of the times they’re off on a Saturday, they’re off on a weekend, right? There’s an opportunity there for them to come into your office to enjoy your briefing, bring people training, and then you get that special afterwards when everything is over with. Then you get to talk to some of them, you, teammates out there, you got to talk to your vice presidents, okay? You have to talk to your uplines. You got to make them a part of your life. So the physical presence is a must. All right? Once again, the TV screen is nice, but you got to get to your office. Don’t cry if it’s an hour away, 2 hours away, freaking, just get there, man. It’s going to change your life.
We bought into it. Thank God I bought into it. Thank God I bought into it. And you know what? Because of what we bought into twelve years ago and 13 years ago, it’s leading to what’s happening today. Okay, number two, you got to be in the game personal, okay? You got to lead from the front.
All right?
You have to lead by example. And another thing you got to do is while you’re doing that, you got to compete with your top players. All right? You have to compete with them. They got to compete with you. See, if you’re showing that as an example, they’re going to want to come and play with you. That’s why we got some of the top plays. They’re top on the leaders bulletin and we’re very proud of that. Number three, you got to build distribution. Distribution to me is not only recruiting, it’s recruits life insurance and securities, okay? That’s a distribution. When Keith calls Our name on the Wednesday RVP conference call, a lot of times he says, john Pacone, great distribution. Which means, you know what we’re playing across the board now. We know where we lack. We could do a lot better in recruiting.
And we will. We will pick up the recruiting, and we will do a lot better with recruiting, okay? You see? But you need distribution. See, like a football team, there’s one NFL team, right? The 49 Ers. They were undefeated, okay? They don’t have a loss right now. They’re five. And there’s three parts to football. There’s offense, defense, and special teams. Well, there’s three parts to Primerica, right? Recruiting, life insurance and securities.
Okay?
When you master all three, you’ll build a beautiful business. You see, the 49 Ers, they got a great chance at a Super Bowl. So do Kansas City and so does Philadelphia. Those two team Philadelphia is undefeated, and Kansas City’s got one loss, okay? That’s why they’re at the top of the league.
All right?
Distribution. Number four. You got to constantly keep talking about it. You got to constantly keep talking about that. You got to constantly keep talking about what the top leaders are doing. You got to constantly keep talking about what you need to do and what we need to do as a business. Right? You got to constantly keep talking about that. All right? Number five, we started really jumping out of the water. We started posting the top leaders every Wednesday. Every Wednesday in our group read, we post about the top leaders, okay? And in the virtual base shop, it shows the top five in recruiting, life insurance and securities. And we post that. They have to see it. People have to see where they’re competing because you know what? If maybe someone’s not in the top five, it gives them that little push. Oh, wow.
You know what? I want to get there. I want to be on those leaders. I want to be in the top five.
Okay?
Number six, get new people, your new recruits, your newest people on your team. Get them to buy into what you’re doing. You see if you have a couple of people that are going to follow you, right? The idea is you want to bring people along that are going to follow you, that are going to buy into the program.
Okay?
Once again, we’re going to bring it back to football. All right? A football team don’t win unless all 55, 60 players buy into the system, okay? And also the 20 coaches and trainers. Everybody’s got to buy into the system. So you want your new people to follow your lead and buy into what you’re doing. Number seven, and this is a big one, you got to communicate with everyone. You have to have great communication on the team, all right? You have to. You got to be constantly talking to your top people, constantly talking to the new people, okay? The people don’t want to talk to. You know what? You can’t chase them. But you know what? At least the top people and the new people, you know what? You got to show them that you have great communication, all right?
And communication meaning phone calls, not text messages. Phone calls, they help a lot. Right? Text messaging could be misleading. All right? And sometimes people take it in the wrong way. Get on the phone with your people and communicate with them. Number eight, okay? You got to do events with your people. You got to take your people out there. A couple of times went out there prospecting and doing events. We met so many other leaders out there, right? You’ll run into so many other leaders when you go out there. A couple of times we invaded Queens and Brooklyn, taking our team out there prospecting, right? And we ran into the leaders. So you got to do that. You got to show them that you’re in it with them. You got to show them that you’re willing to help them.
Okay?
That’s part of the leading by example. And you know what? An event, too. Could be something. Maybe something’s going on, something’s going, something in the church, something on the outside, a carnival affair or whatever. Especially we got a little bit left of the warm weather. You definitely want to get out there. OnCE again, social media is great, but shaking hands face to face and meeting people, that’s going to go along in a better way. And the other thing is, number nine, you know what? You want to sit down and break bread with your people, whether it’s a breakfast, a lunch, or dinner, we’ve been doing that lately. I remember Ray making fun of me once because I used to tease. I used to like Ray, take me out to dinner. Take me out for this. Take me out for that.
He goes, I can’t wait until you start paying for your people. Well, we’ve been doing a lot of that over the last six, seven, eight months. You know what I’m saying? Listen, these dinners ain’t cheap. Some of them are like, six, seven, $800. But you know what? We don’t care. Because you know what? They’re working hard. You got to break bread with your people, especially after you go out there prospecting. You take them for a little breakfast, a little lunch or something like that. You sit down with them, you get close with them, you make it personal with them. You know what? And that’s how we’ve been doing it, folks. You know what? We’re in the game from the front end, and we’re not going to stop that. We’re very proud of what we’re doing. You know what?
We got a couple of teammates, two, three. We got Chanel and Tariq Bailey. They’re buying in. They’re top producers on our team. We got a Pete Candinoff. He’s a top producer. We got a ruth bush. He’s a top producer building a team. We got at least two or three possible vice presidents coming out of a bay shop. And we’re very happy and excited, man. God, listen, man, love you guys. Can’t wait to see all you guys at the top, man. We’ll see you guys at the next big event, man. Everybody has the right to go be a millionaire. Love you guys. Bye.
