Hector_Lamarque_-_7_Fundamentals

The speaker discusses the importance of mastering the seven fundamentals in order to be successful in Primerica. They emphasize the difference between being good and being great, using examples from sports and entertainment. The speaker encourages teaching and constantly reinforcing these fundamentals. They stress that in order to be great, one must continuously work on these skills. I've been thinking and thinking about this over and over and I just got this epiphany. I talked about this already at one of the meetings about the, I call them the seven fundamentals of Primerica. In the seven fundamentals, I'll go over and I'm just going to kind of read it to you and then I'll talk about it. I wrote, I've been training people in Primerica for 25 years now and I've been training sales people since 1979, so almost 30 years. I've been training, recruiting and training sales people because when I worked in the jewelry business like Rick, I used to recruit people there too. Back then, we would go out at lunch time when we needed a new person, I'd go to shopping like at all of the stores in the mall and if I ran across a sharp sales associate, right, I'd talk to them about coming to work with me at William Pitt. I used to do that. That's how we recruited people. We'd go into the other stores and recruit people out of those stores into the jewelry business. Rick used to do it, I used to do it. That's what we used to do. So I've been recruiting people for a long time, right? Same thing, right? What did I sell them on? You know, because in the retail business, you can't make any money and the jewelry business is the one retail business where you really, you can make some money, I mean, compared to the rest of them, right? If you're working at JCPenney's, right, in the jewelry department, you're probably making 20 grand a year. Come work for us. If you could do that, you might make 35 or 40 grand a year, right? So I would go recruit people. So I've been training, and I wrote, the one thing I see in everyone who makes six figures and above is mastery of these seven fundamentals. Every one of you in here has mastered these fundamentals or you wouldn't be an RVP. If you're making over 100 grand a year, you have definitely mastered these. You're really, really good. Some are probably a little better than others, but you're all really good at these seven fundamentals or else you wouldn't be sitting in this room right now. Bottom line, okay? And so I wrote people who not only master them, but this is where the separation from people who make 100, 150 to people who make 500 and a million is those people who make 500 million master teaching the fundamentals. So a lot of people are very good at them, but they don't teach them. And the reason that I got big so quickly is I was really good at teaching this stuff, and that's what I focused on is teaching this stuff that I'm about to share with you, right? And I think it'll make sense. So that allows you to make big money. The key here is mastery and not just getting good, but mastering them. I wrote good is the enemy of great, and if you think about this, okay, what do good professional athletes make? They make a lot less than the great ones, like A-Rod or, you know, you named the person, right? I don't know. Manny Ramirez, who's kicking butt here since he came to LA, right? I mean, he's doing a really great job. But these guys make, the great ones make huge money, and the good ones make good money, okay? Think about actors. The good ones, they're on TV, they make a living. The great ones, right, they make a fortune, right, like Al Pacino or Gennaro or some of the, you know, people that are really great, Leonardo, right, another great one. There's some people that are really great, right, Hugh Jackman. I mean, some of these people make big money. The good ones make a living, but the great ones make big money, right? If you think about any sport, right, the difference between, you know, Tiger Woods and, you know, I just read this, it was an interview with Freddie Couples. Freddie Couples was a really good golfer, had a really good career, won 17 times. I actually played around with him about a month ago at Pelican Hill, a guy that manages some money for me, he's arranging it, so I got to play around with him, really, really nice guy. And anyways, he was being interviewed by this guy named Jeff Rude, and Jeff Rude was there talking about, you know, work ethic and stuff like that, right, and he asked him about Tiger, and he says, well, and he works, Freddie works with Butch Harmon, Butch Harmon used to be Tiger's, you know, coach for several years, won a bunch of majors with him, so, and he asked him about it, he goes, I don't even know what his, you know, what his practice routine is, and Butch says, you know, this is Tiger, Tiger would work on a short game eight hours a day, he goes, eight hours a day, he goes, not just eight hours a day, eight hours a day, four days in a row, eight hours a day. He goes, no way, he goes, yes, eight hours, I saw him do it, eight hours a day, four days in a row, he goes, I haven't worked 15 hours, I haven't worked 32 hours in the last 15 years, let alone eight hours a day, four days in a row, and so, therein lies the difference, you see, right there is the difference, the difference is, okay, is Tiger's commitment is to be great, and Freddie's was to be good, so he had a really good career, he made pretty big money in golf, right, because he was very, very physically talented, right, and he did well, won 17 times, but Tiger has won, you know, if you include international events, like 70-some times already, and 14 majors, and he's very, very close, they think by the year 2011, he'll go over a billion dollars in net worth, okay, so, so what's the difference? Well, the difference is his focus on the fundamentals, which his short game is pitching, chipping, and putting, he is the best ever at those things, he's not the best driver of the ball, but he's definitely the best at those things, right, so what the difference, when he's in the heat of a competition, does he hope he's going to be able to make that putt, or hope he's going to be able to chip that close, or hope, no, he's done it so much, that he knows, he has a supreme confidence that he can pull the shot off, whereas a Freddie Cuppos might get nervous, and hope that he pulls it off, see the difference between hoping and knowing, it's gigantic, okay, exactly, because of the constant repetition of doing things over and over, which is what nobody ever does, that's the thing that allows you to be great, right, so when I'm talking about these seven