Sa El is the Co-Founder of Simply Insurance. He is a Licensed Life and Health Insurance Agent with over 11 years of experience in the industry. He is an Entrepreneur, Insurance Educator, and Field Underwriter.
Denis O’Brien [0:37]
Welcome to Episode 212. Simply insurance. Hey money clan a very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth podcast. I’m your host, Denis O’Brien
Katie Welsh [0:49]
And I’m Katie Welsh.
Denis O’Brien [0:50]
So Katie, really fun episode with Sa all about insurance.
Katie Welsh [1:23]
Yeah you know, first of all, whenever I think of insurance, I’m going to say before when they used to think of insurance, I would like immediately get tired because I would think like, yeah, it’s important, but it’s pretty boring.
Denis O’Brien [1:8]
Kate you know the thing is, insurance is one of those things that you don’t really care about until you need it. So you needed to care about it. So yeah, definitely a really important area. And Sa definitely is a person with lots of knowledge in the area and I really enjoyed chatting to him and learning a lot.
Katie Welsh [1:23]
I think I always find it boring because I’m actually really overwhelmed by it. And he really brought broke it down so that it’s much easier to manage.
Denis O’Brien [1:33]
Yeah, I totally agree. So just before we jump into today’s episode, we’d love to hear what kind of insurance do you guys have? Let us know on Instagram. It’s @chainofwealth on Instagram, send us a DM and let us know what kinds of insurance you have. Alright Kate you ready to dive on in?
Katie Welsh [1:51]
Yeah.
Denis O’Brien [1:51]
Awesome. Let’s do it.
Voice Over [2:22]
Welcome to Chain of Wealth. Here’s your host, Denis inspiring you to begin your journey of financial freedom.
Denis O’Brien [2:6]
Sa El is the co-founder of Simply Insurance. He is a licensed Life and Health Insurance Agent with over 11 years of experience in the industry. He is an entrepreneur, insurance educator, and field underwriter. Welcome Sa.
Katie Welsh [2:22]
Hey Sa.
Sa El [2:22]
Hey, whats up guys, thanks for having me.
Katie Welsh [2:24]
Yeah, no problem. So I want to start off the show. I’m curious to know, what, one major mistake most people are making when it comes to their insurance.
Sa El [3:5]
So the biggest mistake that they’re making is that they’re shopping for themselves. That’s the biggest mistake they’re making. So when you’re purchasing insurance, specifically stuff like disability insurance, life insurance, you know, even health insurance, you really want to shop for the people that are going to be affected by what happens to you. Right? So, you know, if Denis if you’re out, you’re shopping for Katie, if you’re going to buy some shoes, you’re going to make sure the best shoes you can find because you know, you’re shopping for Katie
Denis O’Brien [3:5]
Right.
Sa El [3:6]
And that’s just how it is right? The same for my husband. Like when I’m shopping for him. He’s picky. I want to make sure he gets everything, you know, he wants. But when we shop ourselves, it’s like, oh, you know, I get those shoes. That’s fine. I don’t really need anything specific,
Denis O’Brien [3:19]
Right.
Sa El [3:20]
And we kind of treat insurance the same way. Right? So like a lot of people, when they look at life insurance, they’re like, Oh, I don’t really need life insurance versus saying You know, hey, who am I leaving this for? You know, Katie needs life insurance, you know, on me if something happens to me, right, like, that’s how it should be. But we don’t really do that we kind of look at it as something for us. And that’s one of the largest mistakes we make, because then we end up either not purchasing it, or we purchase something that we consider is cheap, and we don’t get enough coverage.
Katie Welsh [3:50]
That’s a good point. I’ve never thought of it that way.
Denis O’Brien [3:53]
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, like, it’s like you say, like, when you buy something for someone else, you do put more thought and effort into it. But if it’s something for yourself, you normally very quick to dismiss it. And sort of be like, Oh, well, I just need the bare minimum. I’m not too worried about anything, but it’s like you say insurance very often is not for you it often as for a dependent or something like that.
Sa El [4:12]
Exactly.
Denis O’Brien [4:12]
So the next question I have for you is how much room do people really have to negotiate their insurance? Are there ways to sort of bundle different products together to make things cheaper, or what is sort of one of the better strategies that you see people taking advantage of?
