page pulled up right now okay it says i want to make you the next ultimate agent the mansion private jet cash and all the support you’ll ever need and i want to give it to you it’s got a whole video you can register for free but the way that’s going to work is we’re going to choose five agents that register and we’re going to take them on a private jet from Springfield Missouri to an undisclosed location we’re going to live in a mansion for six total five nights six total days i’m goanna bring in five mentors to help the five agents and we’re gonna have them compete every single day and then whoever is crowned 

 the ultimate agent will win 121 000 in total cash and prizes and we’re gonna release it as our own YouTube tv series in the near future we’re gonna tie it eight percent now you may say cody i’m registered or i haven’t registered you can register at ultimateagentcontest.com however once you’re registered i want to make sure that there are two additional things you absolutely have to do number one post a video on social media hashtag ultimateagent and tell us my team and i why we should select you as the next ultimate agent okay that’s a that’s first thing you gotta do then i also want to make sure that you go buy a ticket to eight percent nation 2022 which will get you extra entries in the contest if you want to get extra entries you post a video to Facebook Instagram or tick  

tock which will get you an extra entry per platform and or then you go and purchase your ticket appreciation 2022 for every VIP ticket that you purchase you will get an extra four entries into the contest which will drastically improve your chances of being selected as one of the five contestants okay but also um you can get a even more entries for premiere diamond or fire or you can buy group tickets and get a whole bunch of entries but but i want you to take this very seriously because we’re getting close to the final selection time the selection show the contest selection show is April 13th that’s a Wednesday April 13th at five o’clock central standard time so make sure you get registered make sure you post your video make sure you get your ticket to help your chances of being selected because you know you’re going to want to be there anyway and I’m about to release a massive crazy huge name very soon and i want to make sure that you are on the selection show as we’re going to be not only letting the contestants know who the five people are but we’re also going to be letting we’re also giving away a ton of prizes and tickets other things that you can partake in okay so this is one of the coolest things ever done it’s going to be a massive massive deal super epic contest it’s 

 going to be re this this contest will be viewed a lot like literally we’re going to have six videographers in a mansion in a secret location and then we’re going to televise this thing all over the world to insurance agents across the globe and so it’s going to be a huge really cool deal for anyone that’s able to be a part of it and the five contestants even though if you’re not even if you don’t end up winning as the five contestants just by registering you will also get access to the YouTube series which means that it’s also additional phenomenal training like think of the best way for you to receive training and get better at selling insurance and be better at being a rising star well it’s hey watching someone do it live on video with me a marketing uh mentor and then also several other insurance mentors as well that are live on site helping people when we just dropped a massive literally a couple days ago we dropped a massive direct mail uh campaign 

 around this secret undisclosed location so we will have hundreds of leads hundreds of leads for the contestants we’re gonna make it we’re gonna help them to succeed we’re gonna do everything we can to make sure that they are the ultimate agent okay so go to ultimateagentcontest.com to register and we will talk more about that soon also going away from the ultimate agent now for a second we are taking a break from reading the book zero to six figures i read the first four chapters of this so far i’ve been reading a chapter every week for the most part we have four more chapters coming up in the near future before we get to that i will be before i get back to reading the book i’m gonna interview my friend Melissa who was at the eight percent road show in phalli show up you show up to go up and then maybe you get to do some cool stuff with us right so she  

lives in Staten island about to go to her about to interview her live but i want to make sure that you knew about the ultimate agent contest i want to make sure you know about uh the book reading also if you don’t have the book go to go on amazon zero to six figures grab it we’re recording the audiobook so we can turn into an audiobook so you can listen later but i appreciate you being a rising star i appreciate you listening to rising star also uh if you are not a part of rising star yet it’s an actual training program with live training calls go to Rising star.codyaskins.com see you at the end of this episode today i’m jumping in and interviewing melissa skerr all the way from now help me out because you were at the philly road show right in jersey what’s Staten island we’re in staten island right now Staten island i love it we don’t but it’s okay all the way from Staten island to Missouri to the world okay thank you for being on  

today excited to spend some time with you and get to know your story uh i would love for those who don’t know melissa yeah you’re very welcome for those who don’t know melissa um i would love for you to share a little about you where’d you grow up you know what you got going on how long have you been in the business just some okay more information about you yeah absolutely so honored to be here as a rising star even though i’ve been in for 18 years i’m i’m still a rising star uh but i love to unpack that a little bit and you know the longer you stick with something sometimes that makes it even better in the long run um so my name is melissa scur you got that right i’m from saint Pete Florida so i was born and raised there spent the majority of my life in in that area and then my husband’s in the coast guard so he um was there that was his first station 

