SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well hello there, Mr. Craig. Hey, Mr. Jason. Did you know that agencies complaining most about leads are often the ones creating the problems themselves?

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Ooh, you're gonna say that here? Can you say that in 2026?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

That's right. And and I'm not saying that there aren't bad leads that exist, right? Because there there absolutely is. But something interesting starts to happen when you look at agencies getting wildly different results, but the exact same lead source. Like they're all getting the leads from the same place, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Mm-hmm. I mean, there's just a few big ones.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yep. And so what have what have we seen with agencies? I mean, we talked to a lot of them, right? So it's like agencies blame leads constantly. Right. But that that's like one segment of them. And the other segment build massive businesses off of them. Right. So the question becomes what's actually creating the difference? Something.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

There's something there. Yep. Because I don't think that that person that's crushing it with the leads, that they're doing uh some they're buying some secret leads.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Right. But I'll tell you one thing lead generation has changed in 2026. That is true. Consumers are distracted, a comparison shopping, they're submitting forms all over the internet. They ignore numbers that they don't recognize. Now with the Android and iOS updates, it's hard to get through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Um I mean, the phone says, like it comes up, it just says some crazy, probably somebody with, you know, the lead form, what like it really gets detailed on there.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Right. Yeah. But most agencies are still operating like it, like it's 10 years ago. Yeah. They like most of the agencies that have the bad attitudes are saying they want that instant answer from the leads. They want easier closes, which we all know that actually isn't a good thing. They want that one call conversion, motivated buyers. And then it's like once all that happens, they're immediately frustrated.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah. Because the thing they wanted didn't happen. And the thing that we all knew was going to happen did happen.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

That makes it hard. So they spend thousands on leads that don't solve their growth problems. Uh huh. And then they buy more leads and they just create more frustration for themselves. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

The worst part is like sales teams get burnt out of this. Owners end up hating leads. How many times have we heard that an agency owner hates leads, don't want to do them, wants to do like, you know, backyard marketing, which is fine to do, but like leads aren't going anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Most of the elite agencies out there are buying leads, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

You can track them, you can measure them. You could, there's a lot you could do when you have that consistent flow coming in.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah. And with an agency owner that's saying all that stuff, their producers start saying these leads suck. And then they're getting validated by the agency owner. And then everybody starts looking for the next lead source, agents, sales agents start looking for the next job, right? Yeah. Like the next agency owner. And that starts costing a lot. Yep. And we see it over and over. And that's that's kind of the flow of it. It's like the wheels come off. Yep. So there has to be more of a predictable way to approach lead flow. Wouldn't you say? I would say that that is an accurate statement. So on the other end, the agency owners that are crushing it, producers are always productive, right? Mm-hmm. They their dial, they actually have less dials. This is this is the key one. They have less dials, the producers of these elite agents, but they have higher talk time. So, you know, when you and I started getting leads and stuff, we always thought it was how many dials the agents put on the leads, right? And then what happened? Burnout. Boom. They'd be gone.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

You're burning, you're burning the leads. Yep. Yep. Burning the leads back the people. And and we've been running a ton of data and we've been noticing that it actually doesn't take a ton of quotes. It doesn't take a ton of dials, but it does take a lot of talk time.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah. From the producer side.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Right. And opportunities get compounded as you're doing all this correctly. And then the inconsistency doesn't wreck business.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

That's true. Your energy's off the charts, Mr. Craig. I know. I'm just, you know, it just the whole thing confuses me.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

The lead, so so here's here's the principle is that the lead is only the beginning of the sales process, and it is definitely not the outcome. You are riveting.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

You know this? No. I was trying I was trying to give you code for your levels down a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Oh, is it? That okay. So if you're not really if you're not if you're not consistent, uh the real question becomes what are agencies winning with the same leads doing differently? And this is where things really start getting interesting. So let's go into this a little bit, Mr. Greg. And I know you have a ton of insight on this, but uh what about one of the things? And and this gets brought up a lot by agents, is response time to leads.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah. Well, everybody says it, right? The most important thing is speed to contact to be first. You gotta be first.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Speed to contact. Yeah. So what what have you found out? Because well, you just recently did how many.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