Sa El [4:28]
Absolutely. So there isn’t any way to kind of like, get a deal on insurance like by calling the company like, Hey, you know, how about $30 a month instead of 35. Like you can’t negotiate, most insurance rates are created and mandated by the State Department of Insurance. So and the reason why that’s important understand is because it means that no matter if you go through a licensed agent, or if you buy online or if you go directly, the rates will always be the same. You don’t pay more for dealing with an agent you don’t pay less we’re not dealing with an agent the rates are going to stay the same because they’re mandated by the state so you can’t really do anything on that aspect. What happens with companies like you know, State Farm and and all those bigger companies they can give you a like a discount when you bundle is because the specific products like homeowners insurance on the more the property and casualty side, they can discount you on that they can’t help you with life and health. So that’s why a lot of times if you pull away from those companies and you go separate or individual, you usually can find lower rates for like your life insurance. But one of the biggest things that people are doing right now is really going direct going online and going direct. Now, while the rates can’t be like you can’t negotiate the rates, but the rates are starting to become more affordable for online direct to consumer type products. So I’ve seen people doing that more often. And that’s kind of been the best route to go as far as insurance.
Katie Welsh [6:0]
So as you were telling us that I couldn’t help but think I want to say it’s progressive with they do like the price match guarantee. Is that right? I don’t watch the real commercial. We only have Netflix. I haven’t watched a real commercial in like, a long time. So they might not even have these commercials out anymore. But they compared different companies to each other. How does that work then?
Sa El [6:55]
So yeah, so the comparison is just basically So each insurance company, their rates are mandated based on a lot of different things. So they have what’s called reinsurance companies. So the reinsurance companies are basically the insurance companies for the insurance companies. So if your insurance company goes out of business, there’s a reinsurance company thats backing it to make sure that they still can pay out on the claims, right? So a lot of people don’t know this. But, um, your insurance company has an insurance company.
Katie Welsh [6:55]
Okay.
Sa El [6:55]
So what happens is that the reinsurance company says, Hey, our rates have to be here and we can only accept this type of basically, we only accept this type of risk. So a lot of times when you go into underwriting, each insurance company has different underwriting guidelines, and each insurance company is able to have different rates per thousand. But they’re all set in a specific state mandated amount. So depending on where they are, the brakes are basically mandated by each individual state. So that’s why you end up getting so many different rates depending on the company where it’s located, and that’s why you can have that comparison because while they are mandated, they’ll still be different based on the pool of customers that they have based on how long they’ve been in business, you know is this is a lot of factors that go into it.
Denis O’Brien [7:44]
So, when you spoke about the insurance company having an insurance company is that like the ultimate underwriter of the insurance?
Sa El [7:52]
Yes, it well, it really depends, but just to give you an idea, so, it depends on the specific company like a lot of these newer companies like Haven Life and Bestow and Breeze and Jetty and Lemonade, right? Like all these companies, most of them are insurance agencies, and their insurance policies are being underwritten by bigger companies like Munich Ray, Asurety, Mass Mutual. So those insurance companies also have even bigger reinsurance companies, right? So they’re not necessarily always The bigger companies that are underwriting the policies, sometimes there just a bigger company behind the veil of these much, much bigger insurance companies. So like mass mutual, will have a reinsurance company. Right? Like, it’s weird to think about it, but they they have one out there somewhere. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s out there.
Katie Welsh [8:48]
Okay, so I wanted to pivot a little bit. Because I remember, especially when I was, you know, just out of college, I had my first job and everybody who is older than you feels the urge that they need to give you like all this advice in like one conversation. And everybody talks about insurance and you know, there’s like 1000 different types of insurance. I feel like that, you know, people suggest to you and you got to have disability insurance. You have to have this insurance and that insurance. What insurances do you actually need?
Sa El [9:23]
Okay.
Denis O’Brien [9:24]
That’s a loaded question.
Sa El [9:28]
It’s a loaded one, but I’ll keep it to 3. For me the 3 most important types of insurance you need, and I’ll say outside of health insurance just because we don’t really want to go down that road. But I would say the 3 most important types of insurance you should have will be life insurance, disability, and dental. Now, you’re probably going to say dental. Why dental?
