RHS 128 - Josh Gurley on How to Be Brave Enough to Tell People the Truth

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Speaker 6 in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 7 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show

Speaker 7 and happy 2022 to you. Hope you're already crushing.
This is the first episode of the new year and

Speaker 7 you know, 2020 blue, 2021 was an odd year, I think, for all of us. We could say it's an emotional roller coaster of sorts.
I'm sure some of you agree, disagree, but I know it certainly was for me.

Speaker 7 Absolutely love who we're kicking off 2022 with, and it's Josh Gurley. Now, Josh Gurley came to fame with an epic interview that he did.
on David Carruthers podcast, Power Producers Podcast.

Speaker 7 And kind of just listening to Josh talk about the business and how he approached it. I think it's people just responded to it.
It was amazing.

Speaker 7 And I got to know Josh after that interview and being part of the killing commercial community. And then, you know, we've just talked and gotten to know each other better and better.

Speaker 7 And it was finally time to have Josh on the show. And I told him, you know, I said, man, you got an open interview.
You just tell me when you want to come. And he wasn't sure.

Speaker 7 And finally, finally, we got him on the show. And this is just, this is just a tremendous conversation.
I think it is absolutely the right way to kick off 2022.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 Josh is an epic dude. So, partner at HM Advisors.

Speaker 7 Just, you're going to love this one. You're going to absolutely love this one.
Before we get there, I want to give a shout out to the people that make this podcast possible.

Speaker 7 My friends, over at PathPoint, PathPoint is changing the game, changing the game for ENS, making it easy to quote, bind, issue excess and surplus lines, coverage.

Speaker 7 PathPoint's a big part of our strategy at Rogue with the diverse nature of risks that come in, being able to quote, bind and issue ENS business in a way that makes sense, in a way that allows you to get back to your customers faster.

Speaker 7 It's just, it's changing the nature of small business insurance. And we're very proud to represent PathPoint.
Go to PathPoint.

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PathPoint is a game changer when it comes to ENS business.

Speaker 7 Also, want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds, another company changing the game for us. Propeller Bonds makes

Speaker 7 the surety bond business a part of your day-to-day strategy.

Speaker 7 What I mean by that is, you know, bonds can be, you know, if you're not set up for bonding or you're not a bonding expert, surety can be a time-consuming

Speaker 7 item. It's something that maybe you don't offer because a lot of the premiums on bonds just aren't super big and it feels like a waste of time.
Well, Propeller completely flips that on its head.

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Speaker 7 It's crazy easy and it allows you to become, it allows you to say to the market, we are a bonding solution for you. So, highly recommend propeller bonds.
Go to propellerbonds.com, sign up, guys.

Speaker 7 Again, these tools, these digital platform players, these digital partners are the game changers. They create the efficiency for us.

Speaker 7 Yeah, you're always going to have your standard markets and your go-to markets, and all that is great.

Speaker 7 But to become the true value provider that I think the independent insurance industry claims to be and is,

Speaker 7 bringing in digital players like this, digital tools like Propeller Bonds and PathPoint just allow you to execute that in a more efficient and effective way.

Speaker 7 And that's what we're about here at Rogue Risk is providing max value in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Speaker 7 And we're proud to have PathPoint and Propeller Bonds as sponsors moving into the new year 2022. All right, my friends, you're going to love this episode.
Let's get to Josh Curly.

Speaker 6 You do.

Speaker 8 What's up, man?

Speaker 6 Oh, not too much, man. Just

Speaker 6 getting ready for some family photos.

Speaker 8 Nice. That's exciting.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah.
so right after we're done i'm gonna shoot down to this uh

Speaker 6 farm i think somewhere and get get our christmas pics made you guys doing like a theme or anything

Speaker 6 i don't know man you know my wife used to be a uh photographer before we had kids so she's probably got it all figured out

Speaker 8 Gotcha. But you're not wearing like, you're not all wearing like ugly sweaters or

Speaker 8 not all putting like suspenders on because you're gonna be at a farm or something.

Speaker 6 No, the closest I'm getting is this shirt. I mean, it looks kind of pink on the screen, but it's really red, so I'm a little getting a little bit festive, yeah, uh, for the season.

Speaker 6 But you know, the kids are gonna have their all their finest stuff on, so yeah, very cool, very cool.

Speaker 8 Um, so what's up, dude? What's going down?

Speaker 6 Not too much, man. I'm actually working on a book that I'm reading.

Speaker 6 It was recommended by Chris Paradiso, Living Your Best Year Ever by Darren Hardy. You heard of that book?

Speaker 8 I have.

Speaker 6 So right now I'm doing my year in review worksheet, and I'm on the top 10 happenings from last year. So I've written six down.

Speaker 6 It said that you need to take as much time as you need to to write them down. So I'm going to.
think about it over the next little bit and

Speaker 6 get them all written down.