I did what I think would be called a meta-analysis. Meta analysis. Yeah. Over how many thousands of dials? 10 million dials. I know that sounds crazy, but it's four years of data. 10 million dials. Okay. Yeah. Um, and without getting too down the weeds in the numbers, I mean, you don't get a hold of a lot of your leads from 10 million dials. Can you take a guess at how many leads you get a hold of? I actually know the I know that. You do? Yeah. It's not a lot. No. It's not a lot. But but the thing is, it takes it requires, in order to get to that point, it requires doing the dials to find the ones that you are able to get a hold of. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah. So what was it about 10%? Yeah. And then when as far as the leads, how many attempts? And what is the relationship with the attempts to compare with speed?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

So speed can be good, but it's I like to think of it, think of fishing, right? If you go fishing, you put the line in and maybe they're there, maybe they're not, right? Maybe the fish are biting, maybe they're there, maybe they're not. Sometimes they're just not there. And then sometimes you're fishing and you have your your water, your line in the water, and they're there, but you brought cheese and they want power bait. So even though they're there, they're not biting, right? So it's just, it's like all those factors that you're saying. Maybe the person does want a quote, but they're busy today. So we made that dial and maybe they filled the format today, and then they're like, I gotta go, I brought it errors, that's it. I can't take the call, right? Because let's let's get real. How many people are super pumped to get an insurance quote?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Right, right. Like I mean, I had to get new insurance on my van, and I didn't want to get a quote. I mean, I guess you could argue that that we're probably even less likely to want it. Just like if you work at the ice cream place, you may not want as much ice cream. A lot of analogies, Mr. Jason. I love it. Okay, let's move on. The next one is follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Huh? So, what's the difference with the follow-up?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

What's the difference? Yeah. Well, so there is a relationship between speed, but not the way that you would think. So this is what I found from the data, from the meta-analysis. Do you like it when I alliterate it like that? I love it. So once you got a hold of them, once they answer, now things change. Okay. So almost half of the people, once they answered and there was a call that was a reasonable call over two minutes, you know, not just don't call me. But if it was a real call, about 50% of the time, that closed within three days. So now we're on to something, right? It means it means you get a hold of them. Holy crap, you better be, you better be going after it for the next three days because that's when it's going to close at least 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yep. Yeah. So they don't. In other words, as far as process goes, you never let your agents book it out a week or two. What do we hear is they get paid on Friday. They get paid the following Friday. So does that work?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I mean, that works if you have if you are able and allowed to have the payment information and and you're going to press the button on Friday and you have permission and all these things, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

But like say, hey, uh, we'll connect on Friday and that's in six days, not so good.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

So what most people do is emotional, what I call emotional follow-up, which is following up based on how they feel the conversation went rather than just following up every single day.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So that that is the key, right? Is to follow up every single day, maybe even a couple of times to your point of the three-day close.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

What about scripting? Why would why why is scripting make a difference?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Well, let me back up real quick to point two, which was not enough attempts. If if you don't give if there aren't enough attempts involved, then you don't get to that point where the call happens or you know, where you where you connect. And that's where I think most agents give up, or a lot of agents give up, especially the ones that say the leads suck, because they get you're, I mean, you know, four dials in and that's it. It's like this person's never answering. So I mean, we've had them answer on the hundredth dial for the first time and then close in three days. I mean, it's just is it power bait or is it cheese today, right? You gotta have a line in the water because there ain't no fish biting if you don't have a line in the water. Right. So that's what the that's what those consistent calls over time do. So script.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Script. The whole point of the script is so that there's some uniformity.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I have never heard a non-scripting agent be consistent and great. It's kind of like I've never seen a golfer that does well, that just gets up there and does a different swing every time.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Some kind of Bugs Bunny swing? That's not gonna work. Bugs Bunny is kind of, you know, the if you don't know who Bugs Bunny is, because yeah, I mean, it creates the reps. Yep. It doesn't mean a script as in in Hollywood where you have to say the exact words for the scene, right? It's just something that gives some direction that they can come back to because they tend to get lost, right? You get lost in that conversation, especially if you lose control. Yep. 100%. Something to come back to. More like curb your enthusiasm, right? A loose script.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