Katie Welsh [9:55]
The dentist if there’s anything wrong that can really add up?
Sa El [9:59]
Yes, it does. You know, they recently just released a study that showed that bad poor dental health was linked to Alzheimer’s, right? So they have a very big correlation. Also, poor dental health leads to all types of heart disease issues, you know, and worst of all, at least a bad breath. Right? Like, honestly, like people will not give you a second chance if you have bad breath. Like they just don’t do it. And you know, for most of us band, you know, most of you know your listeners there. Some of them are in a world where, you know we’re freelancers and we’re employees and we work nine to five and we’re in front of people and we’re speakers you know all of that can affect exactly how your business grows like people don’t realize like how important dental health is and most of us don’t take care of our teeth because we don’t have dental coverage and you know if we had it and we were paying for it we probably more willing to go because it was like okay, well I’m spending all this money and not using it but not having the coverage we definitely not getting our you know, annual or semi annual checkups and we’re not getting our deep cleanings. Right like it’s it’s kind of ridiculous like how bad your life can be if you don’t take good care of your teeth. There was a whole documentary in the United Kingdom it’s on YouTube. If you guys want to check it out. It’s called the truth about your teeth. And they did a two part series. And it is so amazing like these they did a little case study where they showed this woman with this like two different pictures of her one with like bad teeth and one were like really good teeth. And the same picture showing the different people the version of her bad teeth, people were like, Oh, she looks uneducated. She looks like she smells. I wouldn’t want to know her and the exact same picture with good teeth. People was like, Oh, she looks like she smells great. She looks like she graduated from college with a degree. I would love to be her friend. It was amazing. Like, your teeth are important. They’re both important for your personal appearance and then they are also important for your internal health overall, and, of course, is vain. It is a vain metric. But unfortunately, people look at that that’s something that people look at when they when they deal with you in a personal space.
Katie Welsh [12:11]
I can totally relate to that. Because, you know, when I was younger, and you know, girls would be, you know, talking and it was every girl agreed that one of the first things they look at on a person is their teeth. It’s just, it’s right in the middle of your face. You’re talking to them. That’s what you’re looking at.
Sa El [12:29]
Yeah, its huge. And the reason why I say disability? I think a lot of people get confused when you start talking disability insurance because they don’t really know what you’re talking about, like, Are you talking about social security disability? Do I have to be disabled before I can get it? Like, what are you talking about? Was it just disability stuff? Right? So first and foremost, I like to call it paycheck insurance. I think it helps people understand it better when you say you need paycheck insurance, because now they start thinking, Oh, insurance on my paycheck, right? Like, for me, that’s a better understanding of it. But you need it. Like there’s so many people that are becoming disabled. The statistics for disability are ridiculous, like, over 90% of all disabilities are caused by illness, not accident. And then only 10% of disabilities are work related. So you won’t, you know, you probably won’t be getting workers comp, right like it’s so many it’s so many issues that if you don’t have this type of coverage, to atleast, you know usually covers up to 60% of your check. So if you don’t have that, you know, once you run out of you know, if you work at a nine to five job once you run out of your, your paid time off and once you arrive at your, you know, your sick days, right? Like, like, what do you do then? Right? Like, what happens if you’re ill and you’re disabled and you can’t work? Same thing goes for freelancers. What if you’re a freelance writer and you cannot write, you know, what do you do for that income? Right? I mean, it’s just it’s a big thing like a lot of us are bloggers, you know, you know, you and Denis like, what happens if you guys lose your voice for for six months and you can’t
Katie Welsh [14:3]
I think Denis would love that.
Sa El [14:5]
It’s weird stuff that happens, right? Like what do you do when you’re in a situation where you need income, and you cannot work. Right? Like that’s, that is a huge thing like to, to want to do it to need it and to not be able to do it and to not have an income. And also like what happens with households that rely on a two person income to survive. What happens when that one person’s income goes away? Or a single income family? What happens? Right it’s so many things happen. I think if you start with disability insurance, like, I think it’s a lot of things I it’s one of those hard things because Disability Insurance is something that a lot of people just do not think about. And so they don’t put it in their budget. But I think if you buy it when you’re younger, it’s going to be much more affordable. And it’ll be something you always do that you stay consistent with. And you’ll always have that coverage because this is it’s essential. I mean, it’s essential like over 46% of all foreclosures, on conventional loans. Conventional mortgages happen because of disabilities. People got disabled and they could not pay their mortgage it’s huge.