fundamentals, I want you to think of them in terms of that, and put it into context, because the thing is, you have a lot of people that are pretty good in your businesses, but if you are objective and honest, you can't, you couldn't tell, if I hooked you up to a light evictor test, you probably don't have anybody that's great, or maybe one, if that, okay, so then how are these people supposed to be great RVPs when they're only good, how's that supposed to happen, by magic, it's not going to happen, right, you increase the probability of people winning big by making sure they know what the heck it is they're doing, okay, and they know how to do it really, really well, it's common sense, if you've been an athlete, you know what I'm saying is true, okay, this is not something, I mean, look, look, I mean, just, you know, Rick talked about this, the difference between Rick and I, Rick doesn't ever practice golf, I practice all the time, I practiced yesterday, I had a great practice session yesterday, right, and so what ends up happening, I work on my short gun, I probably spent an hour and a half working on chipping, punching, bunker shots yesterday, just by myself, put my radio headset on, and I'm just practicing, like, I just practiced for probably an hour and a half just on that, practiced for about three hours yesterday, right, now Rick doesn't practice, so when he gets on a chip, his whole thing is, oh, man, I hope I don't stub it, I hope I don't hit it over the green, right, that's what he's thinking about, though, really, I'm just pointing that out, so then what he ends up doing is using a putter off the green because it's safer, as opposed to the right club, only because he's afraid of messing up, and he's a good golfer, okay, so I'm not making fun, I'm pointing something out, the difference is, when I get up, I think I can hit the chip because I worked on this stuff, or the pinch shot, he doesn't, and the difference is, he doesn't work on it, I do, I'm not physically better than him, right, he can be great, too, but he doesn't work on that stuff, so people are in Prime America hoping to recruit great people, hoping to develop great people, but they're not great, you can't teach what you don't know, you can't do it, you cannot teach what you don't know, the problem is, we have a lot of people that don't know, and they're trying to teach, hello, that doesn't make any sense, okay, think about it, okay, okay, so the key here is mastering not just getting good, but being great, good is the enemy of great, becoming great is what allows you to earn big money, no one's going to pay you big money to be good, but they will if you become great, so basically you need to work on it, so these are the seven fundamentals, I have them like one, two, three, what I did, I've talked about this enough lately, and I just said, you know, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to really try to articulate what I mean by these things, so that people have a better understanding, so you can have a copy of this, I would recommend, alright, that you actually have some sort of a training program where you actually teach these things, you can't teach them all in one day, right, you can't do that, but you teach two, and then two, and then two, or something like that, where you're constantly covering this stuff over, and over, and over again, because like you just saw, in the last month he's had a hundred recruits basically, right, so you're always having all these new people coming in, these fundamentals are constant, they never go away, you've got to be going over, and over, and over, and over, and over this stuff all the time, the reason most people don't like to do it, because it's boring, it's boring for you that you've done it four million times since you've been in the business, the only thing is, if you do it, you'll get really rich, okay, so you've got to think about it like that, so yeah, it's boring to me too, but I equate teaching this stuff and talking about the same thing over, and over with me becoming wealthy, as opposed to getting bored with it, right, in Primerica, the problem too is if you're a type A or whatever, you get really bored with doing stuff that's repetitious, except that by not doing it, it costs you a fortune, because you've got a bunch of people that are okay, or good at best, but they're not great, so if they're not great, how are they going to attract great people, how are they going to recruit Rick Susie, there's not very many people that could have recruited Rick Susie, but me, right, he didn't follow me because I was okay at the business, right, he followed me because I was great at the business, and the same thing is true with you guys that are recruiting, you know there's tons of people that when you, if you would have recruited them, if you would have sat down and interviewed them, you would have recruited them, although your person that did it couldn't, right, you know that's true, right, because you're better than they are, right, so the key is how do you get them to be like you, so that you have a bunch of you's everywhere, right, that's the thing you have to think about, when I got involved in the business, right, what I, I was good already, because I had been, I did the Hopkins thing, which I'll talk about and stuff, you know, I was, I had worked on myself like crazy, which is abnormal, I understand that, but I was really good, so I wasn't worried about making sales and stuff, I was just looking for people that were motivated, that would listen to me, that would follow my direction, that I could coach, that would be coachable, and then I recruited the crap out of them, and then I taught them what to do, how to do it, right, what you want is a bunch of people that are out there, you know, that know what they're doing, right, like you, like you do, okay, so let's take a, for master prospecting, guess what, all of you in here are good at prospecting, some of you are probably better than others, most of you don't do it very much, I know that, it's obvious because you're not recruiting a lot of people, but the most important thing that you guys should be doing all the time is prospecting, that's what you should be doing, so I wrote, I said, one common thing all the greats in prime America have is they are relentless prospectors, always looking for great people to add to their teams, you notice that's my logo, right, Hector Lamarck, always looking for great people, that's my thought, always looking for great people, right, always looking for great people to add to their teams, and developing them into independent leaders, the absolute best way to prospect, and I put this