Interview With Agent, Notary & Former Pro Wrestler MARK SIAS

Mark is a notary and insurance agent who describes himself as a “Renaissance man in a linebackers body.”

Watch the interview and find out why!

Discover Mark and Grace’s notary course here —> https://mark-sias.mykajabi.com/notaryprosperityacademy

If the video doesn’t play please click HERE or listen to the podcast below…

READ MY REVIEW OF MARK’S COURSE -THE 1 DAY LEAD GENERATION SYSTEM – HERE…

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TRANSCRIPT OF MY INTERVIEW WITH – Insurance Agent, Notary, Critical Care Nurse and Former Pro Wrestler – MARK SIAS

Host Renee: Welcome to the Quoterscast! Today my guest is a former critical care nurse of 15 years and he’s currently an insurance agent and author he runs a notary business with his wife and now offers courses for insurance agents to get leads at a very affordable price and also start generating them in just one day!

He had a short stint as a pro wrestler uh training under Steve Kerr at Florida Championship Wrestling and he describes himself as, “a renaissance man in a linebacker’s body” and I’ve gotta

agree! So, I welcome Mark Sias to the program today. Thanks Mark for being here.

Guest Mark Sias:

Yeah thanks for having me. That’s uh, it’s funny to hear it coming back at you the other way sounds like I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

Host Renee:

No well you know that’s uh part of the reason why I was looking forward to talking to you because you just sound like a very interesting person I’m I’m telling you this the kind of background that you have and all the different things that you do.

So I’m curious how you all fit this in together because you are now running a business that seems to incorporate all these elements that you’ve been doing for years. You run it with your wife and you have a family. So how did you get to this point and and how do you seem to make it run so smoothly?

Guest Mark Sias:

Those are good questions. I think that probably like going into any service based business as with that background as a nurse there’s an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is nurses do not know anything about marketing whatsoever. And I found that out quickly, but the advantages that nurses are generally very altruistic people and that really resonates well in those service-based industries.

Whether it’s legal services or financial services people can really pick up on your authenticity and then they trust you and then you can create these lifetime customers. You’ve got a good network of people that keep coming back to you and keep referring you.

So, that is something that I’ve done with my wife coming on board me. That kind of resonated with her – just listening to people can be difficult. But just give them the benefit of the doubt because you don’t know when it’s going to come back to you. It’s going to circle back to you but it will and we kind of built their business based on that.

Host Renee:

That’s excellent. I love that. So what made you make the move from – you were in critical care for 15 years which sounds kind of exhausting. Then you made the transition into insurance agent.

You know you’ve said you’ve got to be a very caring person to do what you did for 15 years in critical care. Even as an insurance agent you’ve got to take your clients well-being into consideration. If you’re going to be any good at it, you make it paramount.

So why why did you shift into that (becoming an insurance agent)?

Guest Mark Sias: You know it’s crazy how that happened. Because I was obviously very very

exhausted doing those long shifts and was always trying to do some kind of a gig I guess. Whether it was network marketing or something that just I wasn’t very good at but was always trying.

And the strangest thing happened one day a friend of mine calls me and he’s in South Florida. And then he says I’m selling health insurance and I’m doing really well at it and I just can’t help

but think that this is something you would do good at too.

And I’m like I don’t have time for this man this sounds like a load of nonsense. He’s like no I’m making really good money doing this and I really like what I’m doing. You should take a look at it.

So I’m a naturally curious person as you can imagine; somebody who does wrestling and this and that, I’m pretty curious. You get my drift. You know if you can plant the seed I’ll go take a look. And I looked at it and I thought man I see the potential here for something.

So we, my wife and I, went down to South Florida and met him for dinner one day. And I picked his brain and asked him you know, to show me the money. You know show me this. Is this the real deal?

So, from there I just went ahead and got a license. You know I literally was just studying the courses on my phone you know on breaks at work and got the insurance license. Initially I started with life insurance. Even though I had my 215 I could do anything. I started with the life insurance because it seemed like it was really great commissions. It seemed to me like something that’s maybe for the end customer. You definitely have to sell them on it, but for me as a nurse, it came with what seemed like a no-brainer. Like who wouldn’t want this?