Katie Welsh [15:13]
So I have a question. And I know from the surface that sounds very like Well, duh, but what is the difference between short term disability and long term disability? Now I know like short term disability is like, not forever, but is there like a period and I would imagine Long Term Disability is that forever?
Sa El [15:35]
Okay, so the difference between the two is basically what’s covered, as well as like how long is covered for. So usually Short Term Disability products will be for like, pregnancy, right? Like being out of work because you’re pregnant, right? That’s just short term is not much. It’s, you know, that usually these products, they have a limit what’s called waiting periods, where you have to be disabled for a specific amount of time before they’ll start paying out. Short Term Disability Policy can have just like a 14 day elimination period where you know, it pays out and is usually only pays up to six months, it usually doesn’t pay out longer than that. A long term disability policy is going to have longer elimination periods. So you might have a 30 day elimination period, a 60 day a 90 day even up to a year. And that just means that that’s how long you have to be disabled before this policy kicks in. Okay. And then what The Long Term Disability, they can last up to a year, five years, 10 years, or you can choose up to specific age options like to age 63 or to age 65. So when it comes to long term disability, you do have a lot longer term period option. Usually the recommended a length to go with is five years like that’s like the kind of like the average is what people choose for a long term disability policy.
Denis O’Brien [16:57]
So you said life insurance, dental insurance and disability insurance. So like I currently work full time for an employer and I’m offered all three of those kinds of insurance. Is it better to decline that insurance and then rather do it yourself? Like does it work out cheaper sometimes, or are you always better going with your employer?
Sa El [17:20]
When it comes to disability insurance, if you can go to your employer get 100% like is definitely going to be more affordable through your employer. I would just say make sure you know try to understand if you have own occupation coverage. And what own occupation coverage means is that so there are two different ways a disability insurance policy will pay out, it can pay out based on any occupation or your own occupation. Now, if you have a policy that has an own occupation rider attached to it, it means that as long as you can’t do your specific job, they will pay out, right, it doesn’t matter if you can do another job, or similar job, they’re still going to pay you out. If you become disabled, only, you know, if you can’t do your specific job. When you become disabled, they’re going to pay out. Now, the other type pays out it says you can’t be able to do any job in order for us to pay out. So it’s important to know what type of policy you have because if you have a policy that doesn’t have the own occupation attached to it, then it means that you could get disabled and not be To do your job, and they will say, okay, well, can you be a cashier at Walmart? And you’re like, well, yeah, I could do that. And they’re like, Okay, well, you can work. So you need to go work at Walmart and they don’t care. If it’s a lower paying job, they don’t care. If it’s something you’ve never done, they won’t pay out if you can actually work. So most employers will probably have that own occupation attached to it. Just make sure when you get when you do anything with your employer, don’t just click the button. A lot of us do that. Read these policies, like it is easy to say okay, what are covering it, you know, whatever. But, you know, usually you’re going to get a, you know, really big discount, but it’s very important to read those policies. So I would say for Disability Insurance 100% if you can get it through an employer, get it. Absolutely. for dental and life insurance? Absolutely not. Your life insurance through your employer is usually only one times your annual income. So if you make $50,000 a year you’ll have a $50,000 life insurance policy. Usually these policies do not go with you when you leave. They stay with the company, the company terminates them, or, you know, they keep them. Well places have done in the past, but they don’t come with you. So it’s not really a good, definitely not a good idea for life insurance because you definitely need more than one times your annual income always recommend up to at least 15 times 15 to 20 times your annual income when you getting a life insurance. And just think about it like this. The reason why I say 15 times your annual income or 20 times your annual income is because if you’re used if your families used to live in all $50,000 a year, and you get something with 10 times your annual income, that means they only have 10 years of your income. If you do 20 times your income, they have 20 years, right so that’s kind of how I look at it. As far as life insurance goes. Plus life insurance is much more affordable outside of an employer you can get much more coverage for a much lower rate. Same thing with dental. I’m not a big fan of dental insurance as much as I am a fan of dental plans. Because we have like dental discount plans versus dental insurance, dental discount plans are you know, the only downside to those types of plans is that they are like a savings network. So you do have to go to in network dentist, however you get savings immediately. There’s no waiting period, there are no annual maximums. So you get to start you know from day one and go in and you know, use it to get whatever discounts you need if you need to get a tooth pulled or just to your regular checkups and cleanings versus dental insurance, which usually has like a 1500 dollar annual maximum. And then you say, hey, I need a root canal and they say, Oh, you haven’t been in the plan long enough. You have to wait two years so that and by the way, that root canal is probably gonna cost you 3 grand, we’re only going to cover you for the first 1500 you have to pay the difference. Right so I’m not really a big fan of dental insurance plans as I am dental discount plans.