here, is first, your hot, warm, and cool market, so if you're getting involved, the best place to prospect, right, if I recruit, you know, Gary, I want to get his list and go talk to his hot market, then his warm market, then his cool market, that's the very best market for him if he's new to prospecting, it doesn't make sense for him to start going to malls and, you know, Target and all that stuff, that's retarded, right, he's got a market, that's the best place for him to prospect in, right, in that market, okay, so the second best place is the warm and then cool, and then the third best place is, I wrote, second best place is the hot market, and then warm market, and then cool market, those are the three, and then the third best is recruiting as you go, that's prospecting, which you guys know how to do that, you know, and you've got to teach that too, because your people need to know the proper way to approach people, or to talk to people, or ask questions, they just need to know what to do the way that works, you guys all know how to do that, I don't need to teach you how to do that, but you need to teach them how to do that, they need to know how to do that, so that when they're not with you and they're out and they run into somebody, they have an approach, they know what to say to people, to garner some interest and get people to give them their name and number and maybe meet with them, I mean, the more people that know how to do that like you, if you had 20 or 30 or 40 people on your base shop that were great, as good at prospecting as you were, your numbers would go crazy because you'd have so many more appointments, so many more recruits, so you need to pay attention to that, you've got to teach people how to prospect, so there's no shortage of prospecting how-tos in Primerica, the Lamarck system has them on, and then there's a bunch of other CDs that you can get through Primerica online on prospecting, right, there's no shortage of that, if you have a certain way you like to do it that you teach, well teach that, but the bottom line is teach something on how to do it, so you've got, you know, if you're having 50 people show up to your meeting, imagine having 50 people prospecting every day, right, as they're going about their day, well there you go, that's going to turn into something, right, something good's going to happen from that, the key is to be disciplined at prospecting, making it part of the way you go through every day, what happens to most people is that they do it when things start slowing down, they go, oh my God, I better start prospecting, instead of just doing it all the time, it's something they do when they get in a panic about their income going down or something, right, instead of making it part of the way they operate on a daily basis, it's like an afterthought, it can't be an afterthought because it's the most important thing that you should be doing, it's the number one thing that you have to teach people, their hot market, warm market, cool, that's the first one, but you've got to teach how do they talk to the people, how do they call them, how do they set those appointments, right, that's it, then you have to have your antenna up, right, looking for people who would be interested in making more money, owning their business, becoming free, learning how to deal, you mean, how do they deal with what's going on with the gas prices and all the stuff that Gary talked about earlier, right, I mean, you know, some approach to do that, right, so my focus every day is I decided from the time I decided to go full time, at that point right there, all I thought about was finding the right people to build a business with, and you have to be clear about what you're looking for, so what I did, you know, you have all this information, but you know, it's worth repeating because I was talking to one of my guys, I talked to this one guy, he was doing the answer and he gave me his affirmations, what he's affirming, and one of them was, he said, I want to buy a new SUV for my wife, so I called him back, right, I said, what the hell does this mean, I want to buy an SUV, do you want a Hyundai, you want a Mercedes, what model do you want, do you want one that seats six people or nine people or what, I mean, what do you want exactly, and what make and model and what color and how big is the engine and what color is the interior and what extras are you going to have on it, I mean, this is too ambiguous, you know, so if you do this, you know, God's going to send you whatever, right, it's like going into a restaurant and sitting down, he goes, what would you like, and you go, I don't know, well, you know, that's not going to work, okay, if we go to a restaurant, you say, I like a, you know, a prime rib, medium rare, more on the rare side, I like a Caesar salad with light dressing, and I would like a glass of your best Cabernet, that's what I want, now, that's pretty damn specific, right, guess what I'm probably going to get, prime rib, that and that, but if I say I'd like some steak, well, what do you want, a buffalo steak, an ostrich steak, you know, what kind of steak, so what's problem for most people is they're so ambiguous about what they want, they're not clear, they keep getting all kinds of stuff that's not what they want, because they don't know what they want, right, most people aren't afraid to even ask for what they want, they think asking for things is negative, they think if I want to get rich or I want to make a lot of money, that it's a bad thing, I was talking to this guy I play golf with, he's a professional golfer and didn't quite make it, but he's really good, right, and we're at Bighorn, everybody's wealthy at Bighorn, and I said to him, I said, Wayne, why do you think everybody's rich here, he goes, I don't know, they probably born into it or lucky, I said, wrong, I said, the reason that they're rich is because they all wanted to be rich, you don't get rich on accidents, okay, I mean, it doesn't work that way, have you noticed that yet, okay, it's because they wanted to be rich and then they put all their energy on becoming rich and that's why they're rich, you know, Daniel wants to be rich, right, Daniel, and are you like, you think about it every fourth month, no, every damn day you think about it, right, you watch your income, you track what you're doing, you're on top of that, man, you leave me messages, man, I know that you're on top of it, right, you have a very clear definition of what rich is and you are focused on doing it, you don't give a crap what anybody thinks about it, right, that was me, I've always wanted to be wealthy, right, I knew exactly where