Speaker 8 Any of those that you're willing to share

Speaker 6 yes are we officially recording now yeah always

Speaker 6 always

Speaker 6 yeah so uh i'll just go straight down the list so number one is we completed our house we wanted to build our kind of dream house and so we started on it last year and we finished it up in March of 2021.

Speaker 6 I don't think that I will ever build another house, but

Speaker 6 it was really awesome to be able to move in. And, you know, the kids love it.
One of my very best friends is actually our next door neighbor. And so he's got kids that are the same age as our kids.

Speaker 6 And so it's just been, it's been awesome. We bought the lot probably three or four years ago and just spent a lot of time trying to prepare and make sure we had everything right.
So we moved in, man.

Speaker 6 It's beautiful. It's awesome.

Speaker 8 That's a good one.

Speaker 6 What else?

Speaker 6 So next one is: I surpassed my sales goal.

Speaker 6 I set a revenue goal for myself, new business, and I surpassed that goal. I did a really good job on my renewals.

Speaker 6 I had a couple of clients that sold out to some private equity funds this year, but it didn't hurt me too bad. And everything's really looking good, renewals for the kind of the end of the year.

Speaker 6 So that was a huge one for me. It's always at one of the top of my list.
So surpassed my sales goal.

Speaker 6 The next one is I traveled with my wife. We got going a few trips together.
We went down to Tampa for innovation. We went to Key West.
We got a trip planned to Vegas in February.

Speaker 6 I think we're going to Miami in May. And then we are going back to Key West in June.
So I've got some stuff planned with her, got some trips planned with the kids, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 So that's fun. I love that.
It's super fun. The next one is

Speaker 6 my son, James. He started kindergarten this year and his first semester of kindergarten has been awesome.

Speaker 6 He's got a great teacher, you know, really cool little, it's a small little private school, nothing, nothing fancy.

Speaker 6 But, you know, they just, you know, they share a lot of the morals and all that kind of stuff that we have. So it's, that was really cool.

Speaker 6 He's doing so good in school, got a lot of little friends and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter, she started her 3K this year.
So she's three years old, about to be four.

Speaker 6 So really love the school. Um, the next one's kind of off the wall.

Speaker 6 I learned how to one-wheel this year, I wanted to do something different, and so I bought a one-wheel electric skateboard in January, and I've got probably 250 miles on it so far, so not quite a mile a day, but I've been trying to ride it as much as I can.

Speaker 8 And uh, what is it that you like about it?

Speaker 6 I like that it's just one of those things. I can get out, I can do it early on Saturday morning when everybody else is in bed,

Speaker 6 and I can just feel some wind through my hair and just think.

Speaker 6 It's just one of those times where I can listen to a podcast, listen to a book, you know, think about what happened the past week, kind of get my mind right for the next week, you know, just have some me time.

Speaker 8 Why did you pick a one-wheel?

Speaker 6 Mainly, I just thought it was cool. I was in my neighborhood while we were building our house and there was this, there kid in there, probably like 15 or 16 years old.

Speaker 6 And the construction team was there, and this kid was like riding the one-wheel down the street. And here I am, a 37-year-old man, and I'm like chasing him down the street.

Speaker 6 I'm like, Hey, dude, I really want to try this thing.

Speaker 6 And he was like, He had his music on. He was like, What? I was like, Dude, I want to try your skateboard.
I want to see if I can do this.

Speaker 6 And then he was, you know, he, the good risk manager that he was, he was like, Listen, not in so many words, he was like, Listen, old guy, if you break, if you break your neck on this skateboard, like this is not my problem.

Speaker 6 I was like, Hey, no problem.

Speaker 6 So, we uh, so I jumped on the one wheel, I rode it around a little bit. I was like, man, it's kind of cool.
And I was like, What the heck?

Speaker 6 So, I went and bought one online, they shifted my house, and you know, the rest is history.

Speaker 8 Cool, and you still love it.

Speaker 6 I still love it, man. Yeah, I do.
They just actually came out with a brand new one, so I have a little bit of jealousy that's built in there, uh, but you know, it's cool, man.

Speaker 6 I mean, mine goes about six to eight miles.

Speaker 6 If I lost, you know, maybe a pound or two, it might go a little bit farther, but

Speaker 6 which we've talked a lot about that, you know, sending, sending scale pictures back and forth. Yeah.
But,

Speaker 6 but yeah, man, I can get about six or eight miles and that's about all I want.

Speaker 6 Just just riding around the neighborhood and different stuff like that.