Katie Welsh [21:49]
Okay, so let me just make sure I have all that because I feel like that was a lot of information. Keep your disability insurance through your employer, employer and on your own have your dental and your life insurance.
Sa El [21:37]
Absolutely. 100%.
Katie Welsh [21:39]
And dental savings plan can be more beneficial than a dental insurance.
Sa El [21:49]
Yes, and you can use them you can use them together if you have them both but I would recommend you know, honestly like the dental I have a dental discount plan is 9 bucks a month and you know it’s just it’s it’s just it’s a no brainer because it’s like there’s no waiting period, there are no maximums. You know, I dental insurance plans can be expensive too you know, that’s another thing. So they’re they’re called either dental savings plans or dental discount plans. You’ll see you’ll see those two different variations of it, but they’re the same thing.
Denis O’Brien [22:50]
Cool. So what would you say is one of the best success stories you have of one of your clients who was covered by insurance so perhaps something went wrong and they were covered and insurance literally saved them.
Sa El [22:35]
Well.
Katie Welsh [22:38]
Another loaded question.
Sa El [22:39]
It’s hard to say success, right? Like it’s hard to say success just because like, being covered by insurance, like when you need it is usually when bad stuff happens,
Denis O’Brien [22:50]
Right.
Sa El [22:50]
So, but I will say I had a client who we had purchased a policy, it was for them and their grandmother, they were going to pay it there was covering their grandmother. And they had been a client of mine as we would talk on and off for maybe four years. And I hadn’t heard from them in a while and they were like, Hey, I was just calling to let you know I moved. And it was like they they had they basically we had become so cool. They forgot that they actually bought a life insurance policy for their grandmother and that they were paying for it. She had already passed for like four months and they never filed the cliam. They didn’t even remember they had the policy. And I was like, I asked them well like, well, how’s your grandmother doing? I was like, Oh, she passed. I was like, oh, did you file the claim? You know, for the policy, you know, and it’s like, you know, sorry for your loss she was like, Oh I have a policy. I’m like, yeah, we’re talking about like,
Denis O’Brien [23:46]
Yeah.
Sa El [23:47]
How you think you know me? Right, like. So it was a good thing, because they had moved and it was just a whole lot of stuff happening. And it was really unexpected for them to have that, that money. So that was one of my, I guess, you would say, success stories that I that I dealt with. And I’ve also had a lot of the opposite happen. You know, I’d have people calling me saying, hey, my dad died, I found your information. And I just want to, you know, see what we need to do to file this claim for this insurance. And I will be like, Oh, you know, you’re dad never moved forward with the coverage. So, that happens a lot. So that happens more than the other one. So that’s something that people you know, you definitely want to be thinking about. That’s why it’s so important just to get it right. Like, like, honestly, I told both of my parents, I said, if you don’t get life insurance, I will not be at your funeral. And I meant it. Because I think a lot of people don’t understand like life insurance is very cheap. Most people overestimate the cost of life insurance it’s very affordable. Like if you can do your Netflix, and your cell phone bill, and you have your little Starbucks every day, you can get life insurance, like it’s just no reason behind not having it. Even people who say stuff like, well, I don’t have any dependants, I’m single, why do I need life insurance? And I tell them well somebody has to bury you. Right? Are you gonna leave that burden on your parents? Because that’s pretty much what you’re saying? Because it’s somebody who’s going to have to bury you. And that’s what a lot of people don’t realize. And then you know, who has $10,000 just lying around to bury somebody? Right? We see all these young people on this GoFundMe, trying to get life insurance money up for their their kids. Are you Teenagers or these young adults. And it’s like, well, it doesn’t cost anything. As much as we spend now, like we’re spending nation, like as much as we spend now. Like, is really about getting our priorities together and saying, hey, okay, let me get this little $20 a month policy for if something happens to me, right? Because of course, nobody thinks anything’s going to happen to him. Nobody wants anything to happen to him. But I mean, we live in a crazy world, right? Like we just don’t know what’s going to happen.
