How To Take Better Care of Your Employees with Supplemental Insurance: Mark Beelek - Futura Security Group

SPEAKER_01 0:05

This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me, man. What took you so long to get here? Like actually get on the show. That's what I want to know. Uh, because you wouldn't buy my ass. It took you like a year to finally give me a link. I was like, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I think he's all right. I think we can get him on the show. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm the same way with people here. It's like if you're not around for a year, I'm not even bothered to remember your name. You might be gone in a week or two. So I mean, I appreciate you vetting people. It gives credibility to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, absolutely. Well, dude, thanks for uh taking a few minutes out of your day to uh hang out with me here. Love to tell people's story on on this show. So let's let's back up a little bit, give our audience some context and uh better understand a little bit more about you and and your backstory and what really brought you to present day with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Okay, how far back? Like, you know, all the way to beginning, you know, yeah. We can go to rebirth process.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

If people say, What is your what is your story? Where do you where do you start that?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah, uh, I grew up a poor white kid uh on food stamps and welfare. And uh, you know, had a lot of love, didn't really know we were poor. You know, my family's doing the best they can, love my parents dearly. Uh they were hippies, so you know, they you know dropped out of school when they were 16, screw the man, did the best they could. My dad was a mechanic, and and you know, now mechanics pay decently well because you have to almost be a computer programmer, but back then it didn't. So just kind of luck of the draw. Kind of like my grandfather. My grandfather was playing professional baseball. I actually had a contract with uh the Cleveland Indians back when they were called that. And uh when my father was born, you could make more money being a bricklayer than you could be in a professional ball player. So he hung up his glove, and then you know, lo and behold, then all these people, Ken Griffey Jr., my grandfather was still alive when he was around. He's like, damn it, I knew I should have stuck with that ball stuff. But um, yeah, my dad was uh was kind of my hero, master of all trades. Uh he was a jack of all trades and a master of most of them, and taught me a lot of stuff. And uh a couple key things that kind of shaped who I am and where I am today. One in 1985, when the the very first original Nintendo came out, $99 plus tax, $105 out the door. Told my parents, hey, I really wanted one, and they said, oof, we don't have an extra $100 for that. And I was kind of like, e okay. And I knew $100 was a decent, like it wasn't like, but but it wasn't unfathomable, it wasn't like a billion dollars. So I was just like, that stuck with me. And so I thought I never want to be in a situation where I don't have a hundred freaking dollars for something that I need or that I want. Uh, but you know, that was actually a blessing in disguise because it forced me to become friends with other people in the neighborhood that had Nintendo so I could go to their house and get invited to play and get invited on podcasts. So it gave me some social feel. Yeah. And then uh fast forward, you know, my father's dream since they both, like I said, dropped out of college or dropped out of high school rather when they were 16, was go to college, get a safe, secure job, kind of the rich dad, poor dad thing. And so I was good with computers. He said, Hey, become an electrical engineer. There's a future there. Good money, get a safe, secure job, get good benefits. And then that got derailed. My senior year in high school, he's diagnosed with lung cancer. He's only 41 years old. And he was young, hadn't spread, prognosis good. They hit him with a ton of chemo and radiation and uh and it went away. He went back to work. Then a couple months later came back. So they gave him more chemo, more radiation. And eight months after he's diagnosed on August 21st, 1997, uh, he passed away in our living room in a hospital bed where his favorite recliner used to be. And so uh never took an ACTA safety, never went to college, never became an electrical engineer because that was kind of his dream for me. And unfortunately, my family kind of imploded after that. Um, fast forward a couple years later in 2003, I decided I wanted to be a cancer doctor to help people going through similar things. So I got a job in clinical research, uh, which you know did phase one clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. Now, what they don't tell you is they start you off as a peon collecting human samples. And there's only a few samples you can get, man. There's blood, there's uh saliva, there's urine, um, there's poo. I mean, there's only about a handful of samples you can get. But if you handle that well, then you get to graduate and do other cool things like help facilitate and run studies. You