I love Jonny Burgess! Even if he did try to get me fired.

I first had Jonny on the SIV podcast back in 2014. He had just written and published his book You Can Too. The book details his start in the Voluntary Benefits arena and the challenges he had to overcome. Apparently, his kids wanted to eat every day… More importantly, Jonny gave his readers a step-by-step outline on how to be successful too. Hence the name of the book.

Jonny first appeared on the SIV podcast back in 2014. He had just written and published his book You Can Too. The book details his start in the Voluntary Benefits arena and the challenges he had to overcome. (Apparently, his kids wanted to eat every day… lol). More importantly, Jonny gave his readers a step-by-step outline on how to be successful too. Hence the name of the book.

How the nearly getting fired part works is that Jonny was, and still is, representing Aflac. In his book he talks extensively and exclusively of his work with Aflac. He went so far as to put a picture of the Aflac duck on the cover. He also received an endorsement from the Aflac President.

So far so good, right? Well…. here’s the thing. At the time I was a corporate employee of Aflac’s biggest competitor. I put a picture of Jonny’s book (with the duck) on the Success Is Voluntary website. My company lost its mind and threatened termination if I continued the SIV website and podcast. They believed I was “training competitors how to sell Voluntary Benefits.” I reminded them that Success Is Voluntary is carrier agnostic. They didn’t care. So as I wrote about in my blog article “I’m Back!” on January 1, 2018 I’m ashamed I caved. You can read the article here: https://successisvoluntary.com/im-back/

That’s all ancient history and I’m glad to no longer have to answer to Corporate America and work with shortsighted people.

Fast forward to around Thanksgiving of 2018. I came home to find that a book had been delivered. That’s not that unusual as I read a book a week. What was unusual is that I didn’t remember ordering a book. I hadn’t. It was a copy of Jonny’s new book: You Still Can Too. I had no idea he had written it. It was signed and contained a note that I was mentioned in the book! In his book, Jonny mentioned this very podcast and encouraged anyone in the VB arena to listen. Thank you Jonny for your kind words.

Things Jonny And I Talked About

He had no plan B when he started.
He had 8 kids and a mortgage payment of $5,000 per month, yet never missed a payment.
He is more excited about VB today than he has ever been.
You must make your sales presentation real simple, then lather, rinse, repeat.
His employer presentation lasts 4-5 minutes.
You must get the shelf space first and then build from there.
How to create a “milk run” of 200 clients.
Why you should borrow the prospect’s pen.
How to create urgency.
Why working with brokers is becoming critical.