How this Agency Wrote $115K by BORs in 30 days (With Jared Pitts)

Video Transcript:

[Jared Pitts] The reason I found you was Gary handed me The Wedge^® and says, “go read it.” And so I figured that if I was reading it … then five other guys were reading it too. So I was going to read it, and then write a book report on it. That way, when we had our meeting, here it is, and I've done more than these other guys was my thought process.

And basically, at the end of it, he just asked me, he's like,

“Okay, so what if I told you … you've done this, you've done that. You've done everything I've asked you to do. But unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go a different direction.”

So he was like gearing me up for the sales call. And I thought he was I thought he was literally telling me that he's like, so what would you do? And I'm like,

“Well, I would go down the street, and I would start working for your competition, and I would take all your business, that's what I would do.”

And that's kind of how we started.

[Randy Schwantz] That's bold, man.

[Jared Pitts] And, of course, you know, coming straight out of baseball. I didn't know how to do anything, but I could throw and hit a baseball.

So 10 years pass … And I get a lot of Randy Schwantz' emails, and I look at them. And at the time when I was getting them, it's drive to Dallas for two days and listen to this guy talk. That's about the depth that I went to it.

But then it got to a point where I had all these producers. And I had a new one that I really kind of didn't have time for and signed him up for the virtual class. And I peeked in on him a couple of times. And here we are.

So Jared Pitts here, Galveston Insurance Associates — GIA for short. I've located Randy, oh, I don't know six or so months ago, made it official, probably December of 2020. And in a short period of time, we have a large enough business taking over without actually having to quote the accounts to pay for the Bignition Program and all of its services for the next four to five years. And that's happened within 30 days of pulling the trigger on this deal.

“We haven't perfected anything, I don't have an office full of producers that can go through the whole Wedge procedure spot on, it's just the concepts of what he teaches producers to do a little bit of coaching here and there, and voila, we're off to a great start.”

[Randy Schwantz] That's a pretty amazing story, man, you know, you got a well, if you got four years, that'd be 48 months. And in one month, you got what would be equivalent to four years worth of Bignition — that's a pretty big deal.

[Jared Pitts] Right. And if you recall, one of the biggest sticking points that we had in a couple of our calls was return on investment. We're really big on that here at our agency. And the the initial cost of anything you try to justify, at least I do, and whatever the upfront cost was with the software support and all the bridging of data and so forth. It was a little bit more than I thought it was going to be. And all of that was taken care of with one account. And then you turn around and you a or four or five more. And now the way that my mind works, if we don't do anything else, we've paid for the Bignition for the next four or five years.

[Randy Schwantz] When you look at the B.O.Rs or A.O.Rs, how many did you pick up … a round number? How much revenue was it?

[Jared Pitts] So you had $15,000 revenue account. Another $7,500 account. So just those two accounts, that's $22,500. 

Our first year is $27,000 for the program. 

Let's just say right before this, I got on a call to find out we landed another account via B.O.R. that takes us to $45,000 revenue. 

There's one coming up at the end of March, we have a B.O.R. on that's $400K (premium) that we have right now with another $80K (premium). So call that $50,000 in revenue, and you're at you're at $95,000 in total revenue. 

And then there's a handful of accounts … another $25,000 revenue account that I don't want to A.O.R. — I want to replace. So I mean where are we at now? 

“$115,000 in revenue off of A.O.R.'s in the first quarter of the year is what it's going to look like and I bet you we're gonna do probably $175,000 in revenue.”

[Randy Schwantz] And how does that contrast so well what you normally do in a quarter?

[Jared Pitts] No comparison. But to be fair, there's stark differences. I have two of my three newbies are not scared to call. And that's the way that I train guys a little bit differently than most Agencies because most people that are in my position, they want to hire you and they want to hand you off to somebody else. And effectively, I mean it.

“It's a lot of my time and a lot of my patience, but my M.O. with these guys is I'm going to hire you and I'm going to invest in you.”