I wanted to live, I knew exactly the kind of lifestyle I wanted to lead, I knew exactly, it wasn't like I like to have a nice house at the beach, where at the beach, what beach, right, I mean, there's a lot of different beaches, right, so where exactly, the point I'm making is most people are totally ambiguous about what they want, so it's hard for you to get what you're not clear about, you've got to be clear, alright, really, really clear, so when you're looking for people in prime America, you got to be clear about that too, right, you got to be clear, if you think of it, I have my wall of, and all you guys are on that $100,000 earners, you know, and if you know Rick has his $500,000 earned wall, right, what is really obvious about that wall, when you look at that wall, if you've seen, been in my office, you've seen it, what is the one thing that strikes you as like very, very common amongst the group, they're like 98% couples, I mean, there are a couple of single like, you know, Debbie, Trujillo, and who else, I can't even think of anybody else, right, I mean, everybody is married with a spouse, right, so duh, what do you think you should be focusing on, couples, okay, now does that mean single people can't do prime America, of course not, they can do, you know, lots of them have, okay, but that shouldn't be your focus, I think I've always kind of known what I want, so like when I want something, I have this thing about me, that when I want something, I really zero in on it, and I kind of block everything out, I did it in sports, I did it in, I've always done that, it's, I'm sure it's a gift, but it's something that you can learn how to do, the point is, if you're not aware of it, right, what I'm trying to do, right, is make you aware of it, okay, no, yeah, absolutely, I've refined it, yes, yes, exactly, I've worked on it, yeah, no, it's not about it, I've really, really worked on it, I mean, I've read so much stuff, I mean, I've literally read 1,200, 1,300 books on stuff like this over the last 30 years, okay, so it's not like I just kind of casually did this, I mean, I've really put a lot of effort in it, and then I've been learning about how to set goals, how many books I've read about goal setting, I don't know, like a hundred, I don't know, something like that, right, so, right, but they don't know how to go about getting that, yeah, yeah, well, I think there's a lot of people that do that, but most people, truthfully, don't think that's possible for them, okay, that sounds good, but nobody really thinks that's possible, right, is that they don't think they can get what it is that they want, so they're really, there's a lot of doubt and fear about, now, you know, it's good for Neil, Neil can speak, or Neil's not a, whatever, you know, people are using, you know, like a lot of you go, you know, yeah, if I was as good of a speaker as Gary Corning, I could do that, too, but they have, you use that kind of thought process, and you may not say it, verbalize it, but you probably think things like that, right, so what you, but the key for us is to get people to start believing that it's possible for them to have those kinds of, nobody's ever going to attempt something they don't think they can do, it doesn't make sense to attempt anything that you don't think you have the potential to have success at, you know, I don't play cards, you know, I know you're great at cards, right, you know, I don't play cards, because I'm not any good at it, and I don't want to lose money and look stupid, you know what I'm saying, but you want to play golf, let's go, right, and I'll get, people always ask, you live in Vegas, do you gamble, I said I don't gamble in casinos, but I gamble on a golf course every day, I gamble every day playing golf, I always gamble, I never play golf without gambling, right, that's been, I love that, that's a great thought process, right, very good, so let me get, so I got this right, you're born great, but the world makes you average, teaches you to be average, so everything you focus on with being great, you're going to become great, right, is that basically, I agree with that, totally, totally agree with that, and it doesn't matter, oh, they keep all the way up, so what they're doing is they basically indoctrinate you into thinking the right way, so that you can have, potentially have more success, right, because look, you know, I look at my situation, how I grew up, and you know my story, 5th of 7 kids, 1000 square foot house, my father was a Mexican immigrant, you know, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, right, but the truth is, for me to have the kind of results I've had doesn't make any sense, makes no sense, it's totally irrational, for me to come where I came from, and to have built the business I've built, and to accumulate the wealth that I've, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, the only explanation, folks, is I completely transformed my thought process, relative to everybody else that I grew up around, my way, I think, I'm not better than my brothers or sisters, I'm not better than my cousins and aunts and uncles, I'm not, except I think way differently than them, every time we get around for holidays, and I hear people talk, I'm going, if they only knew, you know, if they only knew, that what they're saying is why they're struggling, and why they don't do better, they don't even know it, they're not aware of that, that they're creating it with the way that they're, because when you hear people speak, you can instantly know what they're thinking, that's the way you know what people are thinking, so when I hear people speak, I can pretty much in 10, 15 minutes, figure out why you're doing what you're doing, because of the questions you ask, and the things you talk about, I go, man, no wonder they're not, it's easy for me to see that, because most people have such a low level of awareness, they're constantly getting in their own way, they don't even know it, they don't know that they're doing that, okay, so our job as a leader is to raise people's awareness, that's what your job is, because when you come into Prime America, you knew about architecture, right, but what did you know about recruiting, training, and building salespeople, not a damn thing, nothing, your level of awareness relative to building a sales force was like this, right, and your awareness about being an architect was really high, so you had to go from not knowing to knowing, which allows you to hear like, what, a half a million a year, I don't know what your income is, but it's around there, right, I mean, so with potential to make a lot more, but the bottom