I always worked hard, growing up in the country meant that 12 to 14 hour days splitting wood, or working around the "farm" were normal. So pulling 70 to 80 hour weeks working 7 days a week morning to night seemed normal to me. But after seeing how much I "made" after all of that hard work just sort of broke me. I felt like this couldn't just be how it is. I felt like something must have been wrong because I didn't know anyone that really outworked me, at least not by any large degree. It seemed to me that there had to be something broken about what I was doing, because, if you are working all day every day on your business and you are staying at the same level then you are working on the wrong things.

At first, I talked to some of my peers, to which they just said hey man that's how it is you just have to keep going and put your head down. So, I did for a while, after all at the time it was just me and I didn't have anything else going on, no personal life, no pets, nothing so what else was I going to do.

If I were being honest there was also some fear, like I knew that I wanted something different, but I was making more money than I had ever made. Before this, I was working in restaurants where my best year ever was just over $36,000. So, this business was the closest thing I had to a miracle in my life, and I just didn't know how else I would make the money that I was making.

Then I met my wife. I know it’s cliché and corny but, she changed everything for me. She was and is the most encouraging and supportive person that I have ever met. At the time we lived 3+ hours apart and it was hell. I was never home. I was never able to see our kids. It was just hell. God love her she did everything she could to make it easier. Traveling to me rather than making me come to her. Bringing the kids when she could etc. But I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted a life.

I started obsessively searching for something to change, some way to be able to still run my business and have a life at the same time. I started to get hyper analytical on every piece of my business. What I found was that even though I was constantly trying to improve our sales system, there was just not much more I could do there.

We were calling and setting appointments with people that had filled out and mailed in a response card requesting to have someone discuss insurance benefits that were being made available to them. On the surface, it seems like a very high intent lead. The problem was that while the purpose of our visit was fully detailed and spelled out, all the people remembered, if they remembered anything at all, was the free package that was offered to incentivize them to fill out the response card.

So, by the time I or someone on my team tried to get in contact with them, which could be 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month or more later; We would only get about 10 to 15% on the phone. About half of the people, we talked to would turn into an appointment, around 60% would keep the appointment, and of those we would close and sell about 30 to 40%.

If we started with 100 leads, about 10 to 15 people would pick up the phone to talk to us, after calling through the list twice. Of those 10 to 15 we would set 5 to 8 appointments, which would turn into 3 to 5 presentations, which would then result in 1 to 3 sales.

Sure, there were other ways we could use to increase those numbers like showing up at the houses of the leads that didn't answer the phone and knock on their door, which was effective, but also draining. We also put a heavy focus on collecting referrals, which was also effective. However, with all of these additional activities you would increase your personal workload. Hence the 70-to-80-hour weeks.

Looking at the math, the number that if changed, would make the biggest difference in our conversions would be increasing the number of people we got on the phone. To me, at the time, it seemed like that meant I needed better quality leads.

At first, I started looking at possibly buying leads from lead vendors, but that would just be an added cost and I couldn't really afford that and there was no guarantee that the vendor was giving me leads that weren't being sold to other people as well. I also looked at hiring a marketing agency to generate leads for me as well. I nearly choked when during the sales call with the agency, they said that I needed to pay them $3,000 per month on top of the suggested $1,500 to $2,000 per month on ad spend. Thanks, but no thanks I'd rather eat glass. Which left me with trying to figure out how to maybe do it myself.

I don't even know how I stumbled upon it, but I discovered response driven marketing which talked about there being a way to actually attract your ideal customer to you rather than just posting random videos or content hoping someone will reach out. That idea stuck with me and after I don't know how many hours of watching YouTube videos about targeting, and ad account set up, metrics to keep track of, etc., I figured it out and was able to set everything up and launch my first ad. Which failed miserably. I think I spent $500 or $700 to get 20 something leads and no sales.

I knew that I was close and that there had to be an answer, but I was not having a good time with my business at all. I decided that I couldn't do both, figure out this marketing thing and run this business it was just too much. So, after several long discussions with my wife, I quit. I handed over the whole business to my partner and senior team members and walked away. Although my saint of a wife for sure wanted me to stay, she supported me and my decision. I was terrified.

I spent the next year learning, trying what I learned, failing just to repeat the cycle. I was dashing when I could just to bring in some extra money and help out my wife who had taken over the majority of our bills. The problem I kept running into was that everything I read, and saw was always talking about creative, ads, and copywriting. Everyone kept saying that the big factor for your conversions in your ads came down to these skills that took years to master. You had to follow these rules and those rules, and it was just a lot to try and process.

Everything I tried kept failing, I couldn't get any traction on anything. I was getting depressed, stressed and frankly not that much fun to be around. I couldn't afford to do the things I wanted or provide the life that I wanted to provide for my wife and kids. I hated that my wife was working her ass off 70+ hours a week to keep us afloat. I felt like a failure. I felt like I just pushed my responsibility off on her to shoulder. The part that sucked the most, though, was that during Christmas my wife paid for every single gift on her own. I couldn't even afford to buy her anything but some shitty stocking stuffers. I don't think that I have ever been lower.