You open the doors and I'll go on the sales calls until it's time for me not to go. So literally, we have a guy who he will write, he's going to easily write $100,000 in revenue this year. And I bet you $70K plus of it is going to be on A.O.R. because he can navigate the conversation. So I'm happy. I'll go on meetings with each of these guys every single day, if that's the kind of revenue we're doing.

[Randy Schwantz] So then your desire … I mean, you know what I'm selling you this to help you double your agency, right?

[Jared Pitts] Yes, sir.

So that desire, just becomes more and more clear and more possible. As you get these kinds of guys hired, teach them how to write these kind of B.O.R's. It just becomes amazing. Yeah. So that's awesome, man. First of all, congratulations to you.

[Jared Pitts] Thank you.

[Randy Schwantz] That's cool. And so knowing that, I mean, literally, you're right. I mean, here we are. February 2nd of 2021. You started this thing. You signed a contract with me sometime right before Christmas. Last year, that was about seven weeks ago.

Would you talk some about how your producers have viewed this? Because one of the big thing that almost everybody who's listening to this is wondering is like, “well, what if my producers don't like it … and I can't get my producers to use it? The other all those kinds of questions. So how did you introduce it to them? How do they perceive it? Talk about that just a little bit, if you don't mind?

[Jared Pitts] Yeah, no problem. Um, so I have some newbies I have three newbies right now that, you know, I can, I can tell them whatever we're going to do, and they're going to be on board with it.

And then I have three seasoned producers. Two of them were receptive. One of them was reluctant to buy into the process. And what I what I came to know about the resistance — it's very transparent.

So whatever you're doing over there in your office, if you're not wanting to get on, get on board with this system, it's because you don't want me to know the intricate details of what you're doing or not doing. And so my initial plan was just force this down their throat — but I didn't. I didn't do that.

I just said, here's what we're going to do. And if you want to be a part of this success, these are the steps that we're going to take and I'm doing it with you. So you know, the first week or two it was, you can tell whenever I had them come into The Wedge Workshop you had, you know, one guy that was kinda “wanna take care of my emails on my phone, not look at the computer and all that stuff.”

But then, if you recall, during our breaks, I did it a little bit differently. We turned our cameras off when you did the breakouts, and we had our own breakout as an agency. I had a whiteboard, in which we ran through The Wedge^®  before and after the class. So we were engaged in the class. And then breakouts happen, I would pinpoint I'm keeping an eye on these guys in the conference room. I would pinpoint the ones that aren't paying attention. And basically, they weren't prepared. They didn't, they couldn't go through the Picture Perfect Wedge Sales Call. They couldn't go through anything that I expected them to go through.

And meanwhile, while this is going on, I have some of my newest producers bringing me out on appointments, working through The Wedge^® process with them, and we're talking about our successes that we're having on A.O.R.'s. And so it kind of took care of itself. It's like you know, “Hey Randy, if you don't want to be a part of this, and you want to go quote, business, good luck. This new guy over here that hadn't been here 60 days just brought in a $40,000 revenue B.O.R. — so you tell me what works.” It took care of itself.

[Randy Schwantz] Awesome news. So there's something I say a lot. And I think I think there's plenty of doubting Thomas's who don't believe me. And here's what I said.

You can bring a new producer into this Bignition platform — with your proactive services, your Wedges … those key differentiators … and learn The Wedge^®  Sales Call. And through that you change the game of selling, you change how you go attack the incumbent agents' weakness, and you leverage a brand new strength that a newbie has.

So let me try to say it more eloquently. When you train a newbie in here's the product or services we're going after these let me go teach out a wedge. You go right after the incumbents Achilles heel and you go beat those guys.

Can you validate that's been true for you guys?

[Jared Pitts] Absolutely, yeah.

[Randy Schwantz] And so that being the case, when you make good hires, you put them in the system, it's highly probable newbies can actually go out and start booking revenue as early as 90 days out, and never looked back. Is that true?

[Jared Pitts] Maybe sooner than that.