 on a boat um there and we met um and then ever since then we’ve you know not been in st pete about a year or two later for a while we got married and then he was at the end of this tour so we’ve been hopping around quite a bit so um you know this is our seventh apartment in almost nine years of marriage not all locations but you know we’ve been we’ve been to michigan we’ve been to maryland we’ve been to florida we were in key west which is really cool yeah um so the story of a military spouse is really like you know where are you from and it’s interesting because we don’t know anymore yeah they or may not have any times to our hometown just kind of making new routes all over we’ve only been in the nation but many military spouses are all over the world so yes well thank him for his service and also your support of him and and and  

traveling with him and all that that’s amazing um really appreciate what he’s doing there so you’ve been there you said you’ve been in the business 18 years okay 37 you’re 37 18 years okay so so really when you’re about 19 20 years old yes you’ve been in it ever since yeah you had to give i mean and we’re technically back to what you said earlier like we’re all rising stars by the way right like we we are all looking for the absolute most um out of our own potential right as you are too and so good to look back over the 18 years in this industry what would you say is the biggest thing that you’ve learned over that time between then and now oh my gosh that’s so tough because there’s so much um the biggest thing i would say is i own my own agency as of four or five years now and um i would say don’t doubt yourself you know getting into the business i always knew that i really wanted to be driven in sales so my challenge getting into the business which was primarily pnc up until 2011 when i worked for state farm so i was always  

independent in pnc um i hopped around a lot you could look at my linkedin i can’t apply for jobs anymore really because it’s just too much of a story and i just realized i i need to be self-employed and that’s fine um you know i also am not perfect in all of those um you know exits uh neither are the agency owners so there’s really a lot to learn from each experience and i look back in my young adult life you know like i wish i would have maybe handled some of those things different but i also know that i stayed true to myself and through my path and that there was no opportunity so i had to keep finding it um you know a year and a half at each agency is not great you look at that and i mean if you’re trying to be employable that’s terrible right yeah yeah uh but there’s a reason you know and and there’s really i’m so passionate about what you’re doing with you know the podcast of just about every other channel by telling people you know that insurance is an opportunity because young people do need to know that but they also need to be  

given an opportunity and this isn’t really like a millennial generation here we’re going to give it to you you know you need to work for it but um you know it’s it’s really hard to find that actual opportunity yeah yeah it is if you had to say okay here’s what i’m good at when it comes to insurance like what would you say you are good at and then what would you say that you still need improvement in if you had to answer those two areas okay so what i’m really good at i would say is um building rapport you know with clients over the phone it’s pretty much instant i mean objections are hard but i’m doing better with that so um getting back into more like high volume uh sales and it depends on what kind of leads but you know i can establish rapport pretty quickly um i think i need to narrow that down and shorten the time frame that i’m actually talking to people about 

 life you know you know realizing my time is very limited you know as a mom who’s busy but then also you know if you want to help a lot of people you want to sell more insurance like you have to be able to narrow that down quicker without taking away the rapport um and you know make sure your appointments are pretty regular you’re not just sitting there talking right yeah it’s hard yeah it is so you think naturally one of the areas that you could improve is and also i can see those correlating by the way like i’m good with people but i’m also sometimes too good with people yes i can talk too much i can over talk i can talk and like i don’t accomplish anything we build a relationship or a friendship right i don’t i don’t make any sales or last too long and then i can’t get to other stuff right right so that’s right yeah i’m glad that you’re bringing that up because 

 i think there’s a lot of agents that can learn from this specifically right around the world that are going through this they’re a rising star they believe in themselves we’ve all got areas we can improve right i mean i would say for me a few years back i was much worse at delegating than i am today right i was a and from a business standpoint uh that was a a natural flaw and i’ve still got a bunch but that was an obvious one right and so yeah cool that you’re being open and sharing that and being honest and transparent about what you’re going through because we all go through we all go through those things you know um what is something you’re actively trying to do to improve talking too  