I mean we’re all gonna die. It seems like a you know it seems like a gimme. So I got that license and I started selling Insurance to other nurses at work that knew me and liked me. So, that worked really well. I made a lot of money and I was like, all right I think I’m out of here.

You know I’m gonna go. (Leave nursing for insurance and then become a notary)

I think I’m just gonna go out and do this and all was well until I started running out of people I knew you know. I thought I need to know how to actually market this stuff. So I deep dived into it and eventually found a system that works really well for me. Which was adding on other services that kind of work as a lead generation for insurance. So you can sell anything on the back end. Just find out what they want to buy on the front end.

Host Renee: Okay this is really good, because it sounds to me like you’ve sort of created a system that a lot of insurance agents really need but have no idea how to develop. So, and I know you have a course, can you give us sort of an overview? If somebody starts to come into your sphere and they’re thinking about the course and they’ve started in insurance – I’ve only been as a licensed life and health insurance agent for less than a year. So how would you advise somebody like me if

I was interested?

Guest Mark Sias:

Okay, so one of the things obviously mentioned that I’m a notary. And one of the things that kind of just struck me one morning when I was waking up is that the people who are looking into health insurance or even Medicare or Medicare insurance or life insurance, they are kind of in that phase of their life which is a similar Avatar to the person who is looking to have their wills notarized. And another needs retirement documents taken to a notary.

So, if they come to me for this and then they like me and I’ve already kind of got this relationship established with them. If I wasn’t selling insurance they might even go as far as to ask me if I would recommend an insurance agent. I do. I recommend me as an insurance agent.

Or if it’s outside my scope, if it’s annuities then I do have a set up, you know, arrangements with other agents agents. So that is kind of how that works. I call it, like in digital marketing, they call it a tripwire offer or a hook.

So my notary commissions are just a hook. It’s the doorway. It’s like the gateway to get people to have a conversation with you.

A lot of times if they know you are an insurance agent and you just lead with that there’s a wall that goes up immediately. Just like when your friend gets into a network marketing thing and then they message you and they’re like hey are you taking vitamins you’re like wait just a minute you know hold up and it may be really good stuff, but you’ve already kind of got a wall up.

And the same thing is if I was calling somebody on the phone as a Medicare agent or a life insurance agent they’re going to be like you got some quotes? I’ve already got this or that, but if

they come to me because they need me to authenticate paperwork then I start going what are you doing with all this? And what are you doing with this? Just asking them questions and that’s one of the processes.

Now you can do when we teach just marketing just placing online ads and kind of some of the ones that work better than you might think they would work, but definitely better than buying a bunch of leads. I’ve been there. I’ve gone broke buying leads. So that right there I would say anybody

there’s some secret sauce. I mean in most states it’s maybe a hundred bucks or less to get a notary

commission and it just use it as the tool that it is to to attract people.

Host Renee:

That’s amazing. I’ve never heard anybody even say anything like that to help generate insurance leads, but that makes perfect sense.

Guest Mark Sias: So yeah, it’s great. Sometimes some insurance agents will come to my web page or whatever like you’re not an insurance agent you’re selling this course. I’m like you need to dig deeper. I keep that stuff buried in the back end.

Host Renee: So with insurance then, it’s still digital marketing and it’s so overwhelming. So

let’s say so now we’ve got the hook, the notary hook, and people are wondering about a number of stuff. How often do you need to go to somebody’s home? How often? Can you do it virtually? Do they need their own website? Do they have to use Facebook ads? All that kind of stuff. So how would somebody start to dip their toe into that?

Guest Mark Sias:

Yes, yes, yes and yes. The right answer, as much money as you want to make as much of that. So yes to all of the above. That’s how it’s said. The way you put it is overwhelming. It’s like wait a minute, I gotta do all this and it’s just – take it one piece at a time. Focus on one piece. Get that working and get that asset developed. And they’re not as hard as they seem.

Especially if somebody will walk you through the process. I will say, like with Facebook for example, Facebook’s a monster and it requires a lot of patience and a lot of playing around with it to see what works. The truth is nobody – I’ve got ads that an ad copy that seems to work pretty consistently – but the truth is I don’t think anybody’s really got it all figured out. I think we’re just playing. We’re just hoping this one works and then if it doesn’t we shut it down.