Katie Welsh [25:56]
So you’re you’re totally right. Because even you know, you can get in the car on going to work like a regular old day and then a terrible car accident can come and then your whole life has been flipped upside down. And it’s completely unexpected.
Sa El [26:12]
Yes, like last year, this this lady was driving to work on 400 North and Georgia it’s a highway and she was driving. her spouse was driving, her spouse left for work. And saw an accident and didn’t know that hey, she she was a radio person and she was on radio talking about this big accident that happened. And it was it was her her husband. He had he got killed by a tire from a semi truck came over the like from the opposite side of the highway came over the barricade and crashed right into to his car. Died instantly. I mean, it’s like stuff like that, that you can’t prepare for that, nothing you can do about it. You know?
Katie Welsh [26:55]
No. Aw that’s heartbreaking.
Sa El [26:58]
It really is.
Katie Welsh [26:59]
I got goosebumps from it.
Sa El [27:1]
Yeah. And like a lot of people don’t know, like tires, kill a lot of people. Like it’s a weird thing. I mean, is I know all this stuff, of course, because I sell insurance. So it’s like, you know, some of us some of the stuff I know is a bit morbid. But like we just did a study on texting and driving. And it showed that 90% of people text while they’re driving, and the same 90% of people think it should be illegal to text and drive. So it’s kind of weird because it’s like, yeah, I think it should be illegal but I’m still going to do it.
Denis O’Brien [27:32]
Yeah, it’s like one of those do as I say, not as I do sort of situations.
Sa El [27:36]
Exactly, you know, and it’s weird like last night. There’s this restaurant called Hattie B’s. They sell hot chicken here down in Atlanta. And me and my husband were coming from there. And we were just driving and we’re behind this car, they were going super slow. And we’re on the highway. And we’re like, what is going on with these people? Like, why are they going so slow and we was like oh okay, well maybe just old person they can’t see at night. You know, we’ve given out all these excuses. So we get over and we drive up and we look to the left and no lie. The girl is literally holding her phone in her hand with her head down driving. It’s so dangerous. And you know, the point of the study, that I did was that if you own a cell phone, you definitely should have life insurance. Because we’re doing crazy stuff. We’re taking selfies and falling off mountains. You know, we just doing all this crazy stuff that, you know, is unnecessary, but it’s dangerous. And a lot of us don’t have life insurance.
Katie Welsh [28:30]
Right. Oh, man. So Well, now that you have imparted all this information for us about insurance, can you tell us a little bit about your company tell us about Simply Insurance. What you guys do?
Sa El [28:44]
Sure. So, uh, Simply Insurance was created from the the idea that I had customers constantly saying to me, you know, after selling insurance over the phone for a long time, customers started saying, Hey, can I just like do this online? Can I not talk to you? Like, is there any way I could do this without talking to you? And so I took that as a hint, like, Okay, well, most people probably want to do this online, like they do the Amazon shopping and all those other things. So I created Simply Insurance to be a place where people can go online, get their insurance education, you know, talk about insurance, teach about insurance, and you can buy directly online. So most of our products like our life insurance product, we have a company that can insure you within five minutes up to a million dollars with no exam. For disability, you can get a disability insurance policy, no exam, no income tax, you can get approved within 15 minutes. Same thing for homeowners, like our, our site is all about the direct straight through process for our customers. So that’s kind of how simply that the idea behind Simply Insurance was start. We started two years ago and more of like the entrepreneur side, you know, last month we hit 6000 visitors. And you know, we were able to clear 15 grand in revenue. So it’s, it’s a pretty good business thing that I decided to do, because when I was just selling over the phone, I was still making maybe 100 grand a year, but it was like 16 hour work days, like literally working for 16 hours a day. Like because I was not a good salesperson. Yeah, like I was like, I knew I knew all the product knowledge. So I had to outwork everybody, right like I wasn’t like this, you know, really, really good salesperson. I found it great over the phone, right like and I knew the product knowledge, but when it came to like trying to convince you to not get off the phone with me – That was , it was not going well. That was like such push over like, okay, you gotta go, okay.