know, but at that point, I was approaching my mid-20s and the timeline of going to school, getting an undergrad, getting a you know, going to med school, residency specialization, that's like a 15-year project. And I'm thinking, oof, I'm 25. I don't know if I want to do that until I'm 40. And so a funny thing happened a couple years prior to that. I uh a friend of mine was selling cancer insurance. And I'm like, what the hell is cancer insurance? And uh it's essentially insurance that if you know bad things happen, like cancer or heart attacks and strokes or accidents and illnesses, the health insurance pays the doctor's bills, but not your bills. So this policy pays money directly to you so that you have cash resources to keep the lights turned on, keep the bills paid, and sometimes even travel and go get better care. And like I was under 30, I'm like, it was 50 bucks a month. And I'm like, holy crap! So you mean if we would have had this plan, my dad wouldn't have had to give his truck back to the bank. He would have had, they wouldn't have had to file bankruptcy potentially to protect the house. And we didn't live on the street, so don't get me wrong there, but it was definitely challenging. He could have traveled to the mayo clinic. You guys would have paid for him to go get the very best care in the country, and he might still be alive. Holy crap! So, and if you don't use it, get your money back, sign me up for that. So I bought a plan, and my buddy was like, Hey, you'd probably be pretty good at this. And I was like, No, no, no, I'm gonna be a cancer doctor, you know, a year later. Hey, you'd probably be pretty good at this. No, no, no, I'm gonna run this mortgage company, which is in 07, which is about the worst time ever to do that. So I watched that thing implode. There's been a lot of implosions in my world. Uh and then finally in 08, he calls me and he's like, Hey, do you want to go get a beer? I'm like, dude, screw the beer. Are you guys hiring? And we had we had a discussion and an interview process, and and I've been here for over 15 years now.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Love it, love it. So, exactly, what do you do? Is it selling that specific product?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, so technically my current rule, you know, I started off as a sales professional, uh, because we do we only promote from within. So you can't teach what you don't know, you can't leave or you won't go. So you've got to be successful there. Like when you say, hey, come follow me, you know, which is probably one of the best recruiting lines ever. The the caveat is, are you worth following? Do you have a track record of success? Can you teach me what to do? Or are you just uh are you just full of book knowledge that you're just regurgitating? You've never actually produced results in the material world. So that's the start of it. And then um, you know, with started field training, small organizational growth, large organizational growth and development. Now I'm one of gosh, 24 agency owners in a company of about 1,500 people. So we we you know, one of the key leaders that runs is probably gonna be about a 95 million dollar company this year with over 1. I don't know, 4 billion dollars in assets. So now my role is kind of more CEO level organizational growth, teaching, training. I'm still in the field, though. I was in the field training a guy on Monday, and I was in the field, got on the board last week. So I still I still eat my own cooking and lead from the front.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Love it. And do you enjoy what you do? Do you love what you do, most importantly?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah, you know, I do. I really, really do. I didn't at first, you know, and that's the thing. I think that's uh, you know, there's this this I don't know what you want to call it, this advice. There's advice everywhere on the internet. It's like, oh, do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. So everybody's like, well, I love painting butterflies, so I think I'm gonna sell butterfly paintings. And it's like, okay, if there's a market for that, but you know, I don't think you have to do what you love, but I think you do have to fall in love with what you're doing. And when what you're doing provides a service to others, uh, you deliver far more value in owning your product than the money you ask for in in exchange for that product, and it provides a service and people are better off. Um, that's huge. And you know, our philosophy is you know, we need to leave people better than we found them, whether they buy or not. Yeah, that could be in a better mood. That could be, I mean, I've helped all sorts, I'm tall, I'm six foot five, so I've changed light bulbs for old ladies, I've moved freezers into school districts. I mean, I've done all sorts of crazy stuff just to be a good steward of the community that we work in. Right. And you're in Nebraska, right? Yep, Lincoln, Nebraska. And you love it up there. Apparently, I mean, it's all I ever know. My parents were hippies, so this is just where I popped out is their hitchhiking across I-80. You know, they only made it halfway across the country.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

