Executive TLDR
Lead with childlike enthusiasm and relentless action
Build a strict schedule and treat it seriously
Prospect daily using the three foot rule
Make 50–100 calls a day and set multiple appointments
Maintain high personal recruiting and production standards
Track and post numbers for accountability
Create urgency if RVP is the goal
Leaders duplicate what they see, not what they hear
Video Summary
In Leading By Example: Building Leaders From The Ground Up, John and Sandy Picone break down what it truly means to lead through action inside Primerica.
Sandy begins with two foundational principles: maintain childlike enthusiasm and be relentless. Enthusiasm attracts people, and relentless effort produces results. Leadership starts with energy and persistence before strategy even begins.
John then shifts into structure and discipline. His core message is simple: if you want leaders, you must model leadership behaviors consistently. That begins with having a schedule. Whether part time or full time, the business must be intentionally placed on the calendar. Full time builders should be working 50 to 60 hours per week. Without a written schedule, activity becomes inconsistent, and inconsistency cannot duplicate.
Prospecting is non negotiable. John emphasizes the “three foot rule”—if you make eye contact with someone, start a conversation. Most people do not know about the opportunity unless you introduce it to them. Daily exposure creates pipeline growth.
Activity standards are high. Full time representatives should aim for 50 to 100 phone calls per day and set multiple appointments daily. Part time builders must adjust the numbers but maintain the principle of daily consistent outreach. Follow up must be relentless. Relationships deepen when leaders stay connected with recruits and clients.
John also stresses urgency. If someone aspires to become an RVP, speed matters. Running toward the goal—not casually walking toward it—creates momentum. Doing the right thing for clients builds long term trust and stable income.
Where many leaders hesitate is personal production accountability. John challenges representatives to maintain three to five personal recruits per month, strong personal premium numbers, and consistent investment production. He outlines goals such as $500,000 in personal new investment money annually and 12 to 15 new investment accounts per month. These standards create credibility.
The turning point in their organization came when they began publicly posting personal numbers within their team group. Transparency created healthy competition. Team members started chasing leadership production. That accountability led to explosive growth—from 25 recruits per month to 50 or more, and significant premium increases.
The lesson is clear: duplication follows visibility. When leaders show their work, teams elevate their performance. Leaders do not demand excellence—they demonstrate it.
Ultimately, building leaders from the ground up requires enthusiasm, disciplined scheduling, aggressive activity standards, personal accountability, and visible example. When leaders embody the standard, the team rises to match it.
FAQs
What does leading by example mean in this context?
Maintaining high personal recruiting and production standards that others can duplicate.
Why is scheduling emphasized so heavily?
Because consistency and structure create predictable results.
What is the three foot rule?
Initiating conversation with anyone within close proximity to create exposure.
Why post personal numbers publicly?
Transparency builds accountability and sparks healthy competition.
How important is urgency in leadership growth?
Critical. Speed of action often determines speed of promotion.
Glossary
RVP
Regional Vice President, a senior leadership position within the organization.
Personal Premium
Insurance premium generated directly by an individual representative.
New Investment Money
Client funds rolled over or newly invested through company products.
Directs
Personally recruited representatives.
Duplication
When team members replicate the behaviors and standards of leadership.
Transcript:
What I’m going to tell you is two things. One, always be that childlike. Don’t always have that childlike enthusiasm, number one. Two, always be relentless. Be relentless, because you know what you have to ask in order to receive. Remember, the Bible says, the child shall lead us. And on that note, I’m going to introduce you to my partner, my love, the one and only John Paconi.
Man. Saturday morning in builders leadership school. Man can’t get better than this, right? This is where the millionaires come to play. Well, Keith asked me, basically to talk about building leaders by example. Here we go. Got to learn how to work a PowerPoint here. Basically, I like to basically set the path, right? We got to lead by example, right? And this is a lot of things what I teach our team, what we go over with our team constantly. And if people ever call me, anybody else’s teammates ever call me, these are a lot of the things that we go over with people in general. So I heard a few of the other leaders talk about this probably about three, four at least. You got to have a schedule, okay? You got to build Primerica into your life, all right? Whether you’re doing it spare time, part time, if you’re doing it full time, Primerica better be the only schedule you have, okay?
As you know what, you better be working this business a minimum of 50 to 60 hours a week if you think you’re full time, okay? But you need a calendar book. You need a schedule, okay? And I’m just going to break it down. You see, if you’re working a job at J-O-B and you’re Monday through Friday, you got to put Primerica on your calendar when you’re going to work it, whether it’s making phone calls, whether it’s going to be you’re in your office doing your briefings, whether you’re going to be taking your teammates out there or you’re going to be doing zooms with your teammates. However you train them, but you got to mark it down, all right? You got to get used to shaking hands with people, all right? You got to go out there and look to hand out stickies business cards, all right?