The other good analogy for another example, which is the next point, which is just like the analogy you gave about Bugs Bunny with the crazy swings, is the producers doing too many roles, right? Oh, I didn't make my follow-ups because I had to help with customer service. I had to help do this, that, the other thing. Does that work? Hell no. That's right. So let's go, let's flip this a little bit. Why do some agencies win with bad leads? So what what what are the like if you're baking a cake of why agencies win with bad leads, what would be some of the ingredients? What do they all have?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Well, they're consistent. They have could they have consistency. They have 100%. They have defined rules, right? Like there's somebody making the dials that's less expensive and it makes sense to put them there, and they're not going to have turnover as a result of that on somebody who's more expensive that only should be closing. Like people are specialized, right? Like McDonald's, whether you like it or not, I mean, I haven't been there forever, but but what I but what I know is they have a guy that all that person does is put the meat in that little oven thing that they cook the thing in, right? That they cook the meat in, and that's their job. You know, let's do a better one. In and out. You have the grill person, you have the fry person, you have the window person, you have everybody has a role. And what happens? There's a line out the door. That's right. You know, because it because you know what you're gonna get, there's consistency in what you're gonna receive, and there's and there's quality in what you what you get, and you know what the experience is, right? So as an owner of the agency, if if people have defined roles, it makes it much easier to hold people accountable, right? Yeah, because in the situation where Jamie has to has to help, you know, the lady that walked in because she's upset about something, instead of being on the phone making the doing the 10 quotes she needs to, and now she has a reason that she can say she didn't do the 10 quotes, and that's an acceptable thing. Well, stuff's never gonna get done. I'm not angry, I'm just passionate.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So why do some how do the those agencies win with bad leads? And I would boil it down to five five things. Yeah. First one is they have systems in place. I beat that one to death. And you don't have to have the best system. Everybody searches for the best system. So so many agents, right? Search for the best system while they have no system. You know what they call that, Mr. Jason? What is that? Analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis. But any system, and I would say that the simpler the system, yes, the better the system, right? Number two is consistency, like you said, consistency, but also, and then number three is persistence. Persistency. Persistency. Yeah. Because, like you said, of how many times we got to get through this, right? Get through the process, there's always gonna be a number. There's always a percentage of whatever that shakes to the end, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

So the only way to get to that end number, and it's never as high as you think it's gonna be, is through persistence. So if everybody has persistence and that's what we're training on our teams, then there's no problems because at the end, they will get the result.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

And then number four is one that if we're all being honest, there's not an owner that couldn't work on this, which is operational discipline. Uh, I think I've nailed that. Yeah. And so what does that mean? It really means being consistent with the systems, right? Operational discipline and consistent.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

And then I mean, all you gotta do is hold everybody accountable, right? Have the discipline to have have the set the bar, then, then hold it.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So when you're dealing with all these people and your people are dealing with all these people, and you're dealing with all this stuff and it's a lot, right? What do we have to do? And then this is the final one for this section. We gotta we gotta keep it, keep it together. Remove the emotion. Yeah. Remove the emotion from all of the things, right? Running systems, the operations, the persistence, the consistency, and then removing the emotion from that. Because it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

You know what? Some folks may say, well, I that's not me. That's okay. Then get somebody to be that person. It's the who. Because it changes everything. I mean, it doesn't mean that every single agent has to be that person that's doing that thing, right? I mean, I'm certainly not doing that here anymore.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

So the key with this is the difference is rarely in the lead itself. It's usually the environment surrounding the lead.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Well, what are the hold of 10% of them? What's that? You only get a hold of 10% of them, right? So clearly the leads do suck. It doesn't matter, but they don't, but they're not bad because of why most people think they're bad, right? Right. Like, I mean, a lead's a lead. It's a person with a phone number and they have a car and they wanted a quote. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Okay, next one. What is the real economics of lead conversion? Let's talk about cost per conversation. What's the cost per conversation? I mean, that these are what we need to talk about, right? Because the most expensive person in your agency is the salesperson, right? And and those costs keep going up, especially here in California. So to have that person in your seat is a fixed cost. So it's actually cheaper to get more conversations to that person rather than just hiring another person that's not going to have many conversations as well. So then the question becomes like, how do we get more conversations to that person? Right? Then there's cost per quote, there's cost per sale, and all these costs add up. And usually one of the hard things that we look at is what is what is the cost per sale and what what are we actually getting? But what is the value of the client? But the reality is it's not just that first sale. And if you look at your book and the metrics, dude, all you have to do is run it through one of the AI models now and you'll you'll know your lifetime value. And that's that's what we need to compare it to, because most of your new clients will stay with you for it, might be three years, it might be four years, it might be two years. I don't know. Just depending where your agency is and what you're dealing with. But that's the accurate number to compare against, right? Because you might actually be losing money, breaking even, or losing money on the front end. But over the next two to three years, you're just absolutely dominating. You're doubling your money, and you don't even realize it. Because at the end of the day, our agencies are made to be a cash machine, right? It's made to be a machine that you put in $5 and that $10 comes out. And if you create that and you look at it in that fashion, and the only way you can do that is by the economics of this, then you know that, hey, now I can put in $10. Now I'll get $20 out. Now I'll put $100 in, I'll get $200 out. And if that's the case and you built it and you can rely upon the systems that you created in the agency, then it's like, why not put $100,000 in? Because then you'll get $200,000 out. And that's how that's the difference of what a small agent or these elite agents think.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah. How different would it have been for you, Mr. Jason, in the beginning, after you got that first bonus, right? For anybody that's listened for any stretch of time, probably remembers that, you know, you were told, hey, if you do this, you'll get this much bonus, right? And then you got it, you hit it, and you said, I'm gonna take the whole thing and I'm gonna buy more leads and set up the system and get it going, right? How different would it have been if you said, I'm gonna go buy a motorhome? Right. I mean, it's like your life would be different right now. Right. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah. So what what are those shifts that changed everything for our agencies? So I think it's the scale of the calls, right? Before we had agents that made calls, they would leave the agency. They didn't want to make as many calls. Like if you actually look at the numbers of how many calls it takes to actually close deals and stuff, it takes a lot. Even if you're just doing referrals, you're doing, you know, whatever, right? For organic leads.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