[Randy Schwantz] Maybe sooner than that. So, the reason that's important is I mean, what amazing amount of hope that would give you. If you got good at the hiring process, and we've also been going through that together. And here in a moment, I might ask you just to speak to that a little bit, if you don't mind.

But you know, when you sit there and think about going out and recruiting these guys, but then I really vet them and vet them hard … you know, like FBI, CIA, I'm gonna vet them hard. But if they make it in I know, they're coachable, and trainable. And I know they're driven, I can now put them on a platform, it's almost like taking a railroad car and put them on a set of skids, and maximum down that track. As long as I kind of keep them on that track. They'll go write a lot of business. So that's what you're validating in it?

[Jared Pitts] Yes, sir. Yeah.

[Randy Schwantz] Just speak to this, Jared, you've done a good job of hiring people. And you know that that's not true for everybody that's listening to this. What would you say is the one or two most salient things that you've picked up and learned as we've been going through the whole GRIT: How to Find, Hire, and Develop REAL Producers? Can you add any color to that at all?

[Jared Pitts] For sure, so one of the things that was that was missing out of my game plan, is I always talked about the upside of the industry — limitless income, potential residual income, you can't replace it, etc. I mean, just on and on about all the things that we all know about the insurance industry.

One of the biggest things that I think every agent that's recruiting out there is talking about is the upcoming opportunity from those more seasoned producers aging out of the business. Cool. But the thing that I picked up that resonated with me the most, through the GRIT hiring process, is trying to find a way to use the “Picture Perfect Sales Call,” if you will, of the candidates financial situation currently, and where they want to end up. It's very rare and it's odd to think about. You're interviewing this candidate, you barely know them, you're trying to get to know them, and you want to talk to them about their financial picture now, and in 12 months, and in three years and five years. And then ultimately, what do you want to have at the end of all of this, what's their idea of wealth? You're not going to have any idea about that. So when you take the conversation down to things like, how was your childhood? And you know, what does this look like? What does that look like? What are you going to do for your kids? And ultimately, where do you want to end up, they're getting the feel that you're taking a vested interest in their not only their success, but their overall wealth, over the period of their life and career.

I would have never thought to do that. I would have thought that that would be a waste of my time, quite frankly, upfront. But if you get the right person in there to that point, and you're having that conversation, it's not a waste of your time. That's that's valuable information that you need to have.

[Randy Schwantz] So if it's not a waste of your time, then how is it useful? I mean, how does that transform the conversation, the relationship, their belief in you and all this stuff to just talk about that a little bit more, if you don't mind?

[Jared Pitts] Well, you know, at the end of the day, when you're recruiting somebody, you're recruiting them, and you want them to come work for your agency, right?

And so what I, what I see is when you take it away, when you when you give them something, and then you take it away, much like you could in a picture perfect sales call. You're kind of enticing the person to want to know a little bit more about you as a person and you as an agency, an agency owner and an agency. And then you flip it and turn it back on him and say no, it's not about what we do. It's it's about how can we support you in your journey? And I think it takes the conversation it gets it away from what's my starting salary, and when will I start and do I have an office with four walls and a door and it starts opening their mind to “Wow, this guy and this company can create wealth for me and my spouse.”

“I get pure satisfaction off of watching the guys that I bring in here and then I invest in watching their their family picture change. That's more rewarding to me than actually writing an account because that's kind of boring, honestly.”

[Randy Schwantz] That's awesome, man.

Well, yeah, I mean, you think about it, any one of us out, look for a job. When you can morph it from “here's a job” to this guy is going to help me get the pot of gold the end of the rainbow, which is really the primary reason I work. There's a lot of secondary benefits to it of course, but that's the primary reason. And I got somebody who's already thinking about investing in it and what's helped me get there.

How do I get to work with you? Because nobody else is talking that story. Right?

Yeah. All right, man. Well, it's awesome talking today. Congratulations on your success. And I can't wait to see what happens in two years down the road and four years down the road.

[Jared Pitts] Yes, sir. I appreciate it.