Johnny: I was actually the first person in my family to ever go to college from grandparents, parents, cousins. Actually I met my wife there who’s from South Georgia. Post-college I was a teacher and a coach. Having been an athlete I wanted to have the opportunity to coach and grow young men. And so I did that for four years and actually at age 27 was the head baseball coach, which is what I thought I’ve always wanted to be.
So did that, but then had one of those moments where I just decided that I didn’t want to do this for 30 years.
Melynda my wife had actually started with Aflac in the insurance world. And I remember sitting there looking at her saying, wait a minute, you work less than I do. You’re always happy. And you make more money than I’m making. Maybe there’s something I need to do a little bit different.
Chad: So you didn’t intend to go down this road of insurance sales or insurance.
Johnny: You know, no one wakes up and says, “I want to be an insurance guy.” But I remember one of the things that I looked at and said, what do I want to do after teaching and coaching? And one of the things I said is I want to dress a little nicer. And I felt like for insurance, that was something that I could do.
I could start it and grow it and really focus on being paid what my worth was versus someone else placing a value on me.
As much as I love the teaching and coaching, you know, I could sit there every year and I know based on my years of experience and my education level, this is what I’m going to make. So I really wanted an opportunity that could work as hard as I could. Earn what I wanted to earn. But more importantly, focus on the hard work that I was doing. Then know that the future pay off that would come about.
And mainly too, we were young, newly married, been married four years, didn’t have kids. So I didn’t mind working a little bit and getting out there and doing that.
I actually ended up with Aflac for 12 years. And during that time, I got into management, did a lot of recruiting and training, which for me felt just like coaching.
Chad: You made that move. Did you have a lot of confidence at that time?
Johnny: I think it’s funny now looking back to all those years ago, yes, there was a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety and some of that was because it was her gig and she was really good at it. And I didn’t want to come in and get in the way or do things differently, but we were nervous.
I mean, it was a commission only sales position that we will be a commission only family, you know, to do that. But also, I’ll never forget when I started looking, you know, as you’re going through the recruiting process and, you know, talking about this and having conversations with people, you know, obviously they’re telling you all the great things that can happen.
People were like, Man, how are you leaving teaching and coaching? I mean, you got a guaranteed salary, you’ve got benefits. You know, there’s so much stability and so much comfort in that. How could you take such a risk? And I wanted to tell them, look that 33,000 that I was making. It was one of those things that I felt like once I set my mind to it and Melynda and I supported each other that I knew, that’s something we could, we could make.
And again, it was a marathon. So each year we’d look back and say, Hey, that’s another lap, another mile, another two miles, whatever it may be to get to what that end result was.
I was really excited about what opportunities that could provide for me moving forward and then to see where that took me.
Chad: So you’ve recognized two different times at this point, Hey, I’m doing this, I’m succeeding, but this isn’t a career for me. I’m going to make a change. How do you recognize that?
Johnny: I think with Aflac, the higher I moved up and the more that we did and the more people we worked with, I realized that even though we were independent, it was still their model. It was still their ideas. It was still the things that they wanted.
So even though I was independent, I truly didn’t feel like it was ever my business. And I wanted to set my own rules. And not that I want to necessarily break them. I just wanted to be the guy that could set them and know what that was.
And so I think it truly came back more to that entrepreneurial side of it that I really enjoyed. As I grew, I felt like I sort of outgrew the model. Not in a negative way, in the back of my mind, there was always this underlying burning that I knew clothing was something that I wanted to do.
And it’s funny because if you look at my role models growing up, it’s not people who wore suits or things like that. My dad sold cars, sold boats, and drove a milk truck. My mom’s dad was an entrepreneur. And growing up in a small town, I promise there weren’t many options as far as clothing.
But a lot of that was just following and looking. And I think it’s true so many times, people look at what is success? Is it money? Is it time? Is it family and all those things. And so for me, I knew that I needed to map out what that individual success was for me, but then what was my family success?
And that’s one of the things that I think, not saying that I couldn’t get it there, but I knew that I didn’t want it there, that I wanted something beyond what that career was.
I always say that I don’t think most people’s fear is getting told no; most people’s fear is the fear of the unknown. And when I walk in that door, who’s on the other side, what are they going to say to me? What does it look like? What does it feel like? And so there’s that paralysis.