much in appointments is there anything you’re doing today oh my gosh because the video was on the phone with an hour and at the same time you know i guess it really depends on what lead source and how you know are you maximizing that hour are you getting referrals out of that are you upselling are you uncovering you know the insurances of the entire family it’s not necessarily bad to spend that much time you know those kind of policies are going to stay on the books also you know if you really really dive into the needs and the relationship so it’s not all bad but like not waiting for them to take a breath this is really difficult um you know finding that right right time to say okay like i really appreciate everything that we talked about we got to get back to business i think is what i had said to the ladies today and it you know we did and it didn’t and  

we did that a couple times and then we got back on track you know did it work did it work did it work it did yeah it said you know i had to actually get off the phone i had to get out the door you know at some point but we you know we were really uncovered a lot and you know it’s just um that’s just really tough because it’s part of the business it’s part of building relationships um and i guess it really just depends on what sort of lead source you’re working and what your overall path is i do feel like i am i am now so my kids are almost three and one so may they’re gonna be three and one and i’ve been part-time the entire time that i’ve started on my own so now i’m trying to figure out okay can i even work leads what does that look like and you’re asking me what i’m doing right now i  

mean it’s outside of that it’s like outsourcing so delegating do not be the control freak over every aspect of everything perfectionism will kill you and i’ve learned that like okay i’m totally a perfectionist yeah are are you naturally i mean as you just said a perfectionist like you you want every detail to be really good before you take some action naturally because there’s a lot of personalities like that would you say that yeah would you say that defines you i would say that yes but i don’t think it’s ever held me from taking action completely i love the books john a cuff i read a couple years ago like start before you’re ready and that has just played in my mind so many times do you just start stuff and maybe that’s unwise in ways but you just gotta do it you have to take the action and you know do the best that you can but i have learned to get to a point where okay like this needs to stop or be delegated or changed or you know pivoted um that you did what you could there um it’s not gonna be perfect so my website would be a great 

 thing i know how to i know how to get to my website and you know kudos to jeff fruit and digital vga all those people um you know i would have never had the idea to go on my own if it wasn’t for jeff root and that team and the tech tools that they offer are just amazing so should i be in my website no it’s a huge time suck i haven’t been in it really in years you know but i i spent so much time yeah in it so you know i guess that would be an example um there’s a lot of things that can be a time suck so you have to really just learn how to cut it off there’s certain things that you should really be the driver of you know so i think anybody who’s self-employed or just knows that they’re doing something in life that’s important and they they are a perfectionist you have to fire yourself you may have said something along those lines before you do like you have to just say okay well this is my role and somebody else has got to do these things so that’s right yeah 

 i mean it makes sense too um what would you say are some of your like when you’ve had success during this time over the years there’s been certain moments where you’ve actually done obviously done better than others with the times where you did well what did you do differently um and how did you get in front of people during those times if you had to look yeah i will say that um it may not be a popular opinion on i don’t know a sales front for high volume sales no but um i can tie this back to something another producer said to me you know in a pdc office you know you explain things too much that’s why you’re not making enough sales okay i hear you on that because insurance really is confusing and you do need to keep it simple stupid um you know so i’m really trying to find a good blend for that because there’s so many customers that are are  

referred to me because of the time that i take with with them to explain things um it may be the demographic that i’m after you know i mean sure it’s the military so military spouses military veterans um you know they’re not smarter than other people they’re still like regular people who don’t understand insurance you know but they need somebody to explain it to them so um they are a little bit more educated they are used to kind of going through you know briefs or whatever so yeah you know it just really depends um excuse me on the person that you’re talking to and i think it’s um really finding a balance of of what you’re trying to go after so i’ve had a lot of success because of that i’ve had people in my niche tell me that they have changed their perception on insurance agents because of the way that i approach it and it’s really funny because it’s not anything special i don’t really think that it is all that special it’s just i’m so curious on what  

other people do you know i’m sure it’s because it’s just helping people understand their options and educating them a little bit and um not trying to push a product i think is the biggest thing yep so is a lot of it is a lot of it by referral to you yeah mostly yeah so i um we moved so i was 36 weeks pregnant and i started my business you know very slowly you know the website buying leads and working term leads and then i got pregnant and joe is on you know the end of the key west tours we don’t know where we’re going until like two months before we’re like where are we gonna have this baby it’s kind of part of the hurdles that um you know i’ve overcome she was tragically murdered so it was a huge huge deal um you know that was 2018. and um being a new mom at the same time there’s like so much going on um so we relocate beginning of you know uh 2019 here we are like new parents new place and then a couple months later i start getting like my ideal clients all that like little busy work all the foundation that you you know build online like your presence kind of like you know you’ve been on YouTube 