Katie Welsh [30:35]
I’ve done over the phone sales to, and I was terrible. It was hard.
Sa El [30:42]
It is really hard. So that’s kind of where Simply Insurance came from. And a lot of our you know, we we built simply insurance more like a blog. So when I first started is all the content on the site I wrote. So everything is from my perspective is Simply Insurance but it is an insurance blog, because that’s how people find us like no one is typing in Simply Insurance to find us they’re really typing in like how to get life insurance quotes with no phone calls from agents and they’ll find you know, Simply Insurance, a blog post, you know, I created all the content kind of educated myself because that was one of the things a lot of people don’t do is that when you go into anything new, you have to educate yourself first. Like I didn’t know websites can make money. You know, I didn’t know any of this stuff two years ago. So I really educated myself and learned what SEO was learned, you know, writing content, you know, I hate writing, like, I hated it. I hated writing, but I was like, hey, if I want to do this writing has to be a part of it right? So I got all the tools to help me with writing, learn what SEO is, I learned about Fincon, you know, I got involved in all these different things, to put myself in a better mental situation so I could understand how to be educated, and go in there and build it. So I took all my insurance knowledge. And I you know, I edited it to this knowledge of SEO, and I started writing content and you know, it took me nine months before I made my first sale was $120 online, my first commission. Took nine months of me still, you know, putting in tons of hours, still working 16 hour days talking to people on the phone trying to get people to buy a $35 insurance policy and they tell me they think the price is too high. And so, it was a it was a lot of that, but it worked out and it’s all about staying consistent. You know, I was listening to one of you guys podcast and the young lady had on was talking about how working out and staying having a consistent workout is just like having a consistent business. Like if you if you stay consistent with it, it’ll grow. But you know, if you don’t stay consistent with it, it won’t. And that’s really the truth consistency is the biggest thing that allowed us to grow Simply Insurance from, you know, from zero traffic to 6000 visitors to, you know, a six figure business in under two years.
Denis O’Brien [32:54]
Well, that’s pretty exciting in a very big congratulations to you glad here that’s going well and what you have managed to build during that time.
Katie Welsh [33:1]
Yeah.
Sa El [33:2]
Thanks, guys.
Denis O’Brien [33:3]
Money clan. We’re just going to take a quick break, and then we’ll dive right back into the value link round. Kate our sponsor today is Masterworks which allows ordinary people to invest in blue chip art investments.
Katie Welsh [33:17]
You know, Den, I think this is such a cool idea because typically whenever you think of investing in art, you think of the people who are like super duper wealthy like multi millionaires. Now regular old Joe’s like me, and you can invest in, you know, a Pablo Picasso or a Monet or, you know, other huge art names.
Denis O’Brien [33:39]
Yeah, Kate, it really is a great opportunity and at Chain of Wealth we talk about the importance of diversifying all the time. So if you want to have a look at art, it is definitely a great investment to make. And in fact, it’s outperformed the S&P 500 by over 250% since 2000.
Katie Welsh [33:59]
Yeah, I was going to mention that that it’s not just a recent thing. Since 2000. It has outperformed the S&P year after year after year, and it’s a significant difference.
Denis O’Brien [34:12]
Yeah, it’s really cool. The minimum investment is $1,000. If you do have cash laying around that you’re looking to put to use, definitely consider investing. You can head on over to chainofwealth.com/art. That’s chainofwealth.com/art if you use that link, you will skip the wait list of over 17,000 people. So definitely check it out. And if you want to invest in art, this is definitely where you want to go.
Katie Welsh [35:8]
For sure. Okay, Sa so I want to know what your retirement plan was looking like now?