So when I walked in, my first job was not to convince that business owner to buy something. It was to talk to him. Hey, let me educate you on how Aflac can help. Not only you, but how it can help your employees. If at the end of the conversation, you don’t think it’s something you’re interested in, I’ll be happy to shake hands and walk away.
And so for me, I never looked at it as a sales career. It was still just teaching and coaching, but I got to dress a little nicer, which was important. And I think back, there’s so many cool and unique businesses out there that the average person doesn’t know about.
Josh: So Aflac is a phenomenal company, company, culture, marketing, all of these things. They do great, but their opportunity is difficult. Now it’s phenomenal what you can leverage it into. And that’s the cool thing with your story is you saw this while a lot of other people see this as something that’s just difficult and it’s hard, you saw it as like, okay, I can do the things I love through this currently. I can focus on the key productive activities while I’m dressing nice educating people.
So at what point did you start creating in your mind J Mac’s and seeing the progression of getting close to removing yourself from the day to day of this Aflac journey and going all in on your dream?
Johnny: It was always in the back of my mind. And I think the main thing for that was even though, like I mentioned, Aflac was the vehicle to get me to where I wanted to be, I knew at the end of the day, before I could sell a product, I had to sell me. And I’ve always said, look, you just have to figure out ways to get yourself in front of people and let them make that decision. Hey, do I like him? And is that somebody that I want to do business with?
For me it was about clothing. Confidence for a sales person is so critical and so key. And I truly believe that that it factor that people have is confidence. It’s very attractive. It’s just something, when you see it, you want to be a part. And so for me, I think dressing and clothing was one of those things. And I would try to encourage my agents to do that.
Feel good, know that we’ve got the knowledge now that we’ve got a great company behind us, we’ve got the right product. And if we can handle those things, then whatever’s on the other side of the door. We’ve already halfway won the battle. Now we’d have to walk through the door.
And I think that’s a critical component because even as a business owner, we all have this, Hey, I’m very confident, I’m confident in what I’m selling or what I have, but am I confident in me?
So a guy I had been working with called me out of the blue one day and offered to bring me into his business. And I’ll never forget how Melynda came to me. She said, anything you want to do, I’ll support you, but before you do this, let’s grab lunch with him. And after, she said, you know, I love you. But I think you’re making a mistake, because you wanted to do this as your dream and your vision. If you go work with him, it’s no different than what you’re doing now. Working for somebody else’s vision, somebody else’s dream.
Chad: You’re having these thoughts of going in the direction of suits or doing something different or making a change. But financially, you’re crushing it with Aflac, right? You’re high on the leaderboard there, you’re a level that most people never reach. So you’re making decisions based on what you want with your life. You’re walking away from something financially. That’s massive, I assume at this point.
Johnny: We had a great year. It was my best year financially ever. And really for me, it became this quality of life. What did I want? The nice thing with Aflac is that the work that I’ve put in when I started year one would pay off down the road. And so having that residual income was really important. And always in the back of my head, had this number that once my renewals got to this amount, I could walk away and build something the way that I wanted to build it.
Josh: I want to ask one clarifying question real quick. You built your business, then you became a corporate employee. Were you still able to earn your renewals?
Me and Chad were talking Brendon Burchard’s book, High Performance Habits. And he mentions about there’s a certain level of maturity. People can hit, or they just know who they are. They know how they carry themselves, how they represent. And they’re not worried about it.
What I see in your story from the start, you just recognize you were going to win. And I want to talk about Aflac. You still earn money from Aflac right now. When’s the last time you sold an Aflac policy?
Johnny: 2012.
Josh: 8 years ago is the last one you sold. When did you first sell an Aflac policy that you still earn an income on today?
Johnny: 2000.
Josh: Okay. So 20 years ago, this dude sold something. You quit, but you’re making money from stuff you sold 20 years ago and you haven’t worked for the place or sold a policy in seven or eight years. I mean, that’s crazy.
And ultimately most people will choose to quit and not choose to keep going forward. And at some point in time, you walked into somebody’s office and you’re like, you know what? I’m full time into my dream gig right now.
Chad: You said something early in the conversation about fear. Most people have fear of walking in that door and what’s on the other side.
And I think that’s the story of not just Aflac, any business, you look at entrepreneurs, you look at the success of small business. 80% of small businesses fail. That’s the reason they’re over there buying office furniture instead of selling their product or getting out there. And that fear is something you were able to identify and also figure out the component to help offset that, which is preparation and confidence.
Johnny: And so it’s, where do you set that vision, where you cast the vision, who are you following, and who are you looking at? Marketing is about relationships. And when I’m doing all this things from afar and just this spray it and pray it and hope that some of it sticks, there’s no relationship built in there.
I learned that when I was teaching and coaching some of the kids.
So if you can have conversations and educate people and develop this relationship, no matter what you’re selling. And really and truly at the end of the day, even if you’re not your sales department, you are your sales department because they’ve got to buy you.
And I think we lose sight of that sometimes. But if you can find one thing that you are really, really good at and hone in on and just get ideas and suggestions from the people that are good at the other things, that’s how you grow. And that’s how you take off.
Josh: Now I think about little kids and they put on their daddy’s coat and they’re tough. Cause their daddy’s their hero. Or they put on a Spiderman costume and they walk around with a stick because they’re stepping into something. Now they’re stepping into some borrowed confidence, which is what you’re doing at J Mac’s.
Sometimes even like when we were kids, it’s gonna be as easy as putting on a coat psychologically. It makes a difference. If I put on this coat and it fits, I can walk in the door a little more confident.
And that’s what you’re doing is you’re helping people become more confident by just altering how they feel about themselves in the mirror. And confidence is how you sell.
Chad: It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. You are a sales person. So you’ve got to sell yourself first. Then you’ve got to sell the customer. And then you’ve got to hire employees and sell employees. You’re selling on three different levels every single day in every single business.
And that may be the best advice I have heard for any young entrepreneur yet on this podcast, you better learn how to sell. Cause you got to sell yourself, your clients and then your employees, it’s hard to sell somebody else before you sell yourself.
Johnny: And I think that is that’s the key. And I say this that when I made that decision to step away, one of those people were like, well, I get it. I know you like clothing, but why would you do that? I mean, you were aware one step away from that ultimate level of Aflac achievement.
But I just knew that the time was right. And I knew for me, I was at that point where it was important to me to make the best decision for me.
And so I took the same thing. I talked about relationships. So here I was, I had no sales. I’d never worked in a retail environment ever, never had any retail experience. And didn’t have any clothing experience in how to make it, how it looks and all those things. But I knew it was something that I wanted to do. So I called six or eight guys that I had great relationships with. And I said, Hey, look, I’m making this career change. You know what I stand for and who I am, let me make you something. If you’d like it pay me. If you don’t, we’re good.
Chad: You had the relationships, you got the confidence, you know how to say, well, how in the hell do you know how to make a suit? This is like 2012. Internet wasn’t all that great, all that fast. How did you learn the backend?
Johnny: The guy that I bought my first suit from 10 years previous to this date, when I decided to make this change, I called him. And I said, Maurice, I don’t know if you remember me. I said, Hey, look, I’m thinking about getting into the clothing business, starting my own business. I don’t know if you’re still in the business or not, but I’d love to get some advice from you.
He said, actually, I’m transitioning out, but I’d be happy to help you and work with you. So he lived in Atlanta. So those six, seven guys that I mentioned, I would bring him with me and I would watch him. And I’ll say this too. Sometimes I think when we shadow or we watch people, we go into it looking for, I want to do it like they do it.
But sometimes it’s just as important to say, what did they do that I think I could do differently or better? And there was one thing that he did is the first sale. It was a really good mentor and friend of mine, he sold him on all these clothes. And at the end he said, okay, it’s going to be $4,800.
And the guy looked at him and said, Oh man, that’s a lot. And so I just said, well, what did you want to be at? He said, I was thinking around $2,500.
Well, the problem is if you sold him here on quality and fit and fabric and everything, it’s hard to come back down, come backwards. And so, right then I learned that, Hey, one of the things that I will always do with a new client, or even the existing clients, I will say, what’s your budget? Tell me where you want to be. And let me work within that budget to get you where you want to get.
But that was important to see that. To say, Hey, look, when I’m on my own, these are the things that are important to me.
But when I mentioned that there were guys that I had bought from over the previous 10 years, there was the process and some things I didn’t like. There was one thing that was apparent in all of them. It was a very transactional sales approach.
You come, you see them, you buy something. Hey, thank you. Shake hands, pay. I’ll deliver it. And that’s it. And so for me, I said, I want to do this. And even though I don’t know a lot about clothing and about fitting, I want to build a business based on relationships.
And I know everybody says that, but for me, that was critical that I wanted it, not a transactional sales environment, but a relationship driven sales environment. Not just when we sell, but post-sale and three months down the road and six months down the road so that I can talk to Chad and figure out from him what’s important to him. And then I can sell and help him fill that void.
And so that was what was so critical and was the foundation to this business. And so when I say that I built it off of relationships, a lot of my first clients, in fact, the majority of my first clients were guys that I had done business with in the past.
Chad: Were you able to do this and approach it from a relationship format because financially you were in a position, this income is not how you had to pay your bills?
Johnny: I can tell you the number today, eight years later. I said, Hey, if I could make a thousand dollars a month selling clothing, I can keep my quality of life where it is because of my residual income. But I knew just the law of residuals that over time, the renewal or the residual side would drop off. And so as residuals drop down, I needed sales to increase.
So really, if you look, my goal in the first year was $12,000. And I did over $100,000 in year one. And then it’s grown from there every year.
And so for me, I, wasn’t just satisfied knowing this is what I need to do. I was really excited. And I think that’s part of it too.
Chad: This opportunity would not have been the same. You would not have had the excitement and freedom had you had all this financial pressure on you and all this, I’ve got to make a $2,500 mortgage payment. And I can’t make a thousand dollars this month. You put in the sacrifice to do something you were not passionate about, and you didn’t love for 12 years to give you the life and the income to allow you to do this.
But that goes against so much you hear right now. Follow your passion! Or, if you’re not happy with the job, quit your job and go start something, be an entrepreneur!
That’s not the path you followed. And I assume you’re really grateful and probably more successful because you did put in work to help you build the life and income to follow your passion.
Johnny: I tell agents this all the time. If you’re selling out a desperation versus passion, people know it and they don’t want to be a part of that.
I think sometimes on the other side that as entrepreneurs and business owners, as we start building it, we have that goal of a thousand a month and we get it and we go, alright, I’m good. And so that was the thing for me was to say, I’m not satisfied there. I want to continue to grow and to do things so that as the business grows and the future grows, I have the ability and the capability to do those kinds of things.
And I think that’s where even for me now, as the business has taken shape, and some things are changing that it’s afforded me the opportunity that the work that I did even early on hard work and this business has now transformed into me being able to make opportunities, create better opportunities to grow it.
Josh: So I want to land this episode on what you’re talking about right now, which is ultimately mindset. Continuing to push toward excellence.
The word passion means suffering. Most people don’t know what they’re passionate about. They don’t have a true passion. They have something they like, they think they might enjoy, but you’re willing to pay the price. You built your residual income so that you could pivot toward this and go full time with a target goal of 12,000. You went through the hard stuff. You were truly passionate about this idea and you did hard things.
And most people aren’t willing to do the suffering. They’re not willing to do the hard things. They want to follow their passion. And time after time after time, we’ve interviewed entrepreneurs who paid a price for years to then chase their passion. They went through the suffering, the hard stuff. So they could do the thing that they loved.
And man, I want you to talk to us about the mindset. What did make you go from 12,000 to 100,000?
Johnny: I think it goes back to everything we’ve talked about today. What has driven me to always find that excellence mindset is: How do I continue to grow this to the next level?
Chad: Here’s something that I’m hearing over and over in your story. You invest in the long term win. You don’t chase the immediate gratification. You’re building relationships to win over the course of a long time.
You’re not trying to close a $4,800 deal. You’re trying to close an $1,800 deal and build a relationship. So many people right now, chase the immediate dollar. They’re not thinking about that long term investment and that long term approach.
Johnny: I learned this from one of my first Aflac managers. He said, “Don’t ever make a longterm sacrifice for short term gain.” And that has been one of probably the most guiding principles for us and the decisions that we made.
I want to create something that down the road, I can leave that legacy and pass it on.