line is, is because you raise your awareness relative to Prime America, you have a, now you have a very high level awareness, right, relative to a person that's coming in right now, what caused that? You caused that, you made a focused attention to learn about how this thing works, and how to talk about it, and how to explain it, and how to teach it, and all that, right, yeah, because if I was talking to you, I would say, I mean, if you could be, if you could learn how to be an architect and pass the exams, because I know they're not easy, right, they're really challenging to be an architect, or an engineer, or whatever, I mean, that's a lot of schooling, and pass those exams to be able to get your license of practice is not an easy thing, I would, if you could do that, Prime America is a piece of cake, this is a really, really simple business relative to that, and let me show you what I mean, and then I would go through detail, why this is simple, and why this makes sense, and how it's easy, and how somebody as bright as you could dominate this thing if you get focused, and you do this thing, but I would make sure they saw, and they understood how simple it was, that's how I would recruit you, right, and I would say, and then I ask you the question, now, if all these other people who don't have near the skill level, or education, or background that you have are now making 300, 500 million dollars a year or more, why couldn't you do it? I'd ask that question, why couldn't you do it? Just ask the question, and it'd have to go, well, I guess I could, well, if you apply yourself, you can, the good news is, I mean, you're doing well, you're making six figures of what you're doing, but you're worth ten times that, are you kidding me? For you to settle for a hundred grand when you can make ten times that month, to me, makes no sense, does it make any sense to you? Can you think of any reason why you wouldn't go ahead, and get involved, and let me help you do this? I mean, that's how I would talk to a person like that, I wouldn't let him tell me no, or I wouldn't be intimidated, because he has an engineering background, or some stupid, that's ridiculous, because all those businesses, you can't make any real money at them, right, because they, because you get paid on your personal little efforts, and you can't do that much by yourself, right, okay, so let's look at what they are, right, this is the perfect person, right, they're married, right, they're a homeowner, their age, I think optimum is 25 to 35, does that mean we don't recruit 22-year-olds, or 46-year-olds, of course not, I'm just saying, if I'm focusing, and I'm trying to recruit the optimum person, right, you got to know what the optimum person is, right, the optimum person is a 25 to 35-year-old, right, why is that, why that age, because those people are still really motivated, and they're not tainted yet, right, they haven't given up, when they start getting in their late 30s and 40s, they start thinking, you know, pretty much my life's over, this is what I'm going to do, now they don't say that, but that's what they're feeling, subconsciously, they've resigned themselves to their station in life, and to get them to make changes is not easy, to get a 26-year-old to make changes is a piece of cake, they're totally coachable, they'll do whatever you tell them to do, I was just talking to this kid in my day shop, Jose Daniels, this kid is the most coachable kid I can ever remember recruiting, and bringing, he's incredible, he does freaking everything I tell him to do, man, and you know what, every time I talk to him, I said, Jose, man, you are going to be a freaking superstar, dude, I am going to, I'm telling you, I'm going to commit to you, I'm going to help you every step of the way, I mean, whenever you need me, just call me, I mean, because I believe in you, you do everything I tell you to do, because you do that, you're going to be a superstar, there's no doubt in my mind, look how much better you've gotten, just in the last six months, it's been amazing, the progress you've made, every time I talk to you, you sound better and better, and sharper and sharper, and more professional, and you're closing sales, man, I would have a tough time closing, man, I am so impressed by you, you are an amazing young man, and I can't wait to help you make you a multi-millionaire, so I told him this morning, that's the way I talk to people like that, right, what does he, what do you think he does, now he gets depressed and goes in his, curls up in his closet, no, he can't wait to go talk to somebody now, right, he's excited, right, so you got to infuse that in people like crazy, talk to them that way, you have a person that's coachable, that has a potential superstar, you got to tell them constantly how good they are, constantly what's right with them, every little progress they make, you got to make it a big deal, you got to make them feel so special, you got to make them, you want people to come back and want to be around you, that's the way you get them to want to come around you, that's the way you want, they can't wait to be around you, right, because you make them feel so damn good about themselves whenever they talk to you, whenever they are around you, they can't wait to be around you, that is a gigantic part of building people up, and building a team, and getting him to do more, and I'll say to him, I say, look, man, look, I want you to just pay attention how good you've gotten here in the last year and a half since you've been here, and I want you to visualize another year and a half, or two years, or three years, how good you're going to be, and what your life's going to be like, and what your income's going to be like, because you're going to be really huge, I want you to think about that, all this work you're doing, is it perfect right now, of course not, but you're making so much progress, it's amazing, you're a one in a million dude, I'm saying stuff like this to them all the time, right, so you get, what I'm trying to do is inspire him to do more and more of that personal development, and work on himself that he's doing, because he really is making that kind of progress, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not bull, bull crapping him, right, I'm totally telling him this is the truth, I'm telling him the truth, but I'm not just thinking it, I'm telling him, see, a lot of you see people doing, you think, oh, that's pretty good, but you don't tell them, you have to tell them all the time, kind of like your wife, you ever, does she ever ask you, do you love me, honey, that ever happen to any of you, am I the only one that