And that’s the trick is to is to think of it like that… that if it doesn’t work get rid of it try something else…

But be patient with it until you find something that’s going to work for you. When it comes to those paid ads, websites yeah you should try it.

One thing is a lot of insurance agents don’t do is just create their own Google listing. Your own local listing and with your local listing for insurance by all means add your notary service to it too. Because they may not come to you for the insurance, but they may come to you for the notary. But they know in their mind that you also do this. So once they meet they’ll probably ask.

I’ve had so many people just ask me about insurance because like I see you also do insurance and I’m like as a matter of fact I do. So it’s as simple as that. That’s just a little trick to that whole Google thing if you have a Google Map listing. It can say you can come right out.

Say you’re an insurance agent but that you also offer notary services. You’re just going to attract people that are looking for the notary service. But you have to remember they’re in the same phase of their life as the person looking to get enrolled in Medicare or the person who just bought a

home and just had a kid who probably is in their mind going – yeah I probably need to get the life insurance thing worked out too.

So it’s just a matter of having the conversation and they’re way more into the conversation with you once they’ve met you and they’ve done transactions with you, right.

Host Renee:

So, now I know that on your website, I noticed that you and your wife have the notary service and it’s very mobile. So, I’m wondering do you go to people’s homes and offices or is it virtual how does that work for you?

Guest Mark Sias: So it’s both. So we can do online notary work. We can do Virtual Document Services. Then we can you know right from there, if there’s a conversation about insurance, we go right into it. If there’s nothing there then fine, but the great thing about that is there’s always a revenue source coming from somewhere. Regardless of whatever it is, but yeah, so we do the

mobile service too.

Again you’ll find people that don’t want to get up and go to an office or a UPS store or a bank and they want you to come to them. At the same time it’s important you know the same is true of insurance. There are insurance agents here in town that have their office and their customers come to them and then there’s field agents like us and I’m basically a hybrid. I say why not be a hybrid if you can if you can. If you can make that work do it.

Just schedule your day out. That’s the hardest part is meticulously scheduling your calendar

for whether you’ve got to be somewhere or something is coming to you right.

Host Renee:

Right, right. And I would think that for a notary service you probably don’t get as many cancellations as you would for an insurance appointment. Is that correct?

Guest Mark Sias: You definitely don’t because they are usually in a position where they really need your service and so that’s not the case. And like I said from there you can basically do a fact find impromptu. When they get there you know and just find out where they are, who they know, and by all means if they’re not in the market at all you can still hand them your card.

Let them know what you do and ask them for referrals. And you’d be surprised when one comes up you know, right?

Host Renee:

So do you do a lot of relationship building say with lawyers and such so that you can get referrals from them?

Guest Mark Sias: Yes, yes absolutely. Absolutely. And I would say for an insurance agent, especially if you’re an insurance agent who’s a notary, the estate attorneys, they’re going to need your service. But they are also a good source of customers for your insurance because if they’re doing estate planning, what you offer is part of estate planning. So they can be a good source of that too.

So there’s just another way to collaborate or network or I call it strategic partnering. I’m going to send people your way that maybe I’ve just finished insurance stuff with and you send people you just finished the state stuff with. We just go back and forth you know.

Host Renee:

Yeah, excellent. What about CPAs? Same thing?

Guest Mark Sias: Some stuff I do is slightly competitive with CPAs. Now I do do some tax preparation, but I’m mainly doing individual tax preparation. Those are actually good. That’s a good avatar for your term life insurance, but CPAs are usually doing very complex stuff.

So in an aspect I do have a CPA or an enrolled agent that I refer a lot of people to who come to me that want tax preparation. And no, you don’t need tax preparation units. Somebody who’s qualified is not going to group this up and so I’ll send them and vice versa.

So it’s another one of those persons who’s in that financial service or legal service. You could even call that a great networking opportunity. And one of the things is, I don’t really mind legal services and financial services. They mesh very well together. They’re a good marriage, right. So you use that and be aware of that.