Speaker 8 So that's, do you get weird looks when you're cruising or people into it? Or is it like now it's like a thing? you're the guy in the one wheel or

Speaker 6 what do the neighbors think so my neighborhood is is pretty small there's only about 50 houses in the whole in the whole neighborhood um

Speaker 6 and we have this like uh

Speaker 6 pretty much a private you know some people call it a lake i mean i call it a pond it's like 100 acres and so you know there's like a thing for the kids down there and a little boat ramp and you know you can you know put a put a little John boat in there and that kind of thing.

Speaker 6 So everybody has a golf cart because everybody's always taking their kids down there or whatever. And I don't have a golf cart, but I do have a one-wheel.

Speaker 6 And so, the thing that I do that, you know, I'll get on the one-wheel and I'll put the kids in the little wagon and I'll be like pulling them down the road in the one wheel.

Speaker 6 And then everybody else is like zipping by in the golf cart. So, I guess I am.
I'm the one-wheel guy, and people know me for that whenever

Speaker 6 I'm tooling around the neighborhood.

Speaker 8 So, that's cool. All right, what's number four?

Speaker 6 Uh, let's see here. The next one is going to be, I made some new friends who inspire me.

Speaker 6 I made some new friends who inspire me. So last year,

Speaker 6 I mean, I've always been a person, like ever since I've been in this business, I've just been so, I've been so focused on

Speaker 6 production. I've been so focused on like gaining new clients.
I really haven't met a ton of people. in the industry.

Speaker 6 I mean, I'm not super involved in like the big I or anything like that or the PIA of Georgia.

Speaker 6 Although I did recently join the commercial lines committee for the big eye, which has been really awesome because I met a lot of super, super smart people in that group.

Speaker 6 But so when COVID came around, I feel like there was just this really weird time where everybody was trying to figure out what was next. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Nobody really knew what was happening and people were thinking about,

Speaker 6 you know, am I an essential worker and figuring out what they were going to do with all their employees and so there was just this totally just dead time that was going on and so a friend of mine another agent was kind of like hey if you want to kill some time joint join this group so i joined the ioa facebook group i had no idea what it was and then somebody oh somebody put a comment out about workers comp and they were talking about return to work and i made a comment on the post first comment i ever made i i had been in the group for a week or so made a comment on the post and then the next thing i know i get this i get this person that responds to my comment his name's david carrothers and david carruthers was like well this is kind of a watered down approach of what of what we do and i was like who is this asshole you know that this like telling me that my approach is watered down that's most people's first impression of carruthers is who is this asshole so he So he says this, and then I almost wrote kind of something snarky back, like, well, well, do you really want me to take my, you know, full process and write it down?

Speaker 6 It would take me two hours to type all this up. So I didn't, but then we ended up becoming friends on Facebook somehow.

Speaker 6 And he reached out to me and he was like, hey, you want to be, you want to come on my podcast? And he's like, I think your story would be something that people would be interested in listening to.

Speaker 6 And I was like,

Speaker 6 no, not really. I don't want to come on your podcast.
And then I started thinking about it.

Speaker 6 And I said, well, why don't you give me me about a week or two weeks and I'll think about it and I'll let you know. Cause I had no idea who this guy was.

Speaker 6 He was, I didn't know anybody in the whole insurance influencer, influencer space. And so eventually I came back and I said, sure, let's do it.
Why not? So we recorded a podcast.

Speaker 6 And then from there, it was like all these people started friending me on Facebook. And I bet I have 300

Speaker 6 friends on Facebook. I've been somewhat selective of the people that I've accepted, but I've got all these insurance people that are my friends on Facebook now.

Speaker 6 And from there, you know, I mean, I kind of knew who you were, but I didn't really know you. And then I started meeting you.
I started meeting some other guys.

Speaker 6 And, you know, some of the people I podcasts, I mean, a lot of them are just, you know, insurance people.

Speaker 6 And I just started realizing, man, there are so many really awesome people that are out there.

Speaker 6 And then when, and then this year, when my wife and I went to Key West, I mean, it was all insurance people. There was like 20 some odd insurance people that went to Key West together.

Speaker 6 And so, for me, I mean, that was one of the things that came out of COVID that was interesting. It was like I made all these friends from all across the country.

Speaker 6 And I started realizing, hey, these people are just like me.

Speaker 6 You know, they're not, they're not so bad. These are not competitors.

Speaker 6 These are people that are trying to figure this thing out. And so, if I learned one thing from COVID, it was like all these people, you know, they're just, they're just really good people.

Speaker 6 And so, so it really set me on this path of having an an abundance mindset i think of like what can i do for uh the industry so both of my parents were teachers so my my mother taught kindergarten for 30

Speaker 6 30 years and then my dad he was actually a a school uh superintendent administrator uh for many years and so growing up the only people that i was around was educators because all my mom's friends were teachers and I was always hanging out to school late.

Speaker 6 My dad was always going to school board meetings and different things like that. And so

Speaker 6 I just think over the past couple of years, this whole idea of helping provide education to people was something that was exciting to me. Yeah.
And so.

Speaker 6 The thing for me about like coming on your show and any other podcast or event that I've been a part of over the past couple of years is like, I I just really want to help provide education to our industry because I think we're in one of the most honorable industries that a person could possibly be in.

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 6 we're that business, that company, that individual that comes to somebody's rescue when their house burns down. I mean, how cool is that to be the person?

Speaker 6 that can show up, calm people down, you know, talk them through the process and help them get to a better place on on the back end and so that's something that i take really seriously and i think it's why whenever i talk to people i really talk a lot about the blocking and tackling all the all the different fundamentals that are involved in this business the relationship aspect the education aspect just being able to advise people in a way where you're not afraid And because I think a lot of times we run from things that cost money to customers because

Speaker 6 we think that the client thinks that all we're trying to do is sell them another insurance policy. And that may be true for some people, but for me, I try to relate it always back to people.

Speaker 6 And you think about workers' comp. I think about how it's our duty as an insurance agent to advise a business and say, you want your employees returning home in the same condition.

Speaker 6 that they showed up to work. And so that's why it's so important to have safety programs.
That's why it's so important to have workers' compensation.

Speaker 6 That's why it's so important to have, you know, return to work and provide that environment, because at the end of the day, they have families just like we do, you know?

Speaker 6 And so I try to change the way that people view our role in the industry and the way that they view the actual insurance, you know.

Speaker 6 transaction product, whatever it is that you want to call it in general.

Speaker 8 Yeah,

Speaker 8 I couldn't agree with you more. I always, you you know, the way I talk about it,

Speaker 8 sometimes I think there's a lot of different ways to position it is insurance is the foundation upon which business owners and entrepreneurs are able to take the risk that they need to take to grow their business, right?

Speaker 8 Like you can't hire another employee unless you have comp or you have other insurance in place. You can't buy a new building, right? You can't.

Speaker 8 take on a new line or produce a new product unless you have unless you have the proper insurance in place

Speaker 8 because otherwise you know you're extending out without the foundation right so you know that that to me that that mentality i completely agree with and obviously it's why we connect it i think to your point about

Speaker 8 um it a lot of times we can feel like all the client sees us doing is trying to sell them another policy

Speaker 8 i think it's unfortunate but it's definitely true And it's also completely just in our head.

Speaker 6 You know, like totally agree.

Speaker 8 It's just in our head. And that's that to me was one of the hardest lessons to learn in selling insurance was that

Speaker 8 90% of the stuff keeping me from selling was in my head, not had nothing to do with the client.

Speaker 8 This was all garbage that I was projecting onto the client, like what they thought or what their assumptions were, or what their motivations were versus,

Speaker 8 you know, what that client actually wanted, you know, and and getting past that uh or kind of detaching from the outcome i guess is probably a better way to put it is once you kind of

Speaker 8 once you kind of figure that out

Speaker 6 man you ascend to a whole nother level in in a sales position especially in our in in our industry i think you have to be brave enough to to tell people the truth and i think that's the difference in

Speaker 6 kind of that order taker mentality that exists in our industry and really being an advisor, a person that is looking out for not only the interest of the business owner, which is obviously the primary goal,

Speaker 6 but secondly, the interest of the employee and making sure that

Speaker 6 the employee is taken care of. And at least in my experience, I think that people, business owners especially,

Speaker 6 they respect

Speaker 6 when you push back on them a little bit.

Speaker 6 They respect that you think enough of yourself and your position and your job to be able to tell them what they need to do from a recommendation standpoint because it you know it's no different than i was thinking about this right you go to you go to the doctor's office and the doctor says hey you need you need cholesterol medicine you people grumble about that all the time nobody wants to take medicine every single day i mean not knock on wood i don't take any medicine thank goodness but but like people they don't want to take medicine and and they think oh i'm young i feel fine i don't want to take this medicine.

Speaker 6 But the doctors over there, they're looking at their blood work and they're saying, hey, you really need to take this medicine.

Speaker 6 And so people, they take their medicine because they know it's what's best for them.

Speaker 6 And those doctors, they have to be bold enough to say, look, you might have a real problem if you don't take this medicine. Let me tell you the road that this is going to go down.

Speaker 6 You know, your arteries are going to get clogged up. You may end up having a stroke.

Speaker 6 You may end up having a heart attack, heart disease, all these different problems that happens that if this stuff builds up in your heart. So you got to do something about it.

Speaker 6 And ultimately, most people, they respond to that and they do the right thing or they modify their lifestyle, right? And they eat different, they exercise, they spend time working on themselves.

Speaker 6 And so the same thing is true.

Speaker 6 I mean, we just have to be bold enough to look at somebody and say, I know that you don't believe me, but ransomware attacks, they happen every single day, every single day.

Speaker 6 And so not only are you going to be down down trying to get your data back up, but you're going to have to go figure out how to get some Bitcoin or something like that to be able to pay that ransom.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And I think people respect that.

Speaker 6 And that's really how I've always operated out of just a place of trying to speak with authority, you know, when I, when I talk and not be an order taker. I think.

Speaker 6 the ability to walk away from a deal that doesn't make sense to you is a powerful thing.

Speaker 8 Yeah. So

Speaker 8 so i'll give you um i'll just pile on to to what you're saying because i i couldn't agree more um

Speaker 8 i get a lot of questions about our business model which is which is unique in in many ways uh we've only met two of our customers in person ever in two years

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 a lot of people will say things like

Speaker 8 Well, how do you, you know, what about the relationship? Insurance is about relationships. It's about relationships.
You're not building relationships.

Speaker 8 Well, I wholly and 100% agree that insurance is about relationships. I just don't agree that you have to breathe the same air to develop a relationship.

Speaker 8 So how we establish what you're saying digitally

Speaker 8 is by

Speaker 8 over-communicating and being highly transparent. So what I'll say to the customers.
is this this comes in um during the part where we're setting expectations for a video proposal.

Speaker 8 So after I've gathered all the necessary information and I know that the next step is to go quote them, I'll say, well, I have all the information I need.

Speaker 8 I'm going to explain to you the next step in this process. So what comes next now that I've gathered all this info, I don't want you to think it's just going out into the ether.

Speaker 8 We're going to take this information and

Speaker 8 I already have a pretty good feel for the markets that we should go to based on what we've discussed, but we're going to hit all the markets that we have and make sure we have a good feel for coverage and price

Speaker 8 um we're gonna come back with our recommendation to you and how we deliver that is in a video proposal and they may have a question about that and i just say look it's super easy to get into we use neoteric agent just for anyone who's listening um there's a bunch out there that's the one we use had

Speaker 8 had perfectly fine success with that.

Speaker 8 I said, it's, you're going to get an email from me and you're going to log into this website and it's super easy to get in. So, so don't even worry about that.

Speaker 6 It's super easy.

Speaker 8 Um, but what you're going to get is this, this email that it's got three parts. It's got a video, which I hopefully you'll watch two, two to five minutes tops.

Speaker 8 You're going to get a high level breakdown of what I found, and then you're going to actually be able to download the reports right from the carrier. Now, there's a reason that we give

Speaker 8 carrier reports. Now, I'm breaking the fourth wall and I'm talking to you, the audience, not my customer.
There's a reason we give carrier reports and not our own proposals.

Speaker 8 And the reason is it makes it feel more real. If I were to take, now, again, middle market, different.
We're talking about 25,000 in premium and under vast majority of our accounts.

Speaker 8 So the reason that I do that is I want them to feel like they have all the inside baseball that we have, right?

Speaker 8 If I were to take it and scrape it and put it in my own proposal, they could be going, well, shit, this, you know, who knows if this is real? This is something this guy put together, right?

Speaker 8 But because it's a printout, some of them are ugly, some of them are nice, depending on the carrier. It doesn't matter.
I don't care.

Speaker 8 I don't even rename them on purpose. I want it to feel like it came right from the carrier.
Because

Speaker 8 now I'm not breaking the fourth wall. I'm going back to this is what I say to my customer.
I say, the reason that we do this is I want you to have as much power as I have. I said, I said,

Speaker 8 most insurance agents are going to withhold the information, the proposal, until they have a chance to box you into a corner, right?

Speaker 8 To get you sitting at your desk or on the phone, and then they drop the proposal on you because they feel like in that moment, they're going to be able to convince you that you should purchase this thing.

Speaker 8 That's not what I do.

Speaker 8 What I'm going to do is give you what I think you should have based on almost 20 years of experience. And

Speaker 8 you have all the information I have. So the next time we get on the phone, we can have an honest, straightforward discussion where you have all the information that I have.
How's that sound?

Speaker 8 Ryan, that sounds great. Awesome.
You'll have that from me in a couple of days.

Speaker 6 Done.

Speaker 8 Now, what happens? Okay. So, what I've just done.
And I always say, I want you to have as much power as I have because people fucking love that, right? Because who doesn't want to have power?

Speaker 8 It's like, it's like the used car salesman who doesn't try to sell you every single car that you walk by. That's the whole point, right? Is you now know everything I know.

Speaker 8 So when we get on the phone, we can talk openly and honestly about your questions.

Speaker 8 One, it drastically reduces the amount of time we spend on the call because they've already watched the video, in most cases, three times, right? So the average is like 2.3 times.

Speaker 8 When I send a video proposal out, people usually watch the video two times or three times. And

Speaker 8 I'll say more, as I've gotten better at doing the video proposals, what ends up happening is they don't even want to have a phone call.

Speaker 8 They just email me back and go, hey, can I do monthly payments?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 8 Okay, we're in.

Speaker 6 Done.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, I think what you've done, and I do this in middle market, is I call the next move. Like we should be willing just to say, hey, here's what's going to happen next.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 I'll give you a great example. So we hired a new producer

Speaker 6 in our office, and he was working on or is currently working on an account that's with a direct writer. And so I told him, I said, look,

Speaker 6 this is a direct writer. You know, we can't BOR this.
We got to go in. We got to quote this thing.
But I said, here's what you need to ask them.

Speaker 6 You need to ask them, how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance?

Speaker 6 And he's like, why is that? I said, because I know people that used to work for this company, okay? And this particular company, they are a life insurance company that sells P and C insurance.

Speaker 6 It doesn't matter what you say, all of their awards, all of their stuff. That's got to be Steve Farm.

Speaker 6 It's, well, no, it's not them, but

Speaker 6 commercial lines only carry. All right.
So, so they say, hey, we're going to, you know, how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance? And he went in and he asked the question.

Speaker 6 He said, how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance? And they said, they try to sell me life insurance every single time they walk in the door, a whole life insurance policy. I said,

Speaker 6 and then I said, the next question you need to say is, how often do they talk about what you're actually there to talk about, which is your business insurance? And he asked him that question.

Speaker 6 They're like, never. They just want to sell the next policy.
I said, I said, exactly. And so when we had our coaching call after that, I said, this is what I call calling their next move.

Speaker 6 You just say, this is what the person's going to do now.

Speaker 6 You're like Isaiah the prophet. You tell them what's going to happen.
Then it happens. And then you look like you're the hero in the story.

Speaker 6 And it's because you're transparent about what's going to happen next. And whoever else is dealing with you, they're just trying to get to the next sale.
And it doesn't matter if it's middle market.

Speaker 6 It doesn't matter if it's personal lines. It doesn't matter if it's small commercial.
You're just calling the next step. And then

Speaker 6 they're digging their own grave because they're doing every single move that you predicted.

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Speaker 8 it it just to me

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 8 the the days and i i used to say this 10 years ago when i was talking about content marketing the days of

Speaker 8 us as insurance professionals being the gatekeepers to information are over. That is over.
We're not the gatekeepers to insurance information.

Speaker 8 They can Google and find everything we know, everything that we think is intrinsic knowledge that's up in our brains. And we're so fucking smart.
They can Google it and find it out.

Speaker 8 Now, granted, can they apply it as well as we can apply it? No, they're not professional. They haven't done this for a career, but can they know it? Sure, they can.
So, so to...

Speaker 8 for us to still act in a in an insurance transaction in this like wedgie style bait and you know like i don't want to say bait and switch but like, you know, you, you're, you're, you know, hey, I'm not going to tell you when I'm going to call you back.

Speaker 8 And when I call you back, I'm not going to give you the

Speaker 8 quote number because you might take it and be a, screw that. They can take my whole proposal and BOR it to their current agent if they want.
You know why?

Speaker 8 Because if they do that, they were not a good fit for us. That means they would have been a terrible client.

Speaker 8 And the other side of it is, and this talks to your like abundance versus scarcity mindset is like

Speaker 8 we generate so many friggin leads because we're constantly doing the work right in our marketplace for you guys it's the same just maybe less volume but same kind of flow for a middle market transaction so don't i'm not i'm not talking you can't do it in one way or the other just for us we constantly have new leads coming in so if if we just work our process and we set expectations and we deliver on the expectations that we set and we continually do that with someone and ask the right questions throughout the process and and never make them feel like they're boxed in, like

Speaker 8 they're a partnership. It's a partnership, right? It's a service request that ends with a transaction versus a sale.
And that small nuance, I think, plays a large role in how we treat people, right?

Speaker 8 Because our service team is loving and caring and compassionate and patient. Our sales team is like, buy this freaking policy now, or I'm going to lose my mind.

Speaker 8 But if you can just switch that mentality to more of a service mindset, where at the end of the process, you're transacting a policy versus you know or a bor or whatever versus doing a car change i feel like that small tweak

Speaker 8 with good flow

Speaker 8 you get the clients you should have that fit your process the ones that don't automatically fall out and you just keep cranking and i i i feel like that methodology can apply be applied to every line every vertical every geographic region in our country There's nothing like seeing the light bulb pop on in somebody's eyes when you're talking to them, whether it's on Zoom or whether it's in person.

Speaker 6 I mean, a lot of people probably don't know this about us, but I mean, we operate in 23 different states.

Speaker 6 And not that we have offices there, we don't have producers there, but I have clients in 23 different states. So I spend a lot of time on Zoom and any other

Speaker 6 video conferencing app and talk to people all day, every single day.

Speaker 6 But it's always the same when you can provide somebody, I think, with enough education to make their own decision and come to their own conclusion and choose to do business with you,

Speaker 6 then you're going to keep that client for a lot longer. Again, I'll knock on wood, but you know, one, one is a pretty, pretty hefty day for me.
And I have not received one single loss run request.

Speaker 6 I'm not sure that I've received a loss run request in 2021, except for somebody that's looking to sell their company to a private equity firm.

Speaker 6 I went to a class like very early on in my career with Scott Addis. And Scott's kind of like the OG sales trainer, been around forever and ever and ever.
And it was up at Cincinnati home office.

Speaker 6 And like, you know, I remember like I ate dinner next to JF Scher. He was sitting right next to me and he was the president of insurance company forever.

Speaker 6 And at the time, I was so young in the business, I was like, hey, JF, I'm Josh Gurley. Hey, what do you do? And he was like, oh,

Speaker 6 I work in the PNC side. And then I go Google him and he's like the Cincinnati, you know, superhero.

Speaker 8 Yeah, he's the king of the kingdom. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 He's like the king of the kingdom or whatever. But at this thing, Scott, he, you know, he broke it down and I won't say it as good as he does.

Speaker 6 But, you know, he basically talks about this whole thing is like four steps, right? I mean, you collect some information, you come up with a strategy.

Speaker 6 you implement the strategy and then you monitor the strategy that i mean that's what you do in the business but i think the difference in what I do and sounds like what you do is I tell them, I tell people, look, you can do this with anybody that you want to do it with.

Speaker 6 If I'm bringing in a quote from Cincinnati, I'll say, you can do this with anybody that represents Cincinnati. Anybody you can do this with.
You know, I hope that you do this with me.

Speaker 6 And I think, you know, to your point, I mean, you give them. that choice because you want them to choose you freely.

Speaker 6 And I think when people, they choose you freely and you're not just selling them to get on to the next thing, I think your retention goes through the roof. And that'll bring me to my next point.

Speaker 6 And I don't know, um,

Speaker 6 we didn't get to number five yet.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 6 I think I really learned a lot about technology this year. All right, and this may be a controversial statement that I'm going to make,

Speaker 6 but

Speaker 6 for me,

Speaker 6 technology is an add-on.

Speaker 6 Like,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 6 what what we talked about about the client relationship about the education uh you know just being that person that acts in utmost good faith this is the first page of the of the book that you learn insurance in it says this is a business built on utmost good faith so everything else is just an add-on right everything else is an add-on and so everybody was talking about you got to have this tool or that tool or whatever but at the end of the day if if you were to put a

Speaker 6 if you were to put a saw in my hand, right? Or you could put me in a wood shop. We have a client that has a wood shop at his house that costs like $400,000.
Okay.

Speaker 6 It's got every tool that you could ever imagine having inside of this thing. But if you could take me

Speaker 6 in the most beautiful piece of white oak wood and say, make a table. make whatever, dude, what would come out of that place would be kindergarten.

Speaker 6 It would look like something that somebody that a five-year-old made because I have zero skills at doing woodworking. And so I think the same thing can be

Speaker 6 true a lot of times is that we don't really

Speaker 6 look at what's

Speaker 6 right in front of us. So the stuff that we use in my agency is we're on applied EPIC.

Speaker 6 That's just what we do.

Speaker 6 It's great for commercial lines, great for the way that we transact business, and we're on salesforce and so we use salesforce to attract and find new clients we don't really use it on the back end for you know client uh you know reaching out to them or anything like that and i'm not really sure that's even all that important with the kind of business that we write like i think a lot of the stuff that we write is should be more more like manual touch anyway,

Speaker 6 because somebody commented on something, you know, they were talking about this and I made a comment and it was like, hey, well, your margins are probably higher than other people because you're writing larger accounts, which is true.

Speaker 6 So we can afford to be a little bit more hands-on because there's not as many accounts to go around.

Speaker 6 But like one of the things that I realized was like, I don't have to have every like cool gadget that every other person has. I just have to have like what works for me.

Speaker 6 You know, when I play, I played music uh professionally for some length of time and so guitars have all these like guitar pedal boards and and and there was a time when i thought like i need to have every guitar effects pedal so i can sound like you know anybody from from the edge of youtube to jimi hendrix to whoever else like i need every little every tool that they make and so i used to carry around this pedal board that had like 20 different things on it And I started thinking to myself, I was like, I don't even use this stuff.

Speaker 6 And in the back of my mind, I would say, but I might one day. So I need to go ahead and have it.

Speaker 6 And then one day I just said, you know what? I'm done with this. Like, and so I literally keep my guitars and stuff in my office right now.

