[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Ticket Pros, the podcast for agencies, coaches and high end service providers who know what it takes to thrive in competitive markets. I'm your host, Josh Thomas. You can find me on all social media at jt literally. Our guests share insider tips, strategies and sometimes cautionary tales to help you close bigger deals and scale your business faster. Big Ticket Pros is sponsored by Conversational Funnels, the new way to close deals in 2025 that doesn't rely on any of the old traditional methods everyone hates. We use this method to book 121 qualified sales calls in 10 days without any ad spend, outreach or endless social posting. You can download the free step by step blueprint that shows exactly how we did it@conversational funnels.com that's conversational funnels.com Today's guest is Matt Orpen. Matt is a 20 year old Kansan married with one daughter. He is a life insurance broker working with over 40 different companies in all of the United States and working to one day have his own imo. Matt, welcome to Big Ticket Pros. What is one piece of advice you would give to somebody just starting out in your industry?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Thank you, Josh. My first thing that comes to mind is, you know, if you're getting into life insurance sales is be a broker. You don't want to be captive, you want to have your options and additional of that you can get bigger commission off of being a broker. You know, I feel like it's the best way to get your feet under yourself fast.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: And so why would people choose to not be a broker, for instance?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: So the one of the reasons that I enjoy.
Why would they choose to not be a broker?
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Well just if you can be a broker, why would you, why would you not be?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So.
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is let's say you work for State Farm or whatever other insurance company is, they might give you leads, provide you an office, all that stuff.
I'm a fully independent broker so you know, I gotta pay for the leads, I gotta do all the, all that work. You know, I'm paying for everything's overhead on me.
So it can be a little bit harder on the cost side.
But that's the thing that comes to mind when talk, when you think of, you know, not being a broker, being captive.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: I see. So there's a little bit less risk involved if you will.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, there, there is less risk, but I do believe it's a lot harder to grow.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes sense. And so as far as building that initial book of Business. You know, I. I know life insurance is competitive, and getting those first few sales in the door so that you can eat is not easy. So what. What are some ways that. That you were able to get past that initial hump?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: So, you know, if especially, you know, I started off with not a lot of capital, so you got to start with your warm market, talk to them, and then just as fast as you can, you want to go from war market to buying. You know, the cheapest leads I can get is age. So you're buying people that have been in the system a little bit. You just got to call them up to. You sell them and work from there up to the newer leads until you.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Get Collins makes sense. It's kind of by you. And so you. When you have nothing, you just kind of work the market that's around you, and then once you have a little bit of capital, you just reinvest that into the next tier of leads and kind of work your way up.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely a reinvesting game. And warm market can be conversations, you know, Facebook posting. You just got to start getting those first ones in the door.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: You know, I've had a lot of conversations with insurance agents, specifically, who just refuse to spend money on ads or leads and those sorts of things. It all. It all comes from word of mouth. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I mean, word of mouth definitely is a cheap way to go, but if you're trying to build fast, you know, insurance is one of those things where you need a lot of. A high number of people you talk to, you know, and, yeah, the best way to do that is by elites. You can. You can talk to your warm market, but you only know so many people. And the, the fastest way to talk to a million people is to buy their contact.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Fastest way to talk to a million people is to.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Is to what is get their contact, you know, get them, buy leads and have a way to reach out to them.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely don't think I know a million people, so I would. I would have to get some help there, for sure.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: And so you're a young guy, and I'm. I'm curious, what drew you to a profession full of stuffy old men?
[00:04:53] Speaker B: That's a. It's a good way to put it. Well, life insurance, I mean, there's a couple things that drew me. I got a friend that's doing it, Stephen. But also, you know, there's the. The fact is, you got people like. Well, the fact that more millionaires are made in life insurance than Anything else.
And you know, it's a path that's known. You don't have to pave a new way. You just, you know how to build it. And I'm, I've seen people like Patrick bad David, you know, he built and sold, always selling IMO for almost $400 million. So yeah, there's definitely money in it. But also you can help you, you know, you're selling a product that it can help people in the worst time of their life. So it's very fulfilling. And there's a lot of money.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. And you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different directions that you can go in your life. And I found that a lot of times it comes down to your, your risk, your risk profile that you're, that you're willing to take on.
And the more risks that you're willing to take on, the more reward you can gain. The less risk, the less reward. But with more risk comes higher chance of failure. With less risk comes lower chance of failure. And so just as, as somebody who has made the decision to go more risk, how did you balance that out to, to make that decision?
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Well, it's, it definitely is a more risky path to go down.
What I found is, you know, just get your, your living as low as you can. Spin as smallest amount on that. Like I've, I've jumped into this with a full time job that I'm actively working to replace. But just keep your living low and throw all extra money into that to, you know, get a return on.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. No, no crazy nights out.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely none of that.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Nothing to do in Kansas anyway.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, we got like four cool tumbleweeds. You know, we just go look at them.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Not too expensive tornadoes and stuff.
That's cool. And so tell us a little bit about who you serve and how they can connect with you.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah, so I personally specialize in final expense. So that's. It's not worth for a whole life. So we talked to a lot of people who were, you know, getting towards a later stage of life and they realized I don't like the. I want more life insurance or, you know, I don't have any at all. And they realize, hey, you know, the cost of funerals are. They're doubling like every 10 years. And I don't want my kids to take that burden. I'd rather an insurance company take that. So, you know, anybody looking for whole life or just wanting to get a funeral paid for, you know, and that's in. That's in all states.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: In all states, yes. All right. Okay. And where can somebody go to connect with you? And, and if they have questions.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yes. So I've got a Facebook Matthew Orpin. It's, it's got a picture of me and actually similar colored shirt with my wife and they can reach me there. I'm pretty responsive on the dms.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: All right. Very well. So yeah, it must be that. That for those of you who are just listening on audio, it's like this kind of creamy red. Must be his power color.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: I guess so.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Good stuff. Hey, Matt Orpin, everybody. That'll wrap up this episode of big ticket pros. For those of you who want to connect and learn more about whole life and final expense, you can find him on Facebook, Matthew Orbin. And if you're an agency coach, professional services provider or otherwise sell expensive stuff, we'd love to have you on a future episode. You can
[email protected] once again if you want to learn about the new way, we're booking dozens of qualified calls per week with no ad spin. Download the free blueprint@conversational funnels.com. that's all for now. Go get that big ticket punched. See you later.