happens to, right, how many times, my wife asked me that 10 times a day, right, I mean, of course I do, I love you, you're the best thing ever, right, I mean, because they can't hear it enough, right, there's no, women, am I right in saying that, can you hear that enough, you cannot hear that enough, right, karma, I mean, you love it, right, I mean, it's got to be at least 50, right, but the point I'm making, that's not just women, that's men too, that's all of us, that's the human condition, is the need, the need to feel important and worthy, and that, you know what I mean, because people are going to do more when they start feeling good about themselves than when they're not feeling good about themselves. I feel, I feel fantastic, it makes me feel good to do that, my, I'm always looking for what people are doing right, I'm looking for any excuse to make them feel good about themselves, that's been my way of operating since I started this thing, I look for any excuse to make them feel good about themselves, right, that's what I do, because it's easy to find what's wrong with people, any idiot can do that, right, I mean, that's easy to do, right, but to find things that you like about people, and you like what they're doing, that's a little more challenging, and the reality is, in this, in this world, very few people are, are encouraging and tell you what's right with you, it doesn't happen very often, right, it's, it's rare, you mean, just, just think of when was the last time you got a really fantastic thank you card, it doesn't happen that often, unless you're really helping a lot of people, right, I mean, you don't get stuff like that, it's, it's unusual, right, and people just do more when, when you do that, I mean, you know, I have people, I've moved into a new place, and we have workers in there every day, and trying to iron out all the little details of what, you know, and, and so the guys that come in are really, there's a few guys that come in and are doing work on our play, they're really great guys, and one guy, Scott, I said, Scott, you know what, you are awesome at what you do, man, I like the fact that you just get things done, and, and, and your attitude about it's fantastic, and I just, you know, I just think you, your, your focus on doing things correctly just really impresses me, and I just want to let you know, I think, you know, I could see why you're working, you have a lot of work, because you're really, really good at what you do, so what, what's he going to do now in my house, okay, now, now, now, I didn't make that up, that's the truth, I was just telling him, I was articulating the truth about him, but does that, that inclines him to want to do a better job in my house, right, so if you just ignore him, you treat him like the health, right, which is what most people do, that's stupid, right, what you do is you make people feel special, that's got to be your number one thing, if you're going to build a huge team, a big team that wants to be around you, you've got to do that constantly, right, you got to be all the time doing it, so looking for the optimum age, 25 to 35, and competitiveness is something that I really, really look at, if I'm trying to recruit somebody, I want to know that this person is competitive, right, you ask questions, have you ever, are you, consider yourself a competitive person, yeah, do you have any examples of you being competitive, great, I mean, if you're competitive and you get involved in Primerica, you are going to be incredible, because the competitive people just dominate our company, man, they just, they just get things done, man, and you, you know, one of the things I've always told people is, you know why, what I liked about Primerica so much, what I like about it so much, is I was an athlete, I played sports in high school and college, and I always was competing, I'm a competitor, right, and after I graduated from college, right, there was no more competition, there was nothing to do anymore, I didn't have any competition, I went to work and, you know, there's some competition, but when I got back in Primerica, you know what I liked about it, the leader's bulletin, the leader's bulletin is, for somebody like me, is phenomenal, right, because I, when I look at the leader's bulletin, I just see who am I going to beat next, who am I going to beat next, oh, I got him, scratch him off, next one, got him, got him, got him, got him, right, I'm just, now, I don't say anything, but believe me, you're with me, you could watch me, I'm a competitive, okay, I don't, I don't like losing, now, if I lose, I don't say anything, I just go back to work again, but I am competitive, and anybody who does well here, you guys that are doing well here, you are competitive people, right, am I right, Neil, you competitive, hell yeah, you're competitive, right, you know you're competitive, you know you're competitive, right, you know you guys are competitive, there ain't no doubt about that, I know Daniel's competitive, right, anybody, Rick Susie is the ultimate competitor, right, he can't stand losing 10 cents to anybody, right, I mean, he is, you know, he'll start talking crap and everything to not lose, right, but that's why he's done so well, right, because he can't stand losing, and if you're competitive, you have a gigantic edge on everybody, right, why is that, because competition, when you're a competitor, you will do stuff that other people won't do, just so you don't lose, you'll, you'll make more calls, you'll do more of everything, and when you don't care about when you're losing, those extra things that you need to do to win, you won't do them, you won't, you just won't do them, oh, absolutely, even when you lose, the competitors go, that ain't happening again, and then they go back to the drawing board, they figure out where they're, where they have a weakness, what they got to shore up, and they'll get back on it, and go, you know, the, I was talking to somebody on the way in, I said, you know, the awesome thing about Prime America is every month you get to reinvent yourself, even if you had the worst month ever last month, you just totally suck, guess what, August is a new month, and you get to start over again, and reinvent yourself, and doesn't matter what happened last month, or six months ago, or a year ago, it just doesn't matter, because this month gives you a chance to start over again, and reinvent yourself, there's a lot of people that have done that, I mean, look at, look at what, what Whittle's done, Whittle, to me, is one of the, I mean, look at, he's like in his late 50s, he's like 58 years old, or something, I don't know how old