Sa El [34:46]
So my retirement plan right now is really more so of a cash thing. I mean, me and my husband, we haven’t really sat down and kind of gone over that it’s just really saving. That’s it. We haven’t invested in anything yet. Other than saving.
Katie Welsh [35:3]
Okay.
Denis O’Brien [35:4]
Alright cool. And do you have a favorite book that you’re currently into?
Sa El [35:8]
My favorite book has always been Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff. Like That is my book.
Katie Welsh [35:17]
Okay.
Sa El [35:19]
Like 100% is pretty much about not is the book is about in 100 years. What matters, right? Like if you look at everything like that. Like, is this going to matter in 100 years, then you don’t really get mad at stuff that’s unnecessary to get mad at. You don’t really worry about things that should really be worried about, you know, like, Oh, I spilled this cup of coffee on my shirt mad, but will it matter in 100 years? Right? Like, everything is small stuff, you know, in the reason why I like that book is because it really puts you in a better mindset of staying positive. Because I think that’s important. Like, a lot of people, you know, they say they have a positive attitude. But you know, they’ll start the day at that positive attitude, you know, in the day at a negative space, versus maintaining that positive attitude throughout. And I think it helped me do they help me understand that, hey, you know, you don’t have to stress out over every single thing, right? Like, every mistake, these people that they just their day is just like stressful, like they’re mad, they’re upset. And I don’t ever want to get that mind space, right. Like, I always had to say to myself, hey, and it doesn’t mean like, Oh, you know, why care about anything, right? Don’t do anything, right? Because nothing will be here in 100 years, that doesn’t mean that it just means that when you look at situations and you say to yourself, hey, will this matter in 100 years, most things won’t matter. So it’s probably not a good idea to stress over it.
Katie Welsh [36:41]
I like that. So do you have a favorite quote you try to live by?
Sa El [36:45]
Yes. Here’s what I always say. I live by this every day that we wake up, you know, Denis and Katie, you wake up, you shower, you brush your teeth, you floss. you brush your tongue. You know, you get your coffee, you watch a TV, you pick up your phone, you look at your computer, you know, maybe you have a morning journal and you write something in a journal. Everything that we do when we wake up every day, is living somebody else’s dream. Try somebody else’s dream. You know, the company that we’re doing this podcast or, you know, they had a dream that we will be using them, right like the headsets that we’re using those companies dreamed it, we’re living their dream. So if we can live 24 hours a day, and somebody in other people’s dreams, then we should be ashamed of ourselves if we can’t give ourselves an hour for our own dreams. And I live by that every day. I won’t go a day without working on my own dreams.
Denis O’Brien [37:48]
Absolutely love that. And it’s so true. Like when you when you think about it, like all you can really do is worry about yourself, but we worry about everyone else around us instead of focusing on what’s really important.
Sa El [38:0]
We really do we put way too much stuff into other people’s dreams. And we usually put enough into our right like, it’s scary to think about it. Like, when you when you think about it, you say Oh, how long did I stay on Facebook today? Oh, I gave Mark Zuckerberg
Denis O’Brien [38:16]
Right.
Sa El [38:16]
You know three hours of my life today. I gave his dream three hours of my life. You know, but I didn’t get my own dreams an hour. I didn’t get my own dreams 30 minutes. Like how can you even go to sleep? I mean, I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep.
Denis O’Brien [38:31]
Yeah, it’s very true. Sa we’ve loved hanging out today. Do you have any other last parting piece of advice for our listeners. And then we’ll say goodbye.
Sa El [38:38]
Sure. Whatever you do, just don’t stop. Like, that’s the most important thing. Never give up, don’t quit fail is okay. Failure is fine, you know, because you’re going to fail. You know, I failed several times in my insurance space before I got to the point that I am at. So don’t worry about failure, just don’t stop. Because once you stop, that’s the real failure. The real failure is when you actually quit is not when you actually fail at something and move on. So I would just say never stop. Don’t stop. That’s my best advice.
Katie Welsh [39:8]
Totally true.
Denis O’Brien [39:9]
Money clan we’ve been Hanging out with Sa El you can check out his website it’s simplyinsurance.com and definitely make sure you’re covered at least those three basic insurance that Sa spoke about and make sure that you have adequate coverage for everyone else.