Host Renee:

Okay, so let’s talk more about your course because I really want to see what’s going on in there. I’ll probably buy it so let’s take more of a deep dive. Because I’m a self-taught digital marketer. I built a number of websites myself so I’m aware of a lot of what needs to be done, but I’m also aware of how incredibly overwhelming and how much time it can take. Especially when you don’t really know what you’re doing. Even when you do know what you’re doing technology just doesn’t always cooperate. So what are some of the first things that I would learn from you if I took your course?

Guest Mark Sias:

Okay, so yeah let’s go through it so the first thing obviously is what we just talked about. Hey look a this notary is an easy win right? I go through the various steps and I’m gonna say simplistic understanding of the sales

process. Just understanding how you’re presenting yourself as an advisor rather than somebody who’s trying to get a commission. So that’s very basic. It’s just kind of how to position yourself.

So from there I basically jump right into the digital marketing. I divide that up between organic stuff and basically free stuff and paid stuff. Now with organic stuff a couple of things that I do and I recommend people should do is you should have a YouTube account. You don’t have to be a YouTube Star but there’s absolutely no reason in the world why you should not make a video. One that mentions the services you offer with your contact information.

Put that thing out there because Google loves YouTube and YouTube will show up on Google.

And if somebody is looking for words that are services that you offer there’s a good chance you’re gonna pop right there and that’s a freebie. I mean you can set up a simple video. You could even do an AI generated video which sounds scary maybe to some people but it’s really just a matter of you putting words into a program that spits out a video.

Like pick three for example. That would be a good example of that. And you make an artificial intelligence video on insurance or notary and upload that video to YouTube. You then have to be mindful. I explain some of this – that you’ve got to be mindful of what are the words that I’m putting on here. What am I telling Google because Google loves words. What are the words I’m putting out here?

Well the words should be that service. And you can make a video for each service if you’ve got final expense

if you’ve got Medicare even. If the brand Humana, I mean just make a video you know because once you’re done with them and that’s a little tedious but once they’re up there and they’re brewing they’re staying. You know the view count’s just going to keep climbing.

So, if you do that especially if you do that in a location because Google also favors locations.

So if I’m in Port Orange Florida and I type in life insurance and you’ve got a YouTube video, it’s going to serve that up. Even though they were looking for life insurance the big players are going to show up of course. Mutual of Omaha, all the ones that dominate the internet, but you’re going to show up in there too because Google’s going to serve up local results. And that could cost you nothing.

Host Renee:

Okay this is a really good point. So for people who don’t understand what you mean by the words, those are keywords and what you’re talking about, everything that you just said is search engine optimization SEO. And that is what I love about this. That it works forever, basically. Once you get that content up it keeps attracting search engines and it’s free and that’s something that I think a lot of people don’t understand.

I know I’m under the conception that SEO sometimes takes quite a long time to kick in and I’m wondering if you can speak to that because in your course you say you can start generating these leads the next day. So how does that work?

Guest Mark Sias:

When SEO normally takes a long time it’s because it takes a long time with long form content – like blogs. It doesn’t take a long time if you are using long chain keywords. Especially with YouTube Google loves YouTube so if you make a YouTube video today that is, we’ll just say life insurance quotes near me or free life insurance quotes near me… you don’t have to put near me, but I would do it anyway. Your phone number right in the title so they don’t even have to watch the video. They’re going to that video will show up tomorrow.

Because Google loves YouTube – Google is YouTube so it’s always going to Favor YouTube…

Right? So the idea is what you should think of is everything that I touch on the internet, whether it’s my personal Facebook page or it’s a YouTube video make it a landing page. Make it a call to action. Get your contact info out there. You know make it part of everything. As a landing page every YouTube video is a landing page. Every Facebook profile should look like a landing page.

They should be able to click on your photo and when they click on your photo there’s a URL in there – get free quotes from me – and it drives them to you. I got a quote you should get a quote, I mean they work pretty well, but it doesn’t happen if you don’t have it. Just have it clicked on to send them to a place where they can send

you an email or call you right?

You know even on your Facebook page you’ve got people – what I call trolls – there’s people you don’t know and will never know that are kind. They’re trolling your Facebook page, your LinkedIn page, whatever. Make sure that they know how to get a hold of you.

Host Renee:

That’s a good point. All right so for some people this still might sound overwhelming. Do you recommend hiring freelancers to help or should they learn it themselves? If so or if not what are the basics that you would suggest someone learn to do it themselves?