he is, but he's, he's in great shape, he is a competitor, you think he's a competitor, absolutely, but what he's done, I look at the numbers, do you know that he only, his whole hierarchy does about a third of what my hierarchy does, do you guys know that, I mean, I, I, if I do, you know, like this month, we probably did close to two, like two million, he did about, about six or seven hundred, six hundred thousand, in his hierarchy, in his whole hierarchy, and I did like two million, and, and the beautiful thing about Primerica, is that all the money that Basin first, and he's number one in the, in, in, through first, and he's got a solid base shop, and his incomes, right, catching up to what mine is, I think he, I think he might, might have beat me this month, and income wise, even though I do three times the production he does, right, you know what, how awesome that is about Primerica, I'm not complaining about that, it just shows you, where do you, where are you supposed to pay attention, you're basing your first, because you could be doing a third of what somebody else is doing, and still beat them, if you're basing first, or kicking butt, that's where all the money's at, God bless him, you know, God, I think that's awesome, that he's doing that, but that shows you how awesome Primerica is, and when you're a competitor, it doesn't matter what your age is, right, your age doesn't matter if you're competitive, and then the next thing is, they have kids, why kids, because when people have kids, they're much more motivated to get things done, because they have little rugrats that they want to take care of, right, and they want to, you know, you guys that have kids, you want them to have a better life than you, absolutely, if you have grandkids like me, I, I'm so glad I did what I did, on my little Frankie Jane, is going to be the most spoiled little girl in the history of the planet, okay, I can't wait to do that, we're taking her to Puerto Vallarta for, you know, a week, and took her to Hawaii, and you know, and you know, she's going to have the most incredible, you know, her little summer jaunts are going to be, you know, Europe, and, and Hawaii, and all that, right, you know, she's not going to the plunge, right, for, for a little vacation, she's going to, you know what I'm saying, she's going to have everything, that's just the way it is, bottom line, right, and I can't wait to do that, it's exciting to do that, she's going to go to private schools, because I'm paying for it, I don't care if my, I'm going to pay for it, I'm going to make sure she's got the best education, she's going to have everything, right, I, that's, that's awesome, and you guys have things like people in your life that you want to do that too, as well, right, don't you want to, you have two beautiful children, you want them to have the best, right, you don't, you want to grow up in South Central, like you did, no, of course not, right, you want more, so kids are important, they motivate us, and then five income 40,000 plus per year, or more combined income, people that make no money, don't do primary, that doesn't mean you can't recruit, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying, if the optimum is people that are doing semi-okay, when they get started, if they're struggling, when they get started, the chances of them doing something, and the chances of them having any credibility, to even put you in front of anybody, is so low, it's a waste of time in most cases, okay, I don't want to say don't recruit them, but I'm just saying, pay attention, okay, same thing is true that high, high income people don't do well here either, okay, they're making 200, 300,000 a year, chances of them doing this, it happens every now and then, but it's not very good odds, okay, so that middle income is the people that end up doing the best, okay, and then living in the area two years or longer, you want people to live here, so that they have a warm market, they could take you, go see somebody, right, if I recruit you, and you have no warm market, what the hell do I need you for, right, I mean, what I need you for, you can't put me in front of anybody, I'm going to go prospect and find you people, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to find them for myself, why would I find them for you, that's idiotic, right, I'm not going to do that, right, so they've got to have a warm market, somebody they know, people they've been around the area a while or longer, right, so I wrote, obviously everyone you meet won't meet these criteria, this is the ideal, and you should shoot for the ideal 80 plus percent of the time, I'm not saying that those aren't exceptions, there are, I'm just saying 80% of your energy should be in that direction, okay, and you've got to leave some room for some, from exceptions, from time to time, but you should be focused in that area, okay, if you want to accelerate your success and have less frustration building your business, you'll focus 80% of your energy in that area, you're going to have a lot less frustration, okay, and then consistent prospecting leads to appointments, recruits and sales, income and ultimately success, just do it, you don't have to like it, right, and but you should learn to like it and have it be a game, prospecting should be a game for you, should be something you just do as a game and you don't take it too serious, but you do it all the time, because all you're doing is looking for people that are looking for you, which you've heard that a million times, but it's really true, right, you're looking for people that you say the right things, they go, wow, that's what I've been thinking about, I've been wanting to do something like that, or I've been looking for a business opportunity, I've been, right, that's what you, all you're doing is fishing, right, for that, right, turn into a game, connect, this is important, this is what I did, you need to connect prospecting to the key of getting everything you want in life, because if you master it, you will, okay, you have to connect prospecting, all those things you want, that's why getting clear about you want so important, if you connect prospecting with getting what you want, you're much more apt to prospect than not prospect, it's that simple, you've got to connect those two things, okay, all right, master, number two, master setting appointments, look, prospecting is number one, because now, once you prospect, you got names and numbers, or people go see that a list from a new recruit, then you've got a master process setting appointments, because having a list, or having prospects, and you, and you're not any good at