I love it. So how what in and and how do you uh how do you get new business? Is it all referral?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

So sometimes, you know, you got to start somewhere, right? And so there's definitely some cold calling involved. And so a skill set that we've developed is taking a cold market and turning it to a warm market quickly. And it's just introducing yourself and doing this dance of saying, hey, here's what I do. Are you even interested in learning about it? And if so, can I show you now or do I have to set an appointment? You know, that's where it begins at its very, you know, day one, week one. Over time, you get to build a network of people, you get referrals, you work with businesses. You kind of we have a saying here as well that you don't find your niche, your niche finds you. Meaning, you know, after you've been here for a while and you you look back and you evaluate, you know what? I've worked with four different brands of banks, and it's all gone really, really well. Let me go target some banks now and see if I can't, you know, follow that trend. And so it starts off as a sales hunter role and kind of gradually goes into more relationship management as you work with these businesses year after year like clockwork.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Got it. Now, you and I connected uh via WhatsApp. Excuse me, WhatsApp just went off here. Apex. You're like, What's that? No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I think we met on the book. I have that in my I think I think my butler in Cancun uses that.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Um, you know. Yeah, so Apex, I've been in for, I don't know, it feels like forever, about uh a little over two and a half years. And uh it's been an absolute game changer for our podcast agency and for you know community building on there. How long have you been in the group?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Gosh, that's a good question. A little over a year. I joined probably June of 2021.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Okay. And has it I mean, what do you what do you think has been the biggest impact of being part of a of a business mastermind? Yeah, that's a fabulous question.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I would say just connecting with with great like-minded people because sometimes, you know, we work we work with people all day long. However, it can feel very, very lonely, especially people don't understand uh what it's like to build a business, what it's like to go through the ups and downs. And so to have some high-level people all in one place, you know, it's incredible. You know, the the average American actually, the average salary in the United States is about 60 grand a year, but I think that's that's uh fudging the numbers a little bit because you have billionaires skewing, you know, people that make billions of dollars a year skewing that. If you go to the median, which is a much more accurate, it's $43,000 a year. Um, roughly only 16% of people make over $100,000. So to get the a high level of people, a high concentration of a high level people all in one room, it would take me forever to find all those people. And poof, I show up in Texas like I'm going to in a couple of weeks now, and they're all there and they're all super cool people. They're humans, they screw up, they're they're willing to be transparent and share. And uh, you know, you you see people that um are at a place that you want to be and they're totally willing to pour into you. And you realize they're human beings, they put their pants on one leg at a time, and you know, they don't have proper English sometimes, and they have bad days, and it makes it seem like, hey, I can do that. Uh, and then the knowledge that you get. And so it just they say a rising tide raises all ships. So when you put yourself intentionally in rooms like that, it's going to expand the boundary conditions of your thinking, and then the the you know, universal law of exposure takes place because once you're exposed, you can't be unexposed, and you're like, oh crap, this is what I need to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I love that. Once you're exposed, you can't be unexposed. It's once you know you you can't unknow. I've heard too. Uh so and that is so true. I mean, I've I've uh I went on a wellness retreat a couple of weeks ago, and um that that was kind of the the ongoing message was like, Hey, you're gonna we're about to go on a journey here and figure out a little bit more about yourself. And the good news is is the once you know you can't unknow.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah, it's like ooh crap. Then it's then it's what do you do with what you know? It's not what you know, it's what what do you do with what you know that that really matters? Exactly. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

I love that. So and how many years total you've been doing? This is all you've ever done.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Oh no, my gosh. I mean, my first job when I was 16 years old, my father was old school too. Uh he said, Hey, do you want me to get your driver's license? And I said, Yes, sir. He said, Great, get a job. I'll buy you a car, just get so I walked my butt down a local grocery store and got a job for like four dollars and fifty cents an hour. Uh, and then shoot, my dad, I had a car payment when I was a junior in high school. It was 140 bucks a month, you know, because he believed just in mutual skin in the game. So, you know, I've done fast food, I repaired copiers. Right after my father died, I had a skill set with computers, so I had to start working and providing for myself. So I repaired copiers for a while, hated fixing people's problems, by the way. Love technology, hate fixing people's problems. Uh, and I hate end user training too. Uh, you know, I worked for a heating air conditioning company for a little while, although that didn't last long. I'm six foot five and have severe allergies, so crawling around dusty attics and crawl spaces, not my thing. Um, what else did I do? The clinical research thing was for a little while. That was probably one of the longest. You know, so it took me a while to find where I really fit in. However, the crazy thing is I developed skill sets and all those places, like in clinical research. We had developed SOP standard operating procedures, so that when we ran these clinical trials, it didn't matter if we ran them here in Lincoln, Nebraska, in Phoenix, Arizona, or Belfast, Ireland, the only variable was the drug. So we had to have step-by-step by step procedures. So now in growing and scaling a business, guess what? I have experience in writing step-by-step by step procedures that are duplicatable. No, the technology piece that I'm able to um, you know, do our website, I'm able to do email might not be the highest and best use of my time. And at a certain point it won't be. But as you're growing and scaling and bootstrapping a business, having these abilities to do these things is awesome. So all these very seemingly unrelated careers and jobs and this, that, and the other have poured into I have a skill set that that is awesome for what I do today.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

And absolutely. And uh that that always just makes the job just that much easier, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Absolutely. When you when you know and you don't have to rely on everybody else, that's great. Or sometimes pay for it with everybody else, you might not have the budget early on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah, absolutely. So who's your ideal customer other than everyone?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

That's tough. You know, the the the real answer is uh if someone could get sick or hurt, get diagnosed with cancer, have a heart attack or stroke. And I mean, so you know, my youngest client probably was 19 years old when they signed up, and my oldest client was probably 84 when they signed up. And I know that's a huge, huge, huge, huge curve. Um you know, if we were to narrow that down, it'd probably be somewhere, someone between 40 and 60. They have a family that if that if something major were to happen, again, 18-month battle with cancer, they have a heart attack or stroke, they spend 11 months in the hospital because they had a stroke and they got to go through rehab. And you know, how would that impact them financially? Even though health insurance would pay all their doctor bills, even though they have disability, which is only a percentage of your income anyway, there's usually an increase in expenses. Uh, you know, someone that that would impact severely, that would be our ideal customer.