I mean, all of it takes time and and labor to get to the point where the person buys, right? Yeah. Some amount of calls.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

A human, your sales agent needs to talk to somebody. Like that, there's no way to get around that at all.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Do you want to hear the do you want to hear the really uncomfortable metric? Sure. How many dials it takes to get to one sale?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

It's 1,500.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Bananas. That is bananas.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

But that's and it's obviously not 1,500 on that one lead, right? But it's you spread out all the dials and you take all the sales, and it's 1500 dials get you to one sale. So with however many leads are supposed to go into that, but I mean it's nuts. Right. So it's like I would say that's probably increasing, right? It's harder to get a hold of people.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

So either you can have your sales agents do that, and then they're gonna find a new a new job, or you can outsource that piece of it and create a very comfortable environment in your agency.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah, I mean, my people never leave. I mean, they're they're really great workers.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

But they they have a lot of opportunity, right? Like, I mean, I think sometimes that it can get a little taken for granted and you have to remind them, just a little reminder, you know. But I think the alternative, there, there's I don't see an alternative.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

So as long as how much it costs is less than how much I get back, that then funds my bonus, right? That's the way it is.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Right. So we just the other thing is most people underestimate the follow-up cycles in this, right? So, like that, that's one thing that changed when you look at the follow-up cycles. So, like your results now from today are a lagging indicator of how long ago. Three to four weeks. Three to four weeks. That's right. That's exactly it. So we talked about separating the callers from the closers and having the producers focus on selling. So we stopped looking for magical leads like we used to do, right? Right. And started building a machine. So that's the whole point of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah. Well, you leave, you know, vendor A because the leads aren't any good. These are garbage. I I'm not getting anything out of them. Well, what was the process, right? The challenge is that with that lagging thing, a lot of a lot of times folks notice that, oh, wait a minute. Now I'm starting to close these things, right? After they left that one and now they started over somewhere else, and now they've interrupted the whole pipeline and the cycle continues.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Right. So let's sum it up. The lead didn't fail, the process fails, right? Most most agencies buy leads emotionally and manage them emotionally, right? Instead of the process. Lead quality matters less when operation quality increases.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Agencies winning are usually just more disciplined. 100% true.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Your competitors are quitting the follow-up way earlier than you think, which is 100% true. And it's the honestly, it's the only way that we that we win, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Like Right. If everybody made 300 dials on a lead, then it would be a lot more hard, it would be a lot ch more challenging, right? But they don't. And they won't, no matter how many times we tell them, you know, only a small percentage of everybody listening right now is gonna execute. Yeah. And it makes me sad. And I guess it also protects our way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

So, like the whole point of this is that like don't even buy leads at all and don't even want to do a great number of sales because unless you're willing to do the follow-up, because the real money is hiding in the follow-up that nobody is willing to do.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Strikes for show, spares for dough. But the agencies, the ones that are crushing out there, they're following up like crazy.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Oh, yeah. Forever.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Boom. There's a bunch of we have some uh resources. We have the million dollar agency book that we wrote, right? We got a bunch of resources in our school group. So check the show notes, go to our school group. There's a bunch of agency resources in a little group called the agency elite. The agent agent elite? The agent elite.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Agent. Agent elite. Agent elite. Mr. Jason, you don't even remember it.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I know, man. It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

It is. It's tough.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So difficult. It's tough. It's tough these days.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, well, creeping up on 50.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

All right, Mr. Craig.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah.