RHS 157 - A Rambunctious Conversation on Insurance with Jason Cass

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Speaker 4 Are you ready to get spicy?

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Speaker 5 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 2 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we have an absolutely, absolutely tremendous, tremendous episode for you.
It is a

Speaker 2 catch-up episode with Jason Cass and I. I haven't talked to Cass in a long time, not just on the show, but really just in life.

Speaker 2 The two of us have been so busy, me with Rogue and all the life shit that's going on. And same with him, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, he's growing his agency and got Newton producers, which one of which is his son, and they're growing, and he's training them. And he's always got 10 million things going on.

Speaker 2 And frankly, we just hadn't really caught up in months, months and months.

Speaker 2 So I'm decided to jump on the show and do kind of a catch-up call in general, record it and share it with you guys where we just kind of dive in and talk about all kinds of different things.

Speaker 2 State of the industry, technology.

Speaker 2 We talk a lot about how some of the early calls that we made, some of the calls that we got the most flack for, have actually kind of played out and that our prognostication skills seemingly are at least semi-dialed in and what that means and then kind of position that as to where we see the industry going and how agencies can position themselves.

Speaker 2 It's fast-paced. It's a little wild.
I think you're going to love it. There's definitely some educational value, but there is certainly some entertainment value.

Speaker 2 And these are the kind of episodes that I enjoy the most because

Speaker 2 free-flowing,

Speaker 2 very open, and,

Speaker 2 you know, not trying to pull any punches. So hopefully you will enjoy this.
If you do, guys, just share the episode. That's really all that I ask.

Speaker 2 I know I run a few ads every once in a while on the show, you know, especially at the beginning. That's the next section of what I'm going to do here.

Speaker 2 But really, sharing the show helps us grow the audience.

Speaker 2 Growing the audience helps us get these concepts, these ideas, and ultimately the guests that come on the show, it gets them in front of more people like you. And that's really the key.

Speaker 2 That's what we're trying to do here. I mean, last episode with Tanya Adelson, like, you know,

Speaker 2 she's sharing a message that more people need to hear.

Speaker 2 And if more people listen to the show, the more people get in front of it, the more people sell environmental insurance, the better we all are at our job.

Speaker 2 So, that all being said, if you enjoy this show, all I ask is that you share it. Just would absolutely love that if you would do that for me.
So, okay.

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Speaker 2 uh if it works for you awesome uh also want to give a quick shout out to my man david cruthers who just launched his new book the dirty 130 go to dirty dash the numbers one three zero so dirty dash one three zero.com that's the url make sure you put that dash in there if you don't put the dash in there who knows what's going to come up on the screen but dirty dash 130.com this book and the workbook i got the workbook as well i'm going to be getting it for our entire team um the book coupled with the workbook are just an absolutely dynamic program for producers.

Speaker 2 Just absolutely dynamic. If you're the type of agency principal who feels like you don't have the time, the energy, or really

Speaker 2 the know-how to teach your producers how to be better at what they do, get the dirty 130. And, guys, full disclosure, he's not paying me to say this.
I didn't even know that I'm saying this.

Speaker 2 I just, you know, I'm about three-quarters of the way through the book already. I have flipped through and looked through the workbook.
This thing is gold. Go get it.
Dirty-130.com.

Speaker 2 I'm reading it like an ad, but it's not. I just, Caruthers is my man.
You guys all know that. Love what he does.
I am

Speaker 2 not only

Speaker 2 hopefully a friend, but ultimately a client of his.

Speaker 2 And in so much as I just believe everything that he says, I think it is the way to prospect, particularly middle market, but the philosophies, the concepts spread all the way down to small business as well.

Speaker 2 And we use a lot of

Speaker 2 derivation of his work in how we approach our inbound small business that we do here at at Rogue Risk. So go to dirty-130.com.
Guys, as always, I love you for listening to this show.

Speaker 2 Thank you for listening to the show. Let's get on to this absolutely rambunctious episode with Jason Cass.

Speaker 5 Jesus, why don't I make this easy? God damn, is this my first time?

Speaker 6 Just so everyone knows who's listening, the podcast master guru OG,

Speaker 6 20 minutes late,

Speaker 6 didn't get the email invite, then couldn't find the Zoom link that I sent to him in Facebook Messenger.

Speaker 6 Then comes on muted.

Speaker 5 I'm here, man. I'm here.

Speaker 6 So what's up? Oh, it's been a minute. We haven't, dude.
Ben, everyone's been so busy. You've been busy.
I've been busy. We haven't chatted in a long time.

Speaker 5 Everything that we have done and talked about is here, Hanley.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Remember when we were talking, the thing we'd always say is in eight to 10 years. Remember?

Speaker 5 In eight to 10 years well you know what brother it is eight to ten years and god that we got more stuff wrong than we got right but i'm saying

Speaker 6 it's here you know it's it's i know that that's true we definitely got a lot of stuff wrong but i don't know that we got more wrong than we got right i feel like you and i had today pegged pretty close

Speaker 6 Not exact, but I feel like if you went back and listened to old recordings of some of the crazy shit we said,

Speaker 6 today it wouldn't sound so crazy.

Speaker 5 Let me give you one. Got a recording of me, a live recording of video.
I'm at a country club in Illinois, and I tell them that YouTube will come out with its own.

Speaker 5 This is in 2013, that YouTube will come out with its own subscription to where you can watch television.

Speaker 5 And JDC Insurance Group, because that's who I was at the time, JDC Insurance Group will be right next to CBS if I wanted to have my channel that way.

Speaker 5 You know, but you'll be watching sports on there and everything. And sure enough, here they damn well come.

Speaker 5 I also predicted after Dan Burris that AI would invent art that's never been invented before.

Speaker 5 And just if you look at the Colorado festival that happened like two or three days ago, the guy who won with the artwork, it was completely AI generated. And everybody's in an uproar that he cheated.

Speaker 5 And I'm like,

Speaker 5 if you saw the picture, it's something that no human would ever think about.

Speaker 5 And all how he made it was, it's one of those AI things that you just type into, like you type what the picture should look like, and the AI generates the image.

Speaker 5 Seth Godden was talking about it a couple of weeks ago in one of his

Speaker 5 in his newsletters as well.

Speaker 6 I think other things would be, we talked, we had,

Speaker 6 geez, we had

Speaker 6 the re one of the things that I was, I went back and was thinking a little bit about that we were talking about is how this rush of new agencies, startup agencies that's happening right now, which is absolutely happening.

Speaker 6 There's a mad rush of startup agencies, small spin-offs from producers, spin-offs, you know, bought out books from agencies, like to backfill all the mergers and acquisitions.

Speaker 6 We said it's not, the, the, the market is not going to contract. We're going to just going to see young agencies backfill and come in and be digitized.

Speaker 6 And man, you look at like, you know, I'll take an example, like Stephen Turnbull, who's up by me, super good guy, had some stuff go on. He just launched T5 Insurance, which,

Speaker 6 and he's out in the Utica area and Utica, New York.

Speaker 6 And,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 6 kind of hybrid, digital, local coming in. But man, with the tools and resources, the cost of them, how easy it is to spin up some of these things, he's off to the races writing, right in pretty good.

Speaker 6 I mean, he's just telling me some of his numbers.

Speaker 6 I'm not going to share them, but very, very more than respectable, like well, you know, a good production month right out the jump, like month one, putting business on the books, killing the game.

Speaker 6 And like, that kind of stuff wasn't possible 10 years ago. You couldn't even do it.
You couldn't get the appointments. You couldn't get the access.
The tools were too expensive.

Speaker 6 So, like, I look at that kind of thing and say, that's something that we were talking about. Everyone's like, nah, mergers and acquisitions are going to kill the industry.

Speaker 6 And, well, you know, I think what's happening, at least what we're seeing, dude, dude, is that the M ⁇ A activity is creating, in my opinion, and I know a lot of you aren't going to agree with this because your recruiting efforts are absolutely terrible, but like,

Speaker 6 is that it is one of the best times to hire talented people that have ever existed in our industry. There are talented people flying all over the place.
And if you have the ability to offer them

Speaker 6 a lifestyle employment versus the classic, I'm going to bang on you. And you should thank God that you have have a paycheck style employment.
You can get amazing people throughout the country.

Speaker 6 Absolutely amazing. I mean,

Speaker 6 it's, it's, it's wild. I mean, it's, it's absolutely wild.

Speaker 5 So I knew we hired in January of 2021. I actually talked to him in December of 2020.
He worked for Amtrak, been with Amtrak for about eight years. They elevated him up.
He got into admin.

Speaker 5 They moved him way up. He's been a friend of mine since we were in high school.
We actually play golf together as a big guys group, one of those kind of guys, right?

Speaker 5 And we hired him as personal line sales. He took literally a 75% pay cut.
He's 41 years old. He's got a new baby coming at the time.

Speaker 5 18 months later, we just promoted him to COO of, I mean, of all every freaking company that Travis and I have because he's absolutely unbelievable.

Speaker 5 And when we went to hire him, we really didn't have the money to hire him because we had just hired a CSR to help take care of some of the help us on our commercial side.

Speaker 5 So it came about, but you know, that's sometimes where you just got to figure it out. And we did.
And now the

Speaker 5 you use the word talented people. I have been using this word just for about the last eight months inside my agency of capable.
We have capable people, people who have so much experience, who are

Speaker 5 detail oriented, who can take a project from A to Z. Those are the people that we're missing in the industry.
Those are the people that are retiring, right?

Speaker 5 Those are that, and I think it's important because for the sales side, right, you need, you need talent, you need capable, you need experienced, or not experienced, but you need people who are going to go out there.

Speaker 5 I want to tie back to your first point. Got to keep in mind, I started in the basement of my home in 2010.
And guess what?

Speaker 5 It was very inexpensive for me to start an agency, but I did have problems with appointments, like you said.

Speaker 5 But SIAA, given the credit where the credit's due, they're the ones who gave me the contract, that got me the appointments that even though I was in the basement of my home, I was able to do it. Yep.

Speaker 5 I don't know if that's what they still do today. I'm just telling my story.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 5 that was very, very helpful, right? But I was able to do it. I could run my agency for like, you know, $1,500 a month, you know? So, I mean, that's, I, I go to you what your point is.

Speaker 5 And it's a lot easier today than it was then.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's, um, it's wild, man.

Speaker 6 So, you know, I, I, I, I know what you were saying and being kind of self-deprecating and, you know, whatever, uh, just kind of tossing tossing out a cliche to a certain extent.

Speaker 6 But I actually think that,

Speaker 6 you know, and we've also said some waggy shit that didn't happen. So, you know, just in full candidate.

Speaker 6 But I am proud that, you know, and I always, it always kind of hits me when you and I have a chance to talk, just because we've been doing this for so long that, you know, we, you know, we definitely said some things that didn't happen.

Speaker 6 We definitely had some opinions, thoughts, you know, whatever, for sure. But I think

Speaker 6 I feel like, you know, I'm proud of our history and our track record of calling out trends and things that are coming down the pipe.

Speaker 6 And I think a lot of it, you know, if someone, and look, I'm sure you get this too. I get people who are like, six years ago, you said this, bam, bam, bam.
And now this is happening. It's amazing.

Speaker 6 And so, you know, I think the people who follow along, I feel like, you know, it's always nice to just think for a second. And it feels like I'm bragging.
I don't mean to be.

Speaker 6 I just, it is nice every once in a while to sit back and go, hey, we have done the industry some

Speaker 6 level of service and trying to see what's happening and share with people. And,

Speaker 6 you know, it's just, I don't know, it's wild. It's wild

Speaker 6 how much, you know, my perspective, not, it's changed today.

Speaker 5 It's wild how much we doubted our own thoughts.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 So it's not so much what other people were like, I don't know, I don't know, but it was that, I don't know, I don't know that would make us doubt.

Speaker 5 And then the wisdom of those who are older, who we were challenging, were like, ah, you know, so it was so tough.

Speaker 5 And to take, yeah, we did get those wins of people saying, yeah, I did this and it changed things.

Speaker 5 But man, you got the, we also ruined, I probably, and I'm not speaking for you, I probably ruined some friendships in my outspoken ways of being the way it is.

Speaker 5 But hey, I now run an agency that's almost a million dollars in revenue. We did it the way that we thought we were going to do it.
And

Speaker 5 we are growing tremendously with

Speaker 5 some of these producers that are coming on. Once again, as you said, talented people.
Yeah. It's pretty, pretty damn good.

Speaker 6 good you know we gotta start a conversation yeah it's uh it's wild man you know it it's funny

Speaker 6 the thing that i've always loved about this business and we've talked about this a lot is like

Speaker 6 you can do this pretty much whatever way you want right i mean obviously you have to sell insurance i mean that's the job but like outside of kind of the real blocking and tackling that is just the business how you do it.

Speaker 6 I mean, just think about, just think about like, just take some of the guys on the podcasters, Facebook

Speaker 6 Instant Messenger thing that we chat about, right? Like

Speaker 6 every dude there, and it's just all guys. There were a couple of women, but they left because they're not podcasting more or whatever.
So I don't want to be sexist, just this particular thing.

Speaker 6 Correct.

Speaker 6 If there was a female, she would be welcome, of course, or

Speaker 6 non-binary or whatever the hell people are calling themselves these days. Sis, sis gen.
I love cis.

Speaker 6 Something about that term. I just love it.
Sis gen. I don't know.
I've that one. Someone said, I'm, you're a cis male something.

Speaker 6 They used a whole bunch of words. I didn't, it sounded like Latin.
I didn't understand what they were saying. But

Speaker 6 long story short,

Speaker 6 guys in there.

Speaker 5 You're either male or female. I don't give a shit.

Speaker 5 It's one or the other. That's yeah.

Speaker 6 You can, yeah. I mean, I guess that's my opinion.
You can call yourself whatever you want, but in reality, you're one of two things. So whatever.
It's all good. But I do get that people are

Speaker 6 men want to be women, and I feel like they should be able to do that.

Speaker 5 No, I don't get that, but that's okay. That's okay.

Speaker 6 I, it's not my choice, nor is it the way I want to live my life.

Speaker 6 But it would be very difficult for me to say, and this is my opinion on most things, for me to say, I love America because you get to be what you want to be.

Speaker 6 And then tell someone who was born a dude and thinks they're a chick that they can't do that. I don't like when anybody, myself included, shoves anything down anyone's throat.

Speaker 6 So like I, one of my biggest beefs with Catholicism is I don't like that Catholics shove Catholicism down people's throats. Like, that's cool that it's your thing.
It's like kind of my thing.

Speaker 6 I take pieces from Catholicism, but like, I don't like when people are like taking, shoving it down someone else's throat. It's like, it's cool, it's yours.

Speaker 6 Why it doesn't have to be his, it's America.

Speaker 2 Like, right.

Speaker 6 So, that's kind of my,

Speaker 5 we don't have to have parades about it and holidays and throwing it in people's. And, hey, this part of the neighborhood is this.
And it's like, wait, I thought we're trying to get away from that.

Speaker 6 And yeah, it's like almost we're going back to like a segregated society. Like, and not just like

Speaker 6 depending on what but depending on what orientation you are which there's really only two so i'm just confused i don't know the i yeah i just we won't i don't mean to get i mean is this our generation to blame is this the generation before no it's the boomers this is all the boomers fault so boomers this is your fault and the reason it's your fault okay you and i said this five years ago it's because you won't get out of the way retire

Speaker 6 get out we love you We'll pay you your trail fees. We don't want you to die.

Speaker 5 We just want you to get the fuck out and let us make some decisions.

Speaker 6 God damn it. Right.

Speaker 5 You know, decide to take what you built and make it better.

Speaker 6 Or, or don't, you know, start adapting your ideas to a more modern environment. But I think what we're experiencing today personally is that the boomers have stayed too long.

Speaker 6 So this is the counter reaction. This is the pendulum swing reaction to the, to the fucking boomer bullshit.

Speaker 5 They stuck normally.

Speaker 6 They would cycle out like they're supposed to. And the next generation comes in and they're a little,

Speaker 6 you know, they transition things a little this way or that way right left whatever more to the middle whatever it is and then the next generation does the same and unfortunately this the boomer's been around for forever and it hasn't changed and shit is the way you know and then now you have these wackadoos who are responding to the fact that the boomer's been around for too long and it's like we all pay a price i'm sorry boomers i love you but your time has come and gone Boomers have could essentially be a big factor in why we have so much radicalism on both sides.

Speaker 5 I can definitely see that because of what you said, longevity. I've almost said it's like an accordion, right? It just keeps getting stretched out further and further and further.

Speaker 5 But yeah, that's good stuff. Wow.
We just went all around. I think that

Speaker 5 right there was a hat, Canley, or a Canley. A Canley has moment.

Speaker 6 So,

Speaker 6 all right. So, pivoting off of that.

Speaker 5 um that moment hey you see this button i have everybody who's watching this on youtube you get to see this this button and it says l-o-v L-O-V-E.

Speaker 5 I just wanted to just, I was wearing this today, not because of this, because as you know, I forgot that we were having this.

Speaker 5 That's a cold play. Went and saw them in Tampa Bay.

Speaker 6 Oh, nice. Oh, bro.

Speaker 5 It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to ever in my life.

Speaker 6 Really?

Speaker 5 Oh, and I've been to a lot of concerts, but dude, it was incredible. They had these wristbands and everybody had different colors on and you had them.
And dude, they would like.

Speaker 5 It was unbelievable. They wouldn't come out until it was dark.
So they didn't come out until like 9.40. It was driving me crazy.
But it was the most unbelievable thing.

Speaker 5 That's when my wife and I and my son, we took a three and a half week vacation to Florida. I took like five weeks off in the middle of the summer.

Speaker 5 I took the whole month of June off in the first week of July.

Speaker 6 I'm definitely not, definitely not there yet.

Speaker 5 People, young, capable people.

Speaker 5 I don't think.

Speaker 6 So I'm going to push back on the young. So I've just banged on the boomers and now I'm going to say something that kind of

Speaker 6 conflicts with that. It actually has nothing to do with age.
It is,

Speaker 6 it's the it's the it's the antiquated

Speaker 6 hyper conservative boomer mentality that i don't i think has to be retired because i have i have two people in their 60s on my team and they're amazing and i love them to death and i would never want them to leave so it's not i so i i I'm going to pivot slightly off of my very hyperbolic early statements there about boomers and say, it's just them, it's, it's that mentality, that, the cliched boomer mentality which still persists that's what we need to retire and let the next generation figure out really the gen x never got a chance to do anything because the boomers basically just said f you you're never getting a shot so there's like a whole podcast dedicated to how the boomers just like sat on the freaking gen x and were like nope you never get a chance you're out

Speaker 6 and um so but it's that it's the mentality is is the issue not the people and and i so that's what i this is something you talked about in 2010, 11, 12, going back.

Speaker 6 This was the new action that people used to hate on me for.

Speaker 5 No, this was actually something that the boomers liked you for.

Speaker 6 Oh, okay.

Speaker 5 And it was the connected and unconnected generation. You remember that?

Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 You were the one that really started to have the industry look at, hey, quit trying to go hire the 23-year-old to come in who doesn't know shit about Facebook, nothing about insurance, doesn't know how to show how they communicate in the community, community, all the things you need to be pushing in these channels.

Speaker 5 And it made, I think, a lot of the people go, yeah, I'm 55 and I'm pretty good on that. And I'm not a young person.

Speaker 5 So you were, you were really big in that, the connected versus unconnected generation.

Speaker 6 So it shocks people when I tell them that the average age, so average, not mean, but average, the mean would actually be higher, but the average age is 37 and a half at rogue risk.

Speaker 6 Everyone assumes that we're like this young, you know, it's a bunch of 25 and 30 year olds and whatever, and we're this young. That's not the case at all.
Like, cause I don't hire for age.

Speaker 6 I don't hire for whatever. I hire people who have a certain mentality and culturally are good fits and capable and talented.
And

Speaker 6 we're willing to train people. So like,

Speaker 5 don't you think the boomers are laughing at you again now?

Speaker 6 Probably

Speaker 5 37. These people are 60 and 70 and they're thinking that you are considering 37 to not be young, right?

Speaker 6 I think 37. Yeah, I'm saying the disposition.
Most people assume that our average age would probably be in the 20s, but when they get digital agency,

Speaker 6 they're thinking we're super young, connected.

Speaker 6 You know, that's what they're thinking we are. And that's just not the case.
Like, I mean, that's what I said. The mean would actually be higher that, or wait, I have that factor, whatever.

Speaker 6 The average age.

Speaker 5 What does your typical person look like? How much experience do they have? How old are they?

Speaker 6 Dude, it is all over the map.

Speaker 6 So, like, I got Marie. She's, you know, been in the business for 35 years,

Speaker 6 started as a CSR for us, absolute killer, and now handles all our small contractor risks that come in and is a salesperson.

Speaker 6 So I got one, two, three guys with more than 10 experience. I have, we, so we have a, we're basically a.
producer training ground.

Speaker 6 Um, we have a first of its kind, you know, no ceiling insurance career.

Speaker 6 Um, and we've now successfully taken a woman who was in the medical industry, trained her as a new business coordinator, got her licensed. She's now

Speaker 6 hit her numbers the last two months in a row as a select producer for us. And eventually she'll become a premier producer.
And then hopefully someday she wants to open her own agency.

Speaker 6 So, like, we're working the process. We're bringing people.
We brought in another guy from the medical industry, and he's now being fast-tracked to be one of our top service people.

Speaker 6 He just absolutely is awesome. And like, so it's finding the right culture.
And what I'm realizing, and we had a, uh, we lost a person this week because he was not a cultural fit, um,

Speaker 6 is that it's good. Talent is awesome.
And I love talent. And I'm willing to work and sculpt and train and mentor talent all day long.
I'm willing to put that work in.

Speaker 6 But if you're not a cultural fit, if you're not willing to be part of the team, fuck you, get out. Don't care.
I do not care. And

Speaker 6 I will tell you one of the thing, the issue in general um

Speaker 6 that i have the the number one reason people don't fit here and it wasn't that i'm not gonna speaking specifically about the case of the person this week i'm just talking in general right um out loud yeah so i don't want to say that this was the reason for this person i'm just the number one thing that we find with people who don't work here and we've had probably four people now work out uh we've 16 or 17 people total now and probably three or four not work out um had a bunch of interviews where we got to the second or third interview and then punted um and the number one reason is if you're one of those chest pounding producers who thinks that because you produce revenue, fuck everyone else on the team.

Speaker 6 They all need to like bow down and do everything for you.

Speaker 2 Don't want you.

Speaker 6 I have absolutely zero interest in that mentality. I understand that it feels good to like, oh, I'm a producer.
Everyone needs, you know, I bring in the revenue. I don't care.

Speaker 6 I don't, because you know what? I'll go hire an army of uh of people who, you know, we refer to ourselves like the island of misfit toys.

Speaker 6 Like you don't come to work for Rogue if you're a corporate person. Like if you love corporate culture, you do not come and work here.
We just

Speaker 6 miss it.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Like I have a five-year-old tattered Lululemon

Speaker 6 army fatigue fucking long sleeve shirt on. And this is what I'll wear to work all day.
And that's who we are. Like

Speaker 6 we are, you know, I got one woman who wants her

Speaker 6 specialty, her vertical specialty to be adult toy stores.

Speaker 6 Like I got another woman who, you know, encourage that like i said she's she's in her 60s and she's now one of our top producers like you know it is not about what you look like it doesn't matter god you know thank god no one on my team is like a true liberal because that would just not work but like that is tough hey have you read the book culture code No, I know just got just, well, I'm not got done with it.

Speaker 5 I'm about 80% done with it. You should check that out.
It has a lot to do with teams and stuff, shit that kind of blows your mind. So yeah, well, that's good for you, man.

Speaker 5 I really, I really like, uh, that really, really sounds good.

Speaker 5 And I love the fact that you're helping people because that's, I know that of you, but you like Ben Shapiro so much that makes me doubt if you really are trying to help.

Speaker 6 What are you talking about? He's a national treasure.

Speaker 5 I, I, I just, I was doubting you an anti-semite?

Speaker 6 I'm like, oh,

Speaker 6 is that what it is?

Speaker 6 He's Jewish. You don't like him? What are you doing?

Speaker 5 You're taking supplements? You're taking supplements? What? What do you, what do you how do you like him?

Speaker 5 Hey, Hanley, what the hell are you doing on the side of these rocks?

Speaker 6 What?

Speaker 5 What in the hell are you doing on the side of these rocks? I'm flipping open my face.

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah. And I'm seeing

Speaker 6 Gordon Coyle. I'll be rock climbing, man.

Speaker 5 Gordon Coyle. What in the hell?

Speaker 6 You know, Gordon. Gordon came to.

Speaker 5 I'm like, where did this come from?

Speaker 6 He's a badass, like, adventurer, mountaineer. Dude's like crossed the continental divide and done all kinds of wild shit.
I mean, that was like.

Speaker 5 I did not know that.

Speaker 6 Yeah, dude, that was like, that was like a cream puff day for him. Like, he could, he, I was done.
I was toasted, completely toasted. I couldn't do it anymore.
And he's like ready to go up again.

Speaker 6 And I I was like, dude, am I like going to, I don't want to like ruin your day because I'm, I like, I was done. Like my fingers are bleeding.

Speaker 6 I got scrapes all over my arms, my knees, my legs are like shaking as I'm climbing. And,

Speaker 6 you know, Gordon's rocking it out. But, but yeah, he had been, he had been, Gordon had been kind of saying for a while, let's go do something.

Speaker 6 Let's go do a tough because Gordon is my accountability partner. Actually, this morning we had our call every other Friday for like three years.

Speaker 6 We have an hour-long call where we just kind of check in with with each other and push each other and he kind of walks me off the ledge with some of my more crazy ideas i run them by him first then he says like

Speaker 6 bananas or you know maybe that's reasonable and uh so so he's been kind of saying hey come do these things for a while and finally you know with the divorce and everything i'm like trying new stuff and trying to be like find ryan again i guess you could say and um

Speaker 6 I just said, fuck it. Let's do it.
Like that sound like, let's do it. Let's go rock climbing.
It's an hour away. It's perfect.
So we met there.

Speaker 6 he brought another buddy and dude it was awesome i don't know that i would want to do it all the time but i'll tell you i will definitely do it again and it was a blast it was an absolute blast like the sense of accomplishment i mean you're climbing a sheer rock face and like the guide that was with us i mean when i tell you i mean people can't see this but like you are holding on to crevices with your bare fingers that are like fingernail size and you're pulling yourself up on him.

Speaker 6 And like in a million years, I would never think like you could do this. But when you have a guy down there going, Here's how you do it, bam, pull.

Speaker 5 And like, he's like, Look at that ledge.

Speaker 6 That's a huge ledge. Dude, I'm telling you, the ledge might be half, half an inch wide.
He's like, That's huge. Put your foot on that.
And like, it's just funny. And

Speaker 6 so we made it up about 195 feet was the top summit. And it took two, they call them pitches.
I'm just, I'm learning the language. You know, this, I didn't know this.

Speaker 6 So like, we pitched up to a platform about 100 feet up. And then we pitched up to another platform about 95 feet from there.
And, um,

Speaker 6 that was wild because you're looking out over your shoulder, dude. And you know, so we're from where we started the climb, we're 175, 180 in the middle of this climb.

Speaker 6 You're looking over your shoulder, but the valley floor was like 1200 feet down. So, like, you're looking for this, and it just feels like you could fall into the abyss.
That's what it looked like.

Speaker 6 I mean, obviously, you're all harnessed up and shit, but like it was wild.

Speaker 5 It was very, very like, what do you mean, harnessed up, though? Like, I'm thinking, like, how in the fuck are they getting

Speaker 6 like belay on belay, man?

Speaker 6 I mean, and they just,

Speaker 6 I'm just so scared. So, I'm not scared of heights.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, I will tell you that when I got to, so the first three climbs we did were on this kind of like beginner rock face, about 60, 60-foot climbs.

Speaker 6 You just, he, you know, somebody's on the bottom, hold, you know, and it goes up, goes up the mountain, and then there's a, there's a, uh, an anchor hook on top and it comes back down and you climb it.

Speaker 6 And if you fall, you drop about a foot but then the person who's got you's got you and you don't go anywhere okay so who put the anchor on the top he did so the guide climbs all the way up puts the anchor in and does all this thing the guide's doing all this a lot of this for you and then you climb so so really

Speaker 6 you know the first time i slipped off the wall there was a brief moment of i'm gonna die and then all of a sudden you go you could catch yourself you grab back on the wall you keep going so You kind of, in that climb, you kind of learn like, okay, this is fun.

Speaker 6 I'm probably not going to die. Like, this guy's got me the rope, it's all, it's pretty good.
So, we do that three climbs up and down.

Speaker 6 A couple of them were really difficult, but you know, there's nowhere for you to fall, so it's all good. So, this, so that we do that, we stop for lunch.

Speaker 6 That's the morning, and then he goes, Let's go. How's everybody feeling? You want to do more? So, we're like, Yeah, sure, let's do it.
We got the afternoon. So, so we go to

Speaker 6 this other part of the mountain. Now, I'm looking up that 250,

Speaker 6 the very tippy top of this climb would be like 250 feet in the air i mean you're looking straight up this thing and you're like holy how do we get up there so he starts showing us and he's talking he's and it takes a lot of work like the one thing i realized about this is like

Speaker 6 the amount of effort consideration time of getting all your equipment right getting everything set up making sure you're hooked in tied double duplicate there's all these like double checks and acronyms for like making sure all your gear is right on and all that kind of stuff because if you you know you don't want to die if you fall that's the key kind of serious yeah so so this is definitely a serious thing like you're not this is not like a around moment like this is like if you don't do all this stuff you die like that's how it works or you are serious that's simple yeah so

Speaker 6 so then we get up to the first so we so we climb up and you're climbing and we get to the first platform and this one was a little bigger because all four of us had to stand on it it's probably about a foot and a half off the mountain there's four of us on this platform and you turn around and look over your shoulder and you're like and literally like i grabbed onto the mountain like my hand like just went flap and I grabbed on.

Speaker 6 And he looks at me and he goes,

Speaker 6 and he was kind of funny, but he's like, giving me shit. He's like, bro, you're tied in.
You're good. Like, you don't have to hold on to the mountain.
I'm like, I'm going to hold on to the mountain.

Speaker 6 I hear what you're saying. I appreciate that, but I'm just going to keep my hand right here for a minute, you know.

Speaker 6 And then finally, you start to ease up a little bit, but your heart is like whack, whack, whack, whack. And you lose your breath and you get that whole like feeling of like,

Speaker 6 holy

Speaker 6 like, this is, this is, this is wild. And and then you know but the other thing and this the last thing i'll say about it that i thought was really cool was um

Speaker 6 i don't know if you do any like meditation or hot yoga or run really long distances but um what i really liked was when you're in it when you're actually

Speaker 6 feet and hands on the mountain and you're trying to climb the straight up rock face and find the next ledge and you know it's like it's like putting a puzzle together like where does my foot go it's not like there's just steps like it's just the face of a mountain like you have to figure out, and based on your body size and strength, you have to use different grips and whatever.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 you are completely in it 100% in that moment.

Speaker 6 You're not thinking about your personal life, you're not thinking about work, you're not thinking about your kids, you're not thinking about some email you got to respond to, you're not thinking about anything.

Speaker 6 All you're thinking about in that moment is climbing the face of that mountain. And,

Speaker 6 you know, I don't want this to get too foo-foo-y, but

Speaker 6 it is a very kind of like Zenish zenish meditation thing because you are, I mean, how often are we able to give 100% of our attention to something?

Speaker 6 And for that 15, 20 minute period that it would take to traverse one of these pitches, one of these climbs,

Speaker 6 you are not thinking about anything else. You're not thinking about, you know,

Speaker 6 you're not thinking about it. You're thinking just about that thing.

Speaker 6 So you get to the top and you pull yourself up and you have this major sense of accomplishment and your body kind of goes, oh shit, we're not not going to die. So that kind of happens.

Speaker 6 You feel good about that. And then you kind of like realize like, oh my God, like I was in it.
Like I was in it. I was, I don't know, in the pocket.

Speaker 6 Flow or Zen or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Speaker 5 You were in the pocket.

Speaker 6 And that part of it, that was probably,

Speaker 6 I don't know that I would say it was my favorite part because it was just a great experience, but I was, it was. something I didn't expect and really, really enjoyed about it.

Speaker 5 And could be the thing that brings you back, right? Yeah. It's the adrenaline of that, the addiction of it.

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Speaker 5 You know what? Outside of that, that last five minutes you talked about, as you were talking about the rest of it, I thought to myself, God, this sounds like being an entrepreneur. Yeah.

Speaker 5 You know, like, like, you know, focusing and having to every hand, what's, what's dependent upon you. And I mean, there's not like, like you said, there's not steps, right?

Speaker 5 It's freaking like, okay, you're going here and you're going there. And, and, and the person who's behind you is not necessarily taking the same thing, right?

Speaker 5 So you really don't have a ton of guidance. You've got a guy at the bottom who's usually our mentor that says, well, you could go this way and that way.
That's usually the best way.

Speaker 5 And, But at the end, if you fall, you have people like me that catch you. You know,

Speaker 5 when you fall, you got people that help you. And that's the point.
And what's the greatness of the IA network is it kind of takes away that fear a little bit.

Speaker 5 Cause it's like, I mean, you're thinking, let's be funny for a minute. Cass's dumbass is doing it.
And I'm thinking, well, if Hanley's dumbass can do it, you know, it makes us go.

Speaker 6 So, you know, this is, and this is in no way a judgment of her or a knock in any way, but one of the things that was always um space between my ex-wife and I was that she was coming up in a very successful family agency, which she has helped grown and done a tremendous job.

Speaker 6 So I'm not talking about her in any way, but like the fact that no, no, you know, she was

Speaker 6 her mindset was, you know, her next paycheck is coming, right? There's never a moment, you know, that's an established agency that she is growing and do a tremendous job, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 But like, none of the risk, none of the like,

Speaker 6 I'm going to put my hand. Like I would yell to the guy who

Speaker 6 was the, the, the, the lay-on guy, the guy who, who was holding me. Like, if I fell, that his body weight was what's going to catch me.

Speaker 6 At certain times, I would yell to him, like, I'm about to do something right now. Like, I'm about to make a move and I could fall on this move.

Speaker 6 Like, some of the moves, you know, you're not going to fall. Like, you just know, hey, I'm going to pull myself up.
But the moves are like, I kind of have to.

Speaker 6 reach with my left foot way out and pull with my right arm. And if my hand slips, I'm coming off the mountain.

Speaker 6 Like, and you would, I would yell to him, like, hey, you know, so those moments, if you haven't had to, if you haven't had to make those moves, right? If you've never had to

Speaker 6 take a step

Speaker 6 where if you fuck it up, you fuck it up and there's real ramifications. Like your business could be over.
You could take, set yourself back years or months or whatever.

Speaker 6 Like you could lose employees, you could lose contracts, customers. Like when you're an entrepreneur,

Speaker 6 you, those are things you, you do almost on a daily basis.

Speaker 6 And anyone who hasn't experienced it, and I'm not knocking anyone who hasn't experienced it, I'm just saying it is very, very, very difficult to have some types of conversations with people who've never actually had to take real risk.

Speaker 6 Like it today, and honestly, up until Rogue.

Speaker 6 Maybe I had done it a little bit. You know, I'd have like a speaking business.
I'd done a couple of things. I've been part of some, but, but not really, really.

Speaker 6 but after having rogue now it's almost like it's changed me i i one i'm so much more comfortable and i've always been a little bit of a risk taker today

Speaker 6 i'm so much more comfortable with risk and even in things like like god like i hit a couple nice bets on the bills game last night like i bet you did even stupid like betting and gambling and stuff, which I, which I like.

Speaker 6 I like that stuff. I mean, not like I'm wasting my fortune on it, but I do enjoy it.

Speaker 6 uh you know you just start to get a little more comfortable with with

Speaker 6 you know and and the other thing you do and i'd be super interested in your this is really the take i'm interested in is like you almost start to get like this

Speaker 6 risk calculator or risk filter in your head like you develop this section of your brain that is constantly evaluating risk to reward and you almost start to get a feel for and i don't mean it's like an absolute or some like genius no but no we're all start develop this.

Speaker 6 Is that a risk worth taking or not? And you can make that in a snap, you can kind of make that decision on the fly. Where

Speaker 6 before I had to, before two

Speaker 6 years plus of not making a single dollar, every decision could, could blow up the business.

Speaker 6 I got fifty thousand dollars of my own money sunk into this thing, and it's, you know, I'm lighting it on fire every day. Until that time period, I didn't have that.
Now I feel like I do.

Speaker 6 And it's very hard sometimes to talk about certain topics with people who haven't experienced it because you can tell they don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 Do you know what it makes sense what I'm saying to you?

Speaker 5 You know, Billy says it all the time. He says, Jason, the one, the day that you stop selling in your agency is the day your agency blows up.
Blows up, meaning like expands, grows huge.

Speaker 5 And we did that three or four years ago. And I didn't quit selling.
I always had to sell.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I don't sell it anymore anymore. The last couple of counts we've went in, the guys sold it.

Speaker 5 You know, we've got these two 20, I've got two 22, 23-year-olds now um one of them's my son one of them is uh jake jake and gavin played uh basketball together they've won two national championships when they were in fifth grade and seventh grade um and he jake's 6'5 so he was the down low guy my son was the shooter it was fun but jake calls me last year and wants to wants to go to work We uh him and my son, we bring my son calls basically at the same time, but these guys haven't talked in like four years.

Speaker 5 It was just really weird. We got him licensed in August.
We put them through some serious training, put them through David's training, became members of Charles Specht, done the Billy stuff.

Speaker 5 I really got them lined up. Started prospecting around November, December.
They started going and seeing appointments in January. And I mean, these guys have written a little under, a little tad more.

Speaker 5 Well, it'd be a little tad more than a million dollars in premium.

Speaker 5 And, you know, Jake's up there around $650,000, $680,0 Gavin's up there probably around $5,000.

Speaker 5 And I mean, the last account they just closed on 9-1,

Speaker 5 anybody can can call and you can ask. It's a true story, $572,000 account that they closed themselves.
And it was, it was pretty impressive because I was there with them.

Speaker 5 I think there was a couple areas where I had to guide them back to what they needed to tell the CFO, but I was really proud of them for what they were doing.

Speaker 5 And I think, once again, with those capable people,

Speaker 5 I have not, I mean, I really feel blessed like you.

Speaker 5 I feel really good and secure. That's why I'm saying saying that stuff that we said 10 years ago,

Speaker 5 it hasn't made this life easy for us, but we knew that we had seen the right light and we just had to keep going, whether it was people that are in our lives that were making it tough or whether it was the business or the market or, you know, I mean, a lot of different stuff.

Speaker 5 And hey, man, the next in 10 years,

Speaker 5 it's going to be even wild because we know it's going to be data driven.

Speaker 5 right we know that it is the drada driven we went from customer service we went to customer experience I think there's a lot of other customers. I think we're going to customers' excellence.

Speaker 5 I've said in the past, I said this in 2018 when I came out with the great separator, the presentation.

Speaker 5 It's not, it's about finding our customers' unexpectations, not so much their expectations, but what are they not expecting that they need in the experience?

Speaker 5 And I think it's data that's going to show those behavioral traits. And I think that that is going to be the biggest factor going forward.
What do you think, buddy?

Speaker 6 I agree with you. I think data is going to play a large role.

Speaker 6 I think that I think there's also going to be a lot of mistakes that are made with data. I think, and the reason I say that is I think data, data is

Speaker 6 data can be, as much as it can be a boon, it can also be a trap, right? So you can, you can, if you dad, the right data

Speaker 6 analyzed the right way.

Speaker 6 And I'm going to put right in quotes because that's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different situations, a lot of different companies, but just taking that for what it is.

Speaker 6 Incredible. The things you see, the pivots you can make, the decisions you can make, it's unbelievable.
It's absolutely a big part of the future. The days of your intuition alone, alone being enough.

Speaker 6 I still believe human intuition, gut feeling, there's a part of that that is so important, even if just from a cultural standpoint for your company, but I believe it's very important.

Speaker 6 That being said, data used the right way, incredible. At the same time, as we can, as we've seen from some of the startups that have come out, from

Speaker 6 some of the people who

Speaker 6 rose to prominence in our industry, and now where the hell are they? On the back of data is everything, data, data, data, data,

Speaker 6 it can be too much, it can be a trap. You can get lost in data.
And at a certain point, and this is a conversation that I'm super interested in your opinion and love your take on

Speaker 6 at a certain point,

Speaker 6 the data doesn't help. Like it has to be helpful, right? That's the thing is data, people have pitched me data products, data dashboards,

Speaker 6 and I look at it and I'm like, what does that give me? I get it. I think it's cool, like cool that you can do this and this and point to here.
And I find out this thing.

Speaker 6 Hartford is 37% of this part of your book. I'm like, okay, that's great.
But what does that, what do I do with that?

Speaker 6 Do I are you telling what? What is the, what is the action item? I don't care about the data, honestly.

Speaker 6 I give, I give two shits about the data i i would rather god just came down and told me what to do but being that i don't think that would be going to take time out of his day to help ryan run rogue risk better you need to show me not the data but how

Speaker 6 what is the data telling me to do right that's what i that's that's it

Speaker 5 That's where we're going to be in 10 years.

Speaker 5 We will have the software, the behavioral. It's going to take a while to build that.
But I also want to go to what you said here.

Speaker 5 This is actually, if you're coming to IAOA, any of you listeners, this is actually in the presentation. I'm reading this off my phone just to make sure.

Speaker 5 I'm just giving the little notes to make sure the year is right. But in 1997, Watson, for the first time, ever beat a master chess, chess champion.
And no, from that point further, no other

Speaker 5 master champion ever beat him until 2008.

Speaker 5 They found out that a human and Watson could beat Watson. It's about that behavioral of what's happening with the client.

Speaker 5 It's about the agent and how they're going to use that AI technology, that data to be able to meet that person

Speaker 5 in a different type of way. What those ways are, what those ways that are going to analyze that.
That's where I think we're going to say, holy shit.

Speaker 5 I mean, we just had data, but we didn't have anything. One of the things that Nicholas Ayers, I'm going to throw it out there, he said this a long time ago.
He's like, data, data, data, data, data.

Speaker 5 What are you going to do when you get the data? Right.

Speaker 6 And I was like,

Speaker 6 if you're watching YouTube, I'm like,

Speaker 6 what are you going to do?

Speaker 5 Oh, no. And I mean, I could make fun of Hanley too and his pointing things.
But no, he asked that question. And when he asked that at a conference one time, I thought to myself, wow, that is point.

Speaker 5 We've got all this data and we want all this data. What the hell are you going to do with it? What does it mean if you don't have a plan? And kudos to Nick for saying that a couple of years ago.

Speaker 5 And he's right. He's still right about that.
And I think that's what you're saying.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying is that

Speaker 6 it is a trap to think that data is worth anything. It's not.
Data is not worth shit. Don't fall for any trap that data is worth anything.
It's not. It's numbers in a freaking database.

Speaker 6 It means nothing. What are you going to do with it?

Speaker 6 If you can't extract usable insights from that data, it is worthless. It's meaningless.

Speaker 6 It doesn't mean, you know, I mean, I guess if you're being prudent, you should collect as much data as you can because maybe down the line we find ways to make it useful.

Speaker 6 I guess just being hyper practical. But like in general,

Speaker 6 the idea that, you know, you're going to pay all this money and spend all this time for data of its own. And again, this is one of the things that

Speaker 6 enamored me to Seth and Neon way back in the day was that his, you know, I don't. I don't know as much of where they are today.
I'm just not as dialed in for a few reasons, but like

Speaker 6 the original vision of we're going to give agency owners access to their data and then create ways through working together and in kind of a cooperative environment, extract insights that allow us to work better.

Speaker 6 That's what turned me on. What turned me on was not data.

Speaker 6 It was, I'm going to be able to, I'm going to be able to give my people actionable things that they should do to improve our business based on the data. So if you're evaluating a tool.

Speaker 6 And this is important. Yep.
This is important.

Speaker 5 So, it's what you're saying here.

Speaker 5 Seth is nothing more than you and I were for the last 10 years that we would come out with Demo, we would come out with Grow, we would come out with things, and like it was really great.

Speaker 5 And then, like, only a certain amount of people because of the adoption curve, right? And then, in three, four years, five years, everybody was doing it. And Hanley and I like, man, we were too early.

Speaker 5 Yep. I think that's what Seth was.
Yeah. And I believe, like you said, okay, and I'm just using what you said as just an example.
It doesn't mean anything. Hartford's 30% of my book.

Speaker 5 Let's get wild here for a minute.

Speaker 5 When we know that Hartford is 34% of our book, and we know the behavioral traits of that and we can track it, now all of a sudden, when we go to sell our book, we don't sell it at two and a half times or 10 times EBITDA or whatever.

Speaker 5 We now start to look at East Peace. Maybe someone wants to buy the piece of Erie.
Maybe someone wants to buy the piece of Hartford because what's worth one more to the other.

Speaker 5 If I've got $250,000 with Hartford and Premium, who cares? Well, an agency who needs to get $200,000 to hit a bonus this year may be willing to pay a little bit more for that, right?

Speaker 5 So that allows it to separate it there. Now, let's even go a step further.
Let's go into Seth's zone that only a few people have heard him talk about.

Speaker 5 And this shit's going to happen and it's going to be wild.

Speaker 6 Think fan duel,

Speaker 5 but for insurance agencies.

Speaker 5 I believe that there will be a time that we will, Seth does, and I believe him, that there will be a time where data will be transferable so easily amongst agencies that we'd actually be able to almost have like a fan duel to where you could bet on certain agencies and bet on certain profiles.

Speaker 5 It's really kind of cool. But let's take it to what Seth actually says.

Speaker 5 He believes in a stock exchange to where data can be changed and interchanged between carriers or agencies of different carriers to where you could own a traveler's book today, but you may not own a traveler's book next month.

Speaker 5 But yet, because the data is so easily switched back and forth, this could be a, you could have 15 carriers in one simple year based on the fact that they could be different.

Speaker 5 And I own three of yours that you had last year because you built up the small business and we're slow on small business and I'd like to have that.

Speaker 5 So let's just me buy you now and you transfer it over. He's got like this stock exchange idea that's just badouche if you hear him out on it.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I've heard him do that before. I'll be honest with you, and I mean, no disrespect, Seth, if you're listening.
It's one of the few ideas that I completely disagree with him on.

Speaker 5 And the reason is going to be right.

Speaker 6 And the reason I disagree with him on it is because who the fuck services the business?

Speaker 6 If I'm buying your traveler's book this year and you, you know, Bradley buys it next year and then Paradiso decides he wants some travelers and he.

Speaker 5 who's servicing that business you're assuming the same service model that we have today though because it's a good question but we're also assuming the same service model.

Speaker 6 Well, I'll tell you, you know, I have based my entire agency around the bet, right? So, again, this is, again, where I place my chips that humans have to be involved in the process.

Speaker 6 And what you just described to me, I don't know how. So, like, let's, okay, take a consumer, right? So, let's, let's take a consumer in this model right here that we're talking about.

Speaker 6 So, you have the traveler's book. I do business with Jason Cass.
Jason Cass is my guy. Actually, I really don't like Jason.
He's kind of a prick. I like Gavin.
Gavin's the best.

Speaker 6 So, I'm doing business with Jason Yes. Okay, great.
Good kid. Like it.
Good jump shot. Awesome.
Okay.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 now all of a sudden I get a notification,

Speaker 6 you know, John Thomas at Portal Insurance from Bradley Flowers.

Speaker 6 They're now my agent. Who the fuck is John Thomas? Where am I going? Am I going to travel? Now,

Speaker 6 maybe it's a traveler service center. Okay.
I see. That's it.
Yeah, except. Except how do you solve retention in that model, Cass?

Speaker 6 Because you can't, without a human involved in the process, you cannot break 40% retention. Can't do it.
Can't break. Right, but there will be a human.
There will be a human. Who?

Speaker 5 That's like staying a lawyer.

Speaker 6 That's Jimmy Jones, who you call.

Speaker 6 No. Carrier.
Service center.

Speaker 5 There's people that answer and AI.

Speaker 6 Small business carrier service centers.

Speaker 6 Their model does not work. They're terrible.
They blow up. Middle market carrier service centers.
Central has a decent one.

Speaker 6 Cincinnati is a decent Hanover's is okay, but the account has to be big and every line of business has to be with that carrier. So in order for a

Speaker 6 commercial carrier service center to work, and there's only a few that are good and the ones that I named are good, but the only way they're even good is if every line of commercial business.

Speaker 6 Now, for any of you who have ever sold a commercial account before, how many of your accounts have every line of business with the same, with the same carrier? Almost zero. Almost zero.

Speaker 6 Unless you're just

Speaker 5 20 to 30% of ours are.

Speaker 6 Yeah, if it's a single bop, that's different.

Speaker 6 I'm talking about the vast majority or i'm talking about a decent size account yeah 500 bop and that's all they have with no comp yeah sure yeah that's fine yeah yeah yeah you're talking large account not even large just i have a 2500 bop i got 7 000 in comp i got commercial auto if just those three policies there's no way they're all with the same carrier i bet it's i bet it's less than double digit percentage for someone who has those three lines in commercial to all have them with the same carrier because half the carriers won't write commercial auto comp rates are okay so that being the case now i buy your traveler's book.

Speaker 6 So, so now I'm calling the traveler's service center for my bop if I'm a customer, but where's my comp? Well, I call Gavin. Gavin goes, we're not your agent anymore.

Speaker 6 Oh, wait, no, we are your agent for the Hartford part, but we're not your agent for the travelers part. And we, and then, but we sold our progressive book to Scott Howell's agency.

Speaker 6 So, so now for progressive, you got to call progressive direct or Scott Howells agency.

Speaker 6 For your travelers, you got to call the traveler's service center, or you got to call Bradley Flowers agency, but you can still call us for the bop or for the comp you have at Hartford.

Speaker 6 It doesn't fucking work. It's an amazing idea.
I like it as

Speaker 6 a marketplace where I could buy it and it's mine forever and I don't sell it for a while.

Speaker 6 But this idea that you're going to interchange books of business and pass them around like they're securities is fucking bananas to me. That's the one I think of all the ideas that I think.

Speaker 5 I get mad at people who use the lens of today to look back and try to make judgments for and against the I'm not using the lens of tomorrow. I think I believe using the lens of today to look forward

Speaker 5 and not understand

Speaker 5 that you're basing it on a sales model of today that may not be here.

Speaker 6 You're not talking to some

Speaker 6 middle management fucking hack from some large carrier who, you know, has to throw out one decent idea, idea to keep their business. This is what I think about all day.

Speaker 6 I believe in the future, thinking about the future, that you unless, unless carriers go to a model where they are willing to write all lines for everybody. What about their cybercast?

Speaker 6 Where do you put their cyber? What about when they call for cyber? Where does that go? So now they're going to traveler service center through Bradley's Flower Agency for traveler.

Speaker 5 But what you're saying is we have a service center that services all of it.

Speaker 6 We have a service center that services all of it. You're not going to make any money that way.
You're not going to make any money.

Speaker 5 You could have four, you could have five regional service centers across America, and you've got to be part of one of those regionals. I'm just saying.

Speaker 6 Whichever one of your people are listening to this, have them smart this.

Speaker 6 We'll come back in five years and see what's happening.

Speaker 5 No, I say 10. It's because this is way out there.
But, but also, it's like a lawyer. The lawyer today.

Speaker 6 We'll also be flying cars. We'll be beaming ourselves around.

Speaker 5 The parent will be the currency. We're not going to do that because Republicans are holding us back.
So the problem with it is, is that you have to think about that. I mean, how that is.

Speaker 5 We're using a model that is, that we're trying to compare. I'm literally talking about a stock exchange of our freaking I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 5 If we're, no, no, if we're at that point over there, we're not doing the service side. I'm just saying like we are.

Speaker 6 I think it's an

Speaker 6 idea.

Speaker 5 A lawyer who has 13 paralegals today will still be here in 10 years, but he's only going to have one or two paralegals in AI that's serving.

Speaker 6 That's a completely different thing.

Speaker 5 No, no, no, no. When you use that and you use data transfer, you don't have to have 600 people in a service center.

Speaker 5 You can have 10 people in a service center who who are able to out actually route this stuff to where it's not a person saying hey i'm calling jim or i'm calling them that's not the way it'll look like in 10 years is what i'm saying this service model we have now is not working they can't keep trying to cut my expenses and keep trying to put things on me and force me into aggregators and the only way i can get extra commission that doesn't work that doesn't work so i think i'm i'm at i'll be honest with you future we're talking about we don't know Yeah, I'm just saying I think you're wrong.

Speaker 6 I smoke a lot of weeds.

Speaker 6 I know you, I heard you take that pot shot at Republicans. Your boy Gavin Newsom just said, everyone needs to have an electric car, except you can't charge your electric car.
So there you go.

Speaker 6 There's a Democrat. He's one of the top 10.
Where's my mic?

Speaker 5 He's one of the top 10 worst individuals in America. He's one of the top 10 worst individuals.

Speaker 6 This sound right here is me dropping the mic. That's me dropping the mic right there.

Speaker 5 And you're 100% right, but he's the worst individual, top 10.

Speaker 5 He's going to be your, he's going to be your nominee.

Speaker 6 He's going to be a moment. I am a Republican.

Speaker 5 I am a Republican. I'm voting scientists the whole way.
So it doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 That's who I'm voting for. Democrat and Republican clothes, son of a bitch.

Speaker 5 Never voted for a Democrat once in my life.

Speaker 5 I did have a friend when I was younger who was running for state's attorney for Marion County. I voted for Matt Wahlbach, and he's a Democrat, but I think that might be the only time I ever voted.

Speaker 6 If I'm confessing my sins, I voted for Obama the first time.

Speaker 6 I did not vote for him the second time, but I'm not.

Speaker 5 No, I was a McCain guy.

Speaker 6 And I was a Romanian guy. I hated McCain.

Speaker 5 God.

Speaker 5 Hated him. Hated him.
I didn't hate him, but I didn't like him as a president, right? I liked him and who he was.

Speaker 6 Yes. But, you know,

Speaker 6 fine.

Speaker 5 He brings in Sarah Palin. What the hell? I was actually a little excited at first on that.
Yeah, she was hot.

Speaker 6 She's

Speaker 5 she's hot. She was actually smart for like the first week.

Speaker 5 You know, I guess this after she got past the talking points, it was real bad.

Speaker 5 So, but, anyways, no.

Speaker 5 Good politics, good politics. Politics are just so crazy today.
So crazy. It will calm down.
It will calm down. I've said this for the last three or four years, and I changed this, Hanley.

Speaker 5 I said over the last three or four years, there will come somebody, this or someone that will come along and will unite us because that's what leaders do.

Speaker 5 I've changed that in the last three, four months. I believe there will be something.

Speaker 5 I believe there is no doubt a showdown getting ready to come up in the next four, seven, 10 years. That's going to have to, that's going to be a showdown with China.

Speaker 6 World War III against China.

Speaker 5 China, but you're going to have Russia.

Speaker 6 All the, all of them are aligning right now.

Speaker 5 And I do not want that.

Speaker 6 Listeners, I am not Democratic warmongers running the country the way they are.

Speaker 5 And I mean, I do not want this. One of my what I'm saying, Hanley and I don't want war.

Speaker 6 We're just talking about one of my filters for if someone is an idiot or not is when if I ask them about uh who who's a bigger warmonger, Democrats or Republicans, and everyone, idiots default to Republicans.

Speaker 6 Now, if you give me a case, I will not consider you an idiot. I'll just consider you wrong.
But like, when they just go, Republicans,

Speaker 5 and it's like defense spending is what someone would say.

Speaker 6 30 years ago, yes.

Speaker 6 But today,

Speaker 6 not even the last decade, basically, since Obama,

Speaker 6 I mean, it's fight a war to jack up or get whatever.

Speaker 6 It's insane. It's absolutely insane.
Like to think today, if you, if you're looking, the other thing too is,

Speaker 6 and this is my biggest beef with politicians today, this is the, the issue that, that bothers me the most, because like all this like trans and

Speaker 6 ethnic stuff is so fucking stupid. Like we had all this, we were on the right path.
It wasn't perfect. Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying that there was racism or all that shit for sure.

Speaker 6 And all, and I hate all that. I hate it.

Speaker 6 All, you know, we need to do the things we need to do. But like we were on the right path.

Speaker 6 It wasn't until Democrats needed this turmoil and spun it all up into making it into this terrible thing that it is today that it's just so sad because this is such a great place to live.

Speaker 5 Well, talk about how you switched it, though. You said like the warmongers and who not, and I agree with that.
I actually agree with that 100%.

Speaker 5 And also think of the other parts, like the Republicans were kind of the rich, kind of the ones who the rich kids went to school and stuff. And then they all became Democrats.

Speaker 5 And now the Democrats are the ones with the money. And the hardworking guy, which used to be the blue collar guy with the Democrat, the hardworking guy now today is representing the Republican.

Speaker 6 My dad worked for the railroad. My dad worked for the railroad and was a lifelong Democrat because that was the working person's party.

Speaker 6 I mean, back then, the working man's party, but the working person's party was a democrat.

Speaker 6 It was raised a Democrat and then just lived through the nonsense of now all these coastal elites trying to push all their shit down onto everyday people.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, in a day-to-day basis, everybody kind of gets along. And then you watch TV and you're like, everyone hates each other.
You're like, wait a minute.

Speaker 6 That doesn't really seem like the world that I live in. Like, I don't understand.
Come on.

Speaker 6 Come on. Here's my, here's my issue.
This is the issue that drives me the most crazy.

Speaker 5 Come on.

Speaker 6 Where the fuck are the nuclear plants?

Speaker 6 All this nonsense with California, with the power grid, with needing Russia, with needing all this shit. If we look, Gen Fort and do a little, if you're like, Ryan, you're an idiot.

Speaker 6 This is a stupid topic. Think about all the problems energy, all the, I mean, here's another thing.

Speaker 6 Every wind turbine and fucking solar panel that we put up, you are polluting the world just as badly as when you, as when you, except for coal, take coal out of the equation because that's terrible.

Speaker 6 The fact we still burn coal is bananas. But like outside of that, like

Speaker 6 petro and natural gas is cleaner than the fucking lithium and all the chemicals and shit that they have to dig out of the earth to put into all these turbines. Okay.
So all of this nonsense.

Speaker 5 Batteries for the electric cars.

Speaker 6 All of this nonsense. is solved with gen 4 nuclear reactors.

Speaker 5 Do a simple Google search on it.

Speaker 6 They are self-sustaining, self-eating, which means that the waste doesn't need to be stored anywhere. The reactor actually eats, as you feed more

Speaker 6 radioactive material,

Speaker 6 eats the old material. So they self-sustain.
And like, I get it.

Speaker 6 No one wants to see smokestacks in their backyard, but the Gen 4 reactor is about a third of the size of the old school double silo, whatever.

Speaker 6 So like, if we just had a power grid based on nuclear energy, we would be completely self-sufficient. We could probably run the entire country on electric cars, no problem, right?

Speaker 6 There would be no issue. We could all have electric cars.
The cost could come down. And all of these fucking.

Speaker 5 They're having power outages in Texas and Mississippi and California.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, are we a first-wheeler? Those are panels.

Speaker 6 Those are solar panels.

Speaker 5 It's the least efficient.

Speaker 6 It's like, come on. Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 Regardless if it's solar panels or not, we shouldn't be in this situation. It's like, this is freaking ridiculous.

Speaker 5 I hear you. Hanley.
Hanley, we got to get back to our empires. All right.

Speaker 6 Last, final thought. So I'm going to give it to you.
You start. We just went off the rails like we do.
Hopefully, people stuck with us. Final thought.
Let's pull it back to the insurance industry.

Speaker 6 Final thought. It could be anything.
It could be something today. It could be, you know, whatever's on your brain.
Last thought, last thing you want to share with the audience before we get out.

Speaker 6 If you need time, I will go.

Speaker 5 Go.

Speaker 6 I believe today

Speaker 6 that

Speaker 6 more than ever in having hired across the spectrum from, you know, baby boomer age to whatever the hell you call 24-year-olds today, I've hired people within that span across the board for almost every position in the company.

Speaker 6 I believe today that mindset and culture is the driving force. And I know that's not a new thought, but I think it's becoming more and more important as we go remote and remote and work lifestyle.

Speaker 6 What we've seen as as a trend in our agency is that people care less about, so I was taught, and you too, maximize your income potential, get as much money as you can, and then build the life you want

Speaker 6 yourself.

Speaker 6 And what I've seen people want across the board, across the spectrum more than ever, is a good place to work that's going to facilitate their lifestyle.

Speaker 6 And in exchange, they're willing to make less money.

Speaker 6 you know they're not they're not the their first thought isn't pin the income lever as far to the right as you can it's okay, what can I get in exchange for being able to leave at three o'clock to get my kids off the bus, having the flexibility to come in late if my kids are sick or, or if I have to take my spouse who has this chronic illness to the doctor or whatever.

Speaker 6 What?

Speaker 6 So sorry, my computer just did something wacky. Sorry, guys.

Speaker 6 So, you know, I believe that today,

Speaker 6 how we build, how we build culture and work style into our businesses is, is, is as important almost as any other decision as we make, because it's how you get talented people.

Speaker 6 And it's been one of the biggest revelations to me is I just thought everyone wanted to pin max income potential.

Speaker 6 And that is, we are over and over and over again, we are seeing that that is not the thing. And I feel like we've been fairly successful in hiring.
I'm very proud of the team that we've built.

Speaker 6 And we're at, like I said, 16 or 17 people. And so much of that is positioning our business around facilitating lifestyle, not just maxing income.
I mean, obviously, you can make a lot of money here.

Speaker 5 I like the word facilitating. I like that.
That's a good word in that situation.

Speaker 6 Final thought.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I've got a lot. I mean, also to be, to be, you know,

Speaker 5 self

Speaker 5 advertising, I believe truthfully that virtual employees are absolutely essential in agencies. They allow for me, as I said, to be able to go on these vacations.

Speaker 5 But what I think is unique is one of the things you said earlier really kind of helped me with one of the things I've been thinking a while is this unique thought.

Speaker 5 And this is just as an in the insurance industry. I have friends who are successful in the real estate business or own a manufacturing facility.

Speaker 5 And they're 40 and 44, and they're just thinking about selling because they want to take their one, they want to take their five, they want to take their $10 million and go do what they want.

Speaker 5 And it's weird because as the baby boomers have stayed and extended we have been a lot of us have been successful enough that we actually could shorten us which actually will help the generation before in a very unique way i had never really thought of that until you had pinned those those boomers is going out so far And I think that you will see an exodus of agency owners between the age of 45 and 55 that will not do what the boomers did.

Speaker 5 And you're going to see those people do it. And if you do it right and you come in, I'm not saying doing it wrong means you're doing personal lines, but to look at Jake and to look at Gavin,

Speaker 5 they will have a completely different life than you and I had at the age of 25 and 26. Jake's talking to me the other day.
Gavin's done this too.

Speaker 5 And he, they'll say, hey, Jason, I'm working on this account. They're not allowed to prospect anything less than $10,000 in revenue.

Speaker 5 If they got a buddy who's got a body shop down the road that wants them to write their insurance, yeah, you don't walk away from that, but this is what they're allowed to go after.

Speaker 5 And he said to me, hey, I've got this smaller account. We start discussing it.
And I said, well, what's the premium? And he's like, it's not really that big.

Speaker 5 And so finally, I said, well, what is the premium? And he's like, well, the work comps just 50,000.

Speaker 5 And I, at that point in time, I heard Billy in my head about Jason, it's the denomination in which you think of. You've got to think big.

Speaker 6 That's one of my favorite billyisms.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 And it's still hard for me to do that but when you start a producer off with that thought and they get that successful that early that means i get to leave early yeah right doesn't necessarily even mean i have to sell because a lot of these guys will tell me i don't i don't want to be an owner right now i mean they're they're 23 24 drinking at night spending the time on co they're going to concerts freaking five times a week you know what i mean that's what they do they don't want to be a leader you know they don't even want to lead they don't even want to learn leadership skills right now.

Speaker 5 They just want to learn, hey, how do I get the next prospect?

Speaker 5 So I think that there's going to be that. And

Speaker 5 I'm really excited about that.

Speaker 6 But yeah, hey, hey, let's go. Last question.
Last question before we get out. Last question.
Awesome. You're looking super young.
You Botoxin? You Botoxin? What are you doing? You're looking good.

Speaker 6 You looking snice.

Speaker 5 Dude, bro, 75 hard. Right now, I'm in the middle of a 30 hard.
So I'm doing a 30 hard set for the month of September.

Speaker 5 Bro, I went from 176 down to 162.

Speaker 5 I'm starting to you know i'm starting to build mass and like that and what you yeah so no that's what i did i'm not even gonna lie to you hanley i want you to know this this is 1000 the truth when i saw you at brain share in san antonio i was like

Speaker 5 look at that

Speaker 5 what is who's he think he is and see i was getting ready to start 75 hard the next week right and so i'm like You gave me some motivation. I know who he is.

Speaker 5 Hey, guys, if you go back to our Facebook page, go back to 2013 when we are in San Antonio, Texas. You remember this picture we took outside the Mexican restaurant? Look at Hanley back then.

Speaker 6 I was about 210 back then.

Speaker 5 You were huge back then. Yeah, dude.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 You look good too. Don't forget that.
I swing between 190 and 193 now. But yeah, back then I was 210.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 I carried a lot of extra weight.

Speaker 5 Now I'll never forget that picture.

Speaker 6 But anyways, dude. All right, man.
Love you, brother. It's always amazing.

Speaker 6 If anyone was able to keep up with this podcast, God bless you. There should be like an award if you were able to follow along this crazy fucking ADD trail that we've just been doing.

Speaker 5 This was one of the best, I think, we've done in a while.

Speaker 6 But no, appreciate you as always. This is amazing.
You're the man. Be good, homie.
See you, brother.

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