unknown 15:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

You know, things they would lose if they were out of the mix for 18 months that they want to help help protect. And again, there's no my philosophy is this too. There's no such thing as perfect products. You know, I have life insurance. You know, if I kick the bucket, absolutely I do. I have disability insurance, but like I said, that's only a percentage of my income, right? And when you know, here's the challenge everybody has a certain amount of money they make and a certain amount they spend. Usually, and again in the United States, it's kind of me, you know, a lot of people we have a negative savings rate, but you do the best what you have. And when major things happen, income goes down. Now it's not gonna bottom out because of the disability, but then the bills don't stop and you add more. There's this oh crap gap that you have to fill. That's what we're designed to take care of.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

The oh crap gap you've got to take care of. Yeah. Yep. This is all mildly terrifying, but uh very informational to say the least.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Well, the challenge is, you know, the the good book says God put eternity into our heart and nobody thinks it's gonna happen to them, right? Oh, yeah, I can see how a Billy Bob would happen. And so it it's tricky to think about your own mortality because no one likes doing it, but it's just it's it's it's about being fully prepared that no matter what happens, we're gonna be in the best possible situation that we can be in. And that's actually comforting in the end. It's terrifying to think about on the front end, but on the back end, when you're like, hey, no matter what happens, we're we're very well prepared. There's a level of just relief, and it's not just one product, it's a combination of products working together. Like, you know, be wary of the mechanic that only uses a hammer, you know. Mechanics use hammers? Uh sometimes when they can't get the air filter off or the order.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

I had a uh yeah, I had a um uh Toyota Corolla that was um beautiful, four shades of uh rust. Uh bought it for like 600 bucks. And uh oh yeah, you invented the ombre look. I mean the Harlequin. That was you. The only way you could yeah, the only way you could start it was to hit the starter with a hammer. And um, I was on a date one time and the little fucker wouldn't start, and I had to ask the the girl to turn the key while I hit the hammer. And uh yeah, good time.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Is that a metaphor for the future?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

I mean, uh I was uh I was still liberated though because I didn't have a car. So that was like my first pair of wheels, you know, after not having a car. And uh I drove that thing silly, literally. I drove that thing into the absolute ground, but I'll never forget. Uh speaking of mechanics and hammers, yeah. That's well, here's the deal.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

The the good question is did she go on a second date with you? I mean, if she did, that might that might be a key. Well, you know, she she did not. She it's a sorting mechanism, that's for sure. You know, when I met my wife, I had a $300 car, it didn't run when I got it, so I had to fix it myself. And that there's I've done that multiple times, and it had the belts were slipping, so the tire made this won, wah, wah, wah. And the faster you went, the louder and the more intense. So it was and so I mean we've been together 17 years. So I don't know what it was, but uh she's able to get over that, which is awesome. She's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Well, congrats. Yeah, I haven't got so lucky in the wifey department, but uh we're I'm staying open. Staying open up and optimistic. I may die alone, but uh I think we all die alone. Yeah, eventually. Yes, yes. Mark, dude, it's been great to hang out with you, man. I'm glad you finally uh found some time to hang out with me on the uh on the show here. I it was uh it was great to get to know a little bit more about the the Mark backstory and what you do and how you do it. So if you're listening to this right now and anything uh has resonated with you that Mark said, make sure that you connect with him. I'll put his links to connect with him on on social media uh here in uh in in the show notes. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Uh, you know, he it's I just gave a speech about this last week. Uh it was just lessons my father taught me. You know, he passed away when he's 41 or 42, rather. Diagnosed 41, passed when he's 42. I'm 44, so like I've now outlived my father. And that's kind of a weird, weird existential crisis to have. It's like, well, what do I do now? And so the the biggest, the the two biggest lessons he taught me is one, life is short, man. I mean, uh, we just all the saw the post about Jesse Lee, man. She's 37 years old. I mean, that weighs heavy on my heart as well. So make each day count. Squeeze as much juice out of this life that you can while you're here, and uh have the biggest impact you can while you're here. And then of all the antics and the quotes and the silly things my father tried to teach me, uh, I learned more by watching him and observing who he was rather than listening to the words that came out of his mouth. So here's the thing, and I know Stuan talks about this is that we are all on stage all the time. And here's the thing, man. We're either an example of what to do or what not to do. So let's, and if we're not intentionally an example of what to do, unfortunately, we're humans, we're sinful, fallen human creatures that have attitudes and bad days. Like we we might unintentionally be an example of what not to do. So just be very, very careful and realize that uh I love, gosh, who who did this quote? I think it's Emerson. Who you are screams so loudly that I can't hear the words that come out of your mouth. So be cognizant of the example that you're setting all the time and make each day count. That's what I got.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Love it. Those are great final thoughts. Mark, thanks again for your time, my brother. I will see you in a couple weeks in Dallas. I'm really looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Let's go. Let's do it. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast at LaunchLab.com studios at the