 since 2016. and it just compiles you know so um just referrals yeah that’s a good point it does it’s interesting how i mean you want to find success along the way because you don’t have to wait but man it’s right so true it does compile like there’s some special stuff that happens by putting in the work consistently over the period of time for years and years and years and i just enjoy those clients because they are me you know most of them are military spouses i’m not the military member but i understand you know a little bit of what their life is like just from being in that space and a little bit about you know my husband um it’s just an enjoyable conversation it gets addicting because you don’t really want to work another lead source because it’s completely different you know but you know all these leads or you know referrals just started building um in not really consistently either right when i became a new parent yeah like why life why you know so well and you probably close a you probably close a high percentage of huge like it’s almost just about like almost all of them you know and i learn when i don’t um and i try to ask where’d you go why you know i don’t always get the  

answer today and then i’m learning there’s a lot i’m just learning who this niche is a lot you know and you’re not gonna win them all um but it’s um it’s really fun yeah good how many referrals would you say you get a month so i will say that i couldn’t tell you off the top of my head but what i can tell you is somewhat embarrassing but i i wanted to do this podcast um you know being vulnerable because what i appreciate about everything you’re putting on youtube is that it’s all over the place you know people are sharing their real stories and what has enlightened me is that um you know no matter how old somebody is whether they’re a guy or a girl what their circumstances are there’s a unique set of challenges that people are overcoming and have overcome in order to be successful in this business so it’s pretty inspiring um you know in here rock like i’m a mom you know i’m not gonna be able to do this until whenever you  

know what i mean so i feel like your youtube channel um has helped me like snap out of that so thanks good thank you i was like what people talk about insurance on youtube where was that yeah so i hope that i could give something back you know to anybody you know that’s listening um running your own business is pretty difficult but i’ve been able to generate around 30 to 40 000 in referrals some of those like a little bit of paid leads um consistently over the past four years and um it almost seems like i’m not trying like i can’t i literally have not been able to be online or at my desk like they’re just coming and so that’s not enough but i’m proud of it and i want to duplicate that triple quadruple it you know that’s right um there’s definitely a way to do it you know i don’t know if it’ll be me or if someone else is gonna figure it out by this podcast or whatever you know um but it’s just been really fun to learn and i i have a passion to be able to teach other military spouses sure it would be nice to add veterans to that mixture but i really care about the military spouses because they don’t know about this as an opportunity yeah yeah you can tell too it’s really cool that you’re doing that um last question if you had to give some advice if you had to give some advice advice to a brand new agent they just came in the business they’re just this is like their first video they ever watch and they’re hanging out with cody and melissa right what advice would you give as we wrap up today’s podcast i would say um get in the right mindset you know if if somebody is thinking about an insurance career they may or may not know that they’re gonna have 

 to hear a rejection and um you know have the consistency we we’re kind of like okay yeah we’ve heard that already experienced so go through the ups and downs but you know somebody coming in new may not know that um and so just being really confident in the fact that um no matter what somebody tells you about being an insurance agent is a you’re a slime ball you know they tell you that in the classes like literally you’re not perceived well by the outside market you know everybody thinks you’re going to rip them off and you just have to kind of have that confidence that you’re going to research you know your set of whatever products you’re going to sell and just um you know find your people and sell it with confidence and if you do your best in one call you gotta go to the next one you know um it’s definitely a numbers game and you can’t beat yourself up over what you didn’t solve for that one person because it’s not always your  

fault insurance is really confusing there are a lot of options it’s very competitive so it’s it’s really not always your fault you just have to learn you know from each conversation um figure out how you’re going to you know structure your life and your time to stick with it yes yes yes yes i love it well melissa skir all the way from staten island thank you for being on the rising star podcast yeah thank you i appreciate it yeah it was cool to meet you and your hubby appreciate you being on this thing okay if you hope you enjoyed today’s writing star nest i appreciate you being on appreciate y’all listening and we’ll see you on the next one okay so but how do you go from 30k to like this dude making a million bucks you know like that’s strong that’s what clicked so you know just first off i think a lot of people when they start the insurance industry or they start working in the insurance industry you know they think it’s to be a lot easier than it is right because everyone that’s trying to get