But the bottom line is you got to introduce yourself to people, okay? You have to. Because you know what? You don’t have a target on you. I’m sure you’re not wearing Primerica gear on you seven days a week. Maybe some people are. But you know what? A lot of people don’t know what Primerica is unless you introduce yourself and you explain it to them, right? So the big thing is what we do is no matter where we are, whether we’re out to dinner or we’re out shopping or we’re just out and about, we go by that three foot rule, right? If you make eye contact with someone, talk to them, okay? Talk to them. You never know. You get a name and a number. You don’t have to do the presentation right there where you’re standing, but at least let the people know what you’re doing.
Right? Here’s where we get into, like, doing the work now, right? 50 to 100 phone calls a day. A day, all right? Not a week, a day. Okay? Now, if you’re spare time, part time, you make your translation into that, right? Well, how many should I be making, John? Maybe 25, maybe 30. Okay? If you’re full time, you should be making 100 a day. I’m sorry. Set up multiple appointments every day. What does multiple mean? More than one. How many, John? I hear five, I hit multiple. Set up multiple appointments a day. You put the number on it, whether it’s 3510, you better be doing more than one, or you better least schedule more than one. You got to follow up relentlessly, okay? If you called someone once, twice, three times and they didn’t pick up the phone, you know what, make that part of the phone calls that you got to make.
Follow up with them, all right? Follow up with the people you recruited. Follow up with the people you just helped. Talk to them, okay? Follow up with them. Let them know that you care about them. Build a relationship with them. You heard that several times over the last couple of days. You need a sense of urgency while working this business, all right? Especially if you have plans or any aspirations. Again. RVP. All right. You got to do it fast and you got to get going. You got to be like rabbit style, okay? You can’t fall to it. You got to run to it. Always do the right things for people, all right? See, if you do the right things and you help people, you’re going to make money. They’re going to feel good about what you did for them, and you’re going to feel good about helping them, right?
So always do the right things for your people. Always, all the time. Here we go. Now, this is where it makes people uncomfortable, right? What are we doing? What are we doing on a personal basis, right? You see Ray Costello, Roy Carol. They talk about bringing people.
Bring people. Bring people.
Invites, guest count.
Bring people.
That’s all we hear.
Bring people.
Guest count. Guest count. Guest count. Seven guests, ten guests minimum, three to five directs a month, personal, everybody, okay? If you’re not an RVP making at least a half a million dollars a year, you should be three to five directs, personal, okay? 10,000, 5000 in personal premium. I know that makes people feel uncomfortable, but you know what, this is what we talk to our people about. That’s why we got a couple of people copying this, okay? Now, Keith went over about investment accounts, right? We got 500,000. Your goal should be $500,000 in personal new money that you’re bringing over from other companies rollovers. Okay? You should be setting up twelve to 15 new investment accounts. Not just a rollover, but there should be packs with it. If people can’t put $541 a month in there, that’s okay. But at least $50 175. You add to it every year, that’ll get to 541 fast.
Of course, you got to talk to your people about this. We talk to them about this every day, all the time, okay? That’s why we got a couple of people following us. You see, what you got to do is, okay, RVPs, all right? You got to post your numbers in your group, what you’re doing personal. See, when we finally started doing that about four or five months ago, we never used to do that, all right? But when we finally started doing that, posting what we’re doing, okay, we had the team chasing us. Okay? So what happens? You know what, we got someone chasing us in personal premium. We got someone chasing us investments. You know what I’m saying? Maybe if we’re trailing with personal recruits, but we’re chasing us, me and my wife, we’re chasing the leader with that. So the whole team, everybody’s watching what everybody’s doing.
When you put your numbers in a group, me, you put your numbers with the team’s numbers. And you know what? Since that, all of a sudden, we’re 25 to 35 recruits a month, 50 to 60,000 in premium on the team. Jesus. We never had numbers like that. Now we’ve had people, you know what I’m saying, that wanted to play with us, and that caused an explosion. So the idea was to get a few more people that want to play with us and them people. Then those numbers start going to 50 to 60 recruits a month with 100,000 in personal free. Now, we’re talking about Harvey Grahalis numbers, right? We’re talking about Fritz and Tiki numbers. Now it’s like, Holy shit, man, I’m pitching myself. Folks, folks, okay, we knew if were going to build a team and we want people to follow us, okay, we had to show up by example.
Okay, folks, listen, man, we’re proud to be in business with you guys. We love the whole hierarchy, man. Let’s see everybody get to the top, man. Love you. Bye.