Speaker 6 And so underneath my desk, there's a, there's a pedal board under my desk that has probably five things on there.

Speaker 6 But all the things that I have are like top of the line. It's like the best stuff that money can buy is what I have.
But I only have like four or five things.

Speaker 6 And so like, I just, it's just funny how I went through the same thing when it came to my music career. And then I get in the insurance business.

Speaker 6 And it's like, I got to have all this stuff. And then, and I woke up one day.
I was like, no, I don't.

Speaker 6 No, I don't. I don't, I don't have to have all this stuff.
We send out Georgetown Cupcakes. All right.
It's a cupcake place in Washington, D.C., like one of the most famous cupcake places in America.

Speaker 6 They got 5,000 or 10,000, you know, five-star Google reviews.

Speaker 6 They're everywhere. And so it's like $55 a dozen to send out.

Speaker 6 And so instead of me buying, you know, some kind of $1,000 a month, you know, customer retention software or whatever, like I send out 20 dozen cupcakes a month. And it's not tied to a holiday.

Speaker 6 It's not tied to whatever. It's just like, hey, I was thinking about you.
I had a client this week. He made this joke.
And it was hilarious because a lot of people bought into it, including me.

Speaker 6 And again, this guy is in Oregon. And so Jack's Facebook, it said, Jack is 116 years old today.
Well, Jack's like 60. And so all these people were telling him, happy birthday.

Speaker 6 And I was like, wouldn't this be funny? And I knew it wasn't his birthday because I got his driver's license in our system.

Speaker 6 But I said, wouldn't it be funny to send him some cupcakes and say happy 116th birthday? So right then we were like, boom,

Speaker 6 Georgetown, you know, cupcakes overnight, Oregon. And we flew them all the way across the country.
They got to his office the next day and he sent me a a text. He called me, it was hilarious.

Speaker 6 He loved it, it had nothing to do with his birthday, but it was just the fact that we were thinking about him.

Speaker 6 And so, you know, I would just say, if anybody's listening, like, if it makes more sense to spend a thousand dollars a month on cupcakes, go do it.

Speaker 6 That's a great tool.

Speaker 6 And, you know, that may be controversial, but that's just how I feel about it.

Speaker 8 I don't, I don't think it's controversial. I think that it's the maturation of

Speaker 8 the space. I think that,

Speaker 8 you know, I, and we all, dude, we've all fallen prey to it. I think it's, I think it's a natural evolution that everyone goes through in every piece of their life.

Speaker 8 I think you, you always, you know, if, if you golf, you think, I got to have the, the most badass set of golf clubs. And then you realize that you don't.
You're going to stink regardless

Speaker 6 or be good regardless.

Speaker 8 You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 I mean, my friends that are good pick up wooden clubs that their, you know, grandfather had in his bag from 100 years ago and they hit shots right down the middle and and i can't you know for me i i'm hitting it in the woods regardless so you know i think that i think i completely agree with you

Speaker 8 it's it's easy when things aren't going well or you're not producing as much as you would like or you find yourself in an in envy of someone and their production or at least their perceived production online that you start chasing the next you know what's the next tool that's going to get me there And,

Speaker 8 you know, I have been guilty of this. I mean, I've had five CRMs.
This is my second. I'm on second agency management system and I've only been around for two years.

Speaker 8 You know, I've tried a million tools. I haven't changed in a year.
I'm proud of that.

Speaker 8 But I agree with you.

Speaker 8 I think what I definitely agree with.

Speaker 8 Not that I'm executing on this today, but what I definitely agree with is

Speaker 8 buy best in class.

Speaker 8 Buy best in class tools for the tools that you need because

Speaker 8 you get what you pay for. You know, you absolutely get what you pay for.

Speaker 8 You know, I use Now Certs as an agency management system and it's very cheap.

Speaker 8 And they'll have two hours, you know, from 10 a.m. Eastern to noon Eastern on a Tuesday, they'll just go down.
and they'll send a Facebook message. Hey guys, like servers are down.

Speaker 8 Hopefully they'll be back up soon. And you're like, oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 So agency man doesn't work for two two hours during the middle of a work day you know like that's doesn't happen with epic it doesn't happen with others and i know it just happened ams360 the other day but you know you you get what you pay for and i think um

Speaker 8 maximize the tools that you use versus using like five percent of 20 tools right like pick one tool and absolutely pin max your usage of it and and then move on to the next thing well there's only so many things that we actually need, man.

Speaker 8 We just don't need that much.

Speaker 6 Well, that's what we do with Salesforce because our annual spend on Salesforce between like the software and the development is probably $40,000.

Speaker 6 And so I just say, let's have a system that is just rock star. for what we're trying to do.
So we pay the development costs. We have the

Speaker 6 email marketing system that goes along with it. We have the lead scoring.
We have all the tracking that we do online.

Speaker