Guest Mark Sias:

So yeah, some of that, with the YouTube thing, I think anybody could probably do it. Especially if they see a tutorial on it. So with Freelancers yes I mean I hire them off of Fiverr. Although they probably need to come with a warning – don’t pay anybody outside of Fiverr because your money will disappear. And keep track of who you’re using because if they don’t deliver good service don’t use them again. I’ve used Fiverr. I’ve used dialers on Fiverr.

So, I’ve hired people and given them lists and said well you call these people, but it took a lot of frogs before I found a prince you know, because they were awful. They called. They did what I asked, but you know their voice was just, they just weren’t good at what I wanted. So I found somebody who sounded American. They sounded very good and could just set appointments for me.

Host Renee:

So okay great. So that’s what I wanted to to address. You said they sounded American. Which I think is important. I think sometimes people in the US are immediately suspicious of sales calls with somebody with an accent. So again, sourcing is critical because like you said I think this is a very important point – if somebody needs help that way Fiverr can be iffy. I’m looking at time constraints. Do you have agencies that you use as well? Is that something that you can get from the course? That you tell people about where they can go so that they don’t have to go through testing a bunch of Fiverr guys?

Guest Mark Sias:

No I don’t. But I’m showing them everything that I do. So as far as agencies, I’ve had difficulty especially if you’re talking with an Ad Agency. Now most SEO type agencies they’re pretty good. They do what they say, but when it comes to pay-per-click I honestly believe nobody’s going to manage that as good as you will if you’ll learn to do it.

I just don’t think they care. I think they just manage so many accounts that there are good things that are going to slip through the cracks.

Host Renee: Yeah I appreciate you saying that I. And that’s something I’ve noticed since I’ve been in this business. It’s like the individuals and your data are treated like cattle. I don’t know why but they just pass your information around. Like I’ll get calls just inquiring about something and and now I get calls for months from

call centers about the same thing over and over and over again. I think it’s abusive and I think that’s part of

the reason why real insurance agents have such difficulty. Do you see the call center industry changing and if so how and if not do you think it’ll ever be eliminated or at least tamped down a little bit?

Guest Mark Sias:

I don’t think it’ll be eliminated, but I think that the effectiveness of that is probably going to go down. It’s losing its effectiveness. It’s requiring more and more calls to get less results. Even though you know your State Farms (Insurance Agencies) and stuff like my car insurance agent, he’s got four girls there calling all day. So he’s doing it still, but I also know that he has a metric ton of branding behind him. Which most independent agents don’t do that. So those are just little things you can pick up on.

You don’t need an office full of dialers if it’s just you, but you do need to look at the other parts of their business model. The parts that you can incorporate into yourself, your branding, what things I call adjacent services. So

is there something else that would be easy enough for you to pick up?

The notary is the easiest one by all means, but are there other services that are similar that would be easy for you to pick up on and offer that would allow those people to kind of come through your door, come across your path basically, naturally.

Because those ones are the ones that I always say they’re ready to buy, you know.

They’re the ones that are. They don’t require a lot of sales. They just require you to take an order for notary and that is of course, when you talk about organic digital marketing that is the epitome of it. Since you’re offering people value in what you offer is selling for you. Where with a phone call it’s an interruption.

Now statistically the interruption-based things can generate way more sales statistically, but they’re difficult sales. They’re the churned sales. Where the ones that come to you because you have a relationship, they’re not going to get churned. They’re going to be your high value client. That’s your book of business right?

Host Renee:

Right, so how long have you been doing this? Since the time that you left Critical Care Nursing into insurance and developing all this, how long has it taken you?

Guest Mark Sias:

In 2019 is when I started. So in the year 2019 I was just doing insurance and I did figure out how that was when I started doing paid ads. Then I started experimenting with other paid ads and then it was 2020 when I added the notary. I was like wait a minute, I think this will be a good asset to have. When I realized it was not only a good asset, but also a revenue source in and of itself, I kind of focused on that. And kind of put the insurance on the back burner.

Then I was like, well wait a minute, why can’t you just have a cafe of services beyond notary and insurance? Why can’t you just make your own unique agency that is literally something nobody else is even doing. And you can.

Host Renee:

Well good for you! I think that’s awesome. So just one last question here because this has been a great interview Mark I thank you. So what has been your best experience with the clients and what has been your worst experience with insurance clients ?

Guest Mark Sias:

I mean those are good questions. So the best experience I have, and it’s not in the course, I should put it in that course, but it’s in another course. It was a case study that I did of a client that came in just for something simple. Like a simple form would be filled out. Then he came back to have more stuff done and came back to have more stuff done and by the end of that two month period, he ended up getting an annuity.

Mostly because he liked me and trusted me so much. He ended up deciding to go with me. As he had a finance advisor and he wasn’t happy with him. He said I want to take all this money and I want to move it into something else and you’re obviously the guy who if you can’t do it, you know how to get it done. So I got it done.

So that ended up being a fee sharing annuity contract with an annuity agent.

When I do the case study I was like okay look at this. This has started off as a $50 transaction for notary and ended in a $10,000 transaction. That’s why you should definitely cater to your customer, you know. Where that was just the simple notary task and it was a great transaction.

That’s the best story though.

When I tell that story I preface this is the best one I got okay? This is not the daily. This isn’t the daily thing. This is the best story I got.

So the worst and there’s a lot, I mean there’s other ones that are good where you kind of come in and you know I’ve ended up selling the whole house insurance. Like I came into meet one person and just sell them like a Medicare policy or a life insurance policy (sometimes a notary) and it turned out everybody in the house lined up to get it. That’s rare but that’s happened a few times.

But the worst case… there’s a lot of them. I think the most frustrating thing is when I first started out I was buying leads from one of those lead sources and you know paid a lot for them and gosh just so many of them were like non-existent people. Or they were people that were extremely embittered that I door knocked on them right and it’s disheartening.

Especially when you’re brand new and you’re not used to rejection and people being nasty.

You’re like, wait a minute, I paid twenty dollars for you to be interested, I’m trying to help you and I’m gonna get berated. So I thinkI’ll tell you the worst experience. Now it comes to mind, here’s the absolute worst one; I had this list of T-65s you know, Turning 65 and I thought it would be this a certain way. It’s what made me experiment. I experimented with everything.

So I found out what works and what doesn’t work.

I thought well maybe if I take the people in my community and I hand write them a letter that says I want to be your insurance agent you know you’re turning 65. I mailed these out and that worked marginally well. Definitely not enough to scale it up, but I got one call from a guy who was just furious that I had his information.

I’m like sir you’ve got a mailbox full of junk from Florida hospital and everybody else. Were you calling them outraged or were you calling the one who was actually considerate enough to write you a handwritten letter? Because I’m like think about how this looks, but he was just mad. The earful I got from him. I was like man there’s a better way to do this.

Host Renee:

Well good for you for telling him that. I think that’s excellent. So, our time is up this has been really

great Mark. I think it’s going to help a lot of people and I know I for one will be checking out your course.

So why don’t you tell people how they can find you.

Guest Mark Sias: So yeah everywhere. So I do have a YouTube channel it’s actually called the Notary Ninja Show. So it’s mostly about notary. But you can find links to the all the courses I offer. I have a course landing page which is Mark-Sias.mykajabi.com. Now that is a mouthful.

Find Mark Sias courses on Notary and Insurance Lead Generation here: https://legaldocprepnotary.com/ and at https://mark-sias.mykajabi.com

So you will find your way to Insurance lead generation in one day land if you Google one day lead generation you will find it. It will show right up and that course is $97. You know, I try to keep it affordable. At $97 that’s the price of 4 leads (or less).

Then I basically do a breakdown on the mindset of how lead generation companies work, like this is what they’re doing and this is why you get bum leads. It’s because they’re incentivizing them on the front end and then by the time you get to them on the back end, there’s no more incentive.

So they’re mean to you or they’ve resold the lead and if you are the one who owns and controls that lead, you know the source of that lead. It becomes a way more viable lead, right?

Host Renee: That’s excellent. I’m shocked that it’s under 100 bucks. So yeah. I’ll be signing up. So thank you so much Mark. I really appreciate this and I wish you and your wife much more success!

Guest Mark Sias: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much.