Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. – Paul J. Meyer
If you talk to Ryan Faulkner, you’ll learn one thing: this guy is committed. But Ryan’s not committed not only to himself and his success at USHEALTH Advisors; he’s learned the secret to significance, being committed to other people.
“The toughest thing and the thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about other people,” says Ryan. “Of course I’ve produced a lot of business, but those are things I personally can control. As you grow as a person and as a leader, the things that you want to see, especially from people that trust you to help them start this opportunity, is to get them from point A to point B, get them to be a successful agent or be in leadership. Try and get them to a position of success, starting from the same place you were at when you first began. So I would say, especially nowadays, it’s just making sure I’m leading by example and getting people to that next step.”
Ryan has produced a lot of business for USHA… which might be an understatement. He’s been with the company since the spring of 2018 and as of the writing of this story, Ryan is on the cusp of reaching a tremendous milestone, $10 million in personal production. That’s a lot of issued business, a lot of individuals and families Ryan has helped put in a better place when it comes to health insurance and a lot of people and agents Ryan is serving to help them reach the same level of success he has enjoyed.
You can’t connect the dots moving forward, only looking back. Ryan can now see that much of the success he currently enjoys can be traced to someone he met years ago.
“Jesus Burga is one of my best friends from childhood,” says Ryan, “and we’ve known each other since. He came from Peru when he was 10 years old, and we ended up meeting on the soccer field in Pembroke Pines, Florida. We’ve been friends for a long time. Right before this career at USHEALTH, we were both working at Sears corporate selling warranties and protection programs – which was kind of like me dipping my toe into sales. But Jesus heard about this opportunity at USHA . Of course at the time I was very skeptical of a hundred percent commission job. Everyone typically is, especially when you’re hearing from your parents, oh, that’s risky. This is risky. My parents were always on top of me as far as getting a traditional education, and a steady job.”
However, after Jesus left and started to experience success at USHA, Ryan began paying attention.
“Jesus started with Sears around March of 2017,” says Ryan. “I started around July and then Jesus ended up leaving there around the fall of 2017. I stayed at Sears because Jesus was like, “Okay, I’m going to try it at this other company. Let me see how it goes, and then obviously I’ll bring you in once I get situated.” And then he always reminds me of the story – he blanked for a month – and then ended up picking it up and doing well, (Jesus Burga is a $12 million+ producer at USHA). So I came over here about February of 2018 and ended up getting fully licensed in April.”
“I definitely had the benefit of starting after Jesus did,” says Ryan. So I came in with a specific plan. I had some money saved up. I didn’t have a lot of overhead, so I was like, all right, if I’m going to make this jump, I want to make sure I make it count and give it my all. So I ended up making the transition, passed the licensing test. I finished the licensing course in three days. I was in here in six days. I wanted to get that part over and done with. I came in to the office and my first day working was a Sunday, so that kind of set my foundation.”
“I ended up getting a deal that Sunday. The client ended up getting a declined on the verification call, so I took that personally. I was like, that’s my first deal ever. I have to redeem myself. That’s why I’ve focused on my taken-rate, (the percentage of deals that get issued vs declined or not taken) and it’s always in the eighty percent range or more. So yeah, working Sundays I set the foundation. I was like, I don’t want to miss Sundays. Initially I asked Jesus, because at Sears we worked weekends on and off, I was like, “Hey, every weekend you guys are working?” Of course I didn’t know the environment at USHA yet, so I said, “That seems like a lot.” But first day in, I got that sale on a Sunday and I learned the concept that weekends and Sundays are worth it.”
Although Ryan was fairly quick out of the box at USHEALTH Advisors, he knows it’s not the same situation for everyone. Now, in a leadership role as well, he always gives the new kids on the block some real-world advice.
“My first month I probably made about five or six grand, so it was a decent start for someone,” says Ryan. “And that’s kind of what I explain to the new guys: not everybody’s going to start like this, but I had a decent start; I had a good foundation. I wanted to be up there on top of the leaderboards with the other agents by the end of the year; that was my goal.”
“But it varies for other people. We try and vet people the best we can to prevent bad situations. I’ll be honest with people who reach out to me, I’m like, “Hey, if you’ve got to make 10-grand right away, your first month, and you don’t have a little cushion or savings, it’s probably going to be very hard for you. It’s probably not going to be the ideal situation. Get a little cushion going and then we could work it out.” I tell the new people, your first month on average, you’ll probably make between two to three grand as an average agent. I try and set the bar low and over deliver. That’s what I try and do.”
“There are some people who come in, in fact an agent on my team, who is probably going to be a Field Training Agent here within the next few months or so, he came in about $4,000 in debt, nothing crazy. It wasn’t like, hey, I’ve got this bill due tomorrow and I’ve got to get to work on that right away. But the biggest thing you can do here to get on track, is do the things you can control. You need to be here at 8:00 AM, I need your full commitment. I’m going to try and get you to the place you need financially, but you need to be here. When I’m here, I’m going to spend my time with you. I don’t want to waste my time. I’m going to spend my time 8:00 AM to 10 o’clock at night, until we get you out of this hole. It works for some people, it doesn’t work for all. That’s the best thing I can say to someone, if you’re going to do this, I need a hundred percent from you, commit to me a hundred percent and we’ll get you to your goal. We need to set goals, be structured and then kind of go from there.”
As do nearly all successful business people, Ryan knows that it takes focus and discipline. He says it’s a character trait he’s always had, no matter what he has done. He’s also a quick learner and a quick “fix.”
“In college, my major was psychology,” says Ryan. “I like to learn, so I studied psychology, which I think honestly has helped me to be able to put myself in a customer’s shoes or put myself in a potential new agent’s shoes, and think about what could possibly be going on in their head. This is where the psychology stuff gets put into perspective. But I also have to have self-realization. Not everybody’s like me. I get told one thing, one time, and then it’s corrected. I correct that action. Typically under most circumstances, most people are not like that.”
“Just growing up, especially with my parents, they set the foundation. It could be genetics, but they set the foundation by raising me properly. Like, when I was going to school, if I got bad grades, I was told, “Hey, don’t do this. Fix it.” If there’s a parent who lets you get away with that and acts like everything’s fine and dandy, then later in life the person’s probably going to mess up a bunch of times and not necessarily feel like there are any repercussions. So whether it was getting into fights when I was younger, or misbehaving or whatever it was, my parents were on top of that stuff. It if happened, it was only once and then I would fix it and that was it.”
“Athletics helps as well. You learn discipline. I played club soccer, and I played center back, so I was the last man of defense. I was very organized, and I would yell at some of the guys and make sure everybody was in their position. I was like the team captain, so that helped as well. I was always very organized when it came to certain things.”
Now, organization is key. Ryan plays defense and offense for his team of agents, making sure they know what to do, that they do what is expected, and that they watch as he leads by example.
“I start my day at 8:00 AM,” says Ryan. “I’ll do my early morning dials go through my purchased leads, probably eat my breakfast around nine o’clock. I check in on a bunch of the guys, seeing what they have lined up, seeing who I could get extra lead money to and what goals we have for the day. Then I go through all the little things, check the calendar, see what appointments I have. I’m constantly talking to my assistant to see what we have on the docket as far as appointments. I’ll go get some Instagram posts up to try and get some business or recruit new agents.”
“If I’m not on the phone with a client, I’m walking around to see who can I help. Who needs underwriting questions to be answered? Who needs help with customer service? Of course, I want to show, “Hey, this is how you handle this,” and then allow them to kind of take the ropes from there. I don’t want to always hover over them because eventually you want people to learn. So I would say I probably take a little break around 12 o’clock, 30, or 40 minutes maybe, real quick. I don’t take a three hour break or anything like that.”
“Then I’ll get back, do some trainings if we have trainings in the office. I’ll run some appointments if I have ’em. Around three o’clock we do interviews for new recruits. Everybody in the office pulls on the same rope for that type of stuff. Around four o’clock, I’ll try and see if I can get in a meal. Then five o’clock to about, let’s say seven, I’m prospecting, trying to see what we have on the floor, see if I could give some lead money out, see how we are with numbers. Then seven or eight o’clock, depending on the day, we typically will do an FSL training, whether that’s pitching for new agents or some hot topic of the day. I’m probably out of here wrapping everything up about nine o’clock. Anybody who stays past me, I’ll go ahead and give them some lead money or some extra spiffs, whatever it may be at the time.”
Time flies, and Ryan can look back on his life in this moment, appreciating all that has happened for him and all that he has done to get to this point in his journey.
“I was born in Boca Raton, Florida, and then we moved down to Pembroke Pines. My parents split up when I was eight or nine. Because I have two sisters I was kind of the man of the house all the way up until probably age 20, and then eventually, I left. It was tough as an 8-year-old, when all this happened, you don’t know anything other than being with your parents, so eventually it was just me and my mom and my sisters and being the only guy in the house, you have to be a little bit stronger for them. My sisters and my mom would be a little bit more emotional than me, they still are, so I do my best to be strong, especially to this day. My dad was still around as well, I spent time with him every other weekend we shared meals during the week, as well as being there for my soccer games. He’s a great influence in my life. I don’t have a wife or kids right now, so anything I do and sacrifice is for my family. My mom always bugs me about having kids, but my job is my baby right now.”
And that baby is rocking the cradle… with Ryan on a run of six consecutive years of issuing a million-dollars in annual volume at USHEALTH Advisors. He’s already surpassed the million-dollar mark in production this year… and it’s only August. The best is yet to come.
Moving forward, Ryan says it’s all about giving back, his time, his effort, and being a beacon of light for others by keeping it simple because he knows the secret to success boils down to one thing.
“The one thing you can control is, be on time, be disciplined, put in the hours, and if you give me that,” says Ryan, “then I can help you to be successful. Anyone can be successful at this and be the best. The biggest thing that keeps me going, especially to this day, is I want to make my family proud and I want to be successful no matter what that is defined as. I want to be able to say I was able to help as many people get to where I am now – or even pass me. I want to help as many agents as possible become million dollar producers. My personal accolades at this point, it’s not that exciting really. But what really keeps me going, especially these days is, “Hey, this agent on my team hit the big milestone of $250,000 AV in their first 13 weeks. This agent is a million dollar producer and so on.”
“I want to be able to have as many people as possible stick with this company for the long term and see great success. That’s kind of what I pride myself on. I want to be able to have the largest amount of agents who’ve been here the longest time – and are able to accomplish their dreams and see what type of family we are – that’s my one thing.”
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Your Storyteller,
Mark Brodinsky