setting appointments, doesn't do you any good, you've got, your people will have many more appointments, if they're really good at setting appointments, than if they're not, does that make sense, okay, so that doesn't make sense, you would teach that, right, you'd make sure they do it, because pretty much, if you could get your base shot, where you're having a hundred appointments set every week, I mean, kitchen table appointments a week, you're going to have a hundred grand base shot, right, you're going to have a hundred grand base shot, so does it make sense, that if the more you train on everybody, how to set appointments, and you grow the appointments, you grow everything else with that, it just comes with that, it's just part of the territory, you got it, but you've got to pay attention to it, it's not something you do every fourth quarter, right, it's something you do constantly, so the better you get at setting appointments, assuming you master the remaining fundamentals, the faster you'll become successful, it's critical you thoroughly teach every new recruit to set appointments in their hot, warm, and cold market, and what you do, you sit down with them, when I see a lot of recruits, and then not a lot of production, what I know for sure, that's happening, is there's no method of sitting down with a new recruit, and teaching them how to set appointments, and get into their warm market, that there's no, it's it's hodgepodge, it's not a system, and you've got to have a system to do that, so everybody does the same thing, when they recruit people, they sit down, they get the list, they go through their whatever, however you teach setting appointments, you teach them how to do that, you get the new recruit comfortable with the process, because if the new recruits not comfortable with the appointment setting process, guess what, guess what they won't do, they won't set them, they're not setting them, why do not, why do recruits are not set appointments, because they don't feel comfortable doing it, they're afraid of being rejected, and they don't want to appear, like they're trying to just to sell things, and use their friends to sell things, and make money, that's what's, that's why people don't do it, okay, so what you've got to do, is you've got to make sure they know how to do it, and you explain what's going to happen on the appointment, what's going to happen, when you get there, you got to make sure the client know, the new recruit knows, what's going to happen, if they think in any way, shape, or form, they might be embarrassed, or or you might come across pushy, or something negative is going to happen, guess they're going to avoid setting those appointments, they're going to come up with excuses, right, which you already have experienced multiple times, I'm sure in your careers, all right, okay, so the better you get at setting appointments, you assume, the better you, your new recruits at setting appointments, the more likely they will actually set them, fear of not knowing how to set appointments, inhibits new recruits from setting them, if they feel prepared, and feel they know what they're doing regarding setting appointments, the more likely they will set them, people avoid anything they feel inept at, so the better you train them how to do it, the more likely they'll do it, it's that simple, right, if I ask you guys, who doesn't play golf here, okay, most of you don't play golf, if I said to you, hey listen, I need you to be my partner in this best ball tournament, and we're going to be playing a bunch of bunch of scratch players, how would you feel about doing that, you'd be going, I can't do that, I can't do that, why can't you do it, because you don't know how to do it, that's why, and you don't want to get embarrassed, you don't want to look stupid, you don't want to, whatever, right, all these thoughts that are in your, would enter your head about why you want to avoid doing that, same thing on setting appointments, it's exactly the same thing that happens, okay, all right, if you want your numbers to really take off, make sure not only your new recruits are great at setting appointments, but everyone who appears to be serious about business, so you've got a bunch of people in your, that are showing up to your meetings right now, that you think know how to set appointments, that they don't know how to set appointments, guaranteed, okay, so don't assume they know what they're doing, even if they're setting appointments every now and then, people, you know, it's kind of like a, even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then, that's what happens to these people, right, but if they get good, they could, they could do a lot more, right, they could do much, much more, number three, master presenting, all right, you got to master presenting, the presentation, look, everybody in here has a different presentation, I guarantee, if I sat all of you down, and we had a big table, and put you along, I would look at your presenting materials, every one of you would have a different thing going on, I guarantee it, all right, and that's not a problem, it's not a problem, except that the presentation that you do have, has to be really simple and clear, all right, whatever it is that you do have, it's got to be simple and clear, the more information you have, the worse it is, okay, the worse it is for a new person, and you just scare people, all right, so your presentation, there has to be a tie-down oriented presenting, where you ask questions, like if we could, you know, like if you're showing the smart, now let me ask you a question, Mark, if, if, when we sit down with you, Mark and Sue, if, if, if we were on, on this loan situation, I just showed you right now, if we were to look at your situation, and it resembled this, and we were able to, to approximate this kind of result with your current loan situation, is there any reason why you wouldn't go ahead and submit a loan, and see if we could do that for you here tonight, okay, good, so that's a tie-down, you tie them down all the way through the presentation, on everything, so that at the end, it's just a matter of going forward, so, but you know what, your new recruits don't know how to do that, but you got to teach them how to do that, right, so that their presentation looks like your presentation, I don't know what your closing ratio is, but I guarantee you, it's got to be in the 80 to 100 percent range, what if everybody in your base actually did it like you, what would happen, what happened with those hundred recruits you had in the last 60 days, craziness would happen, right, kinds of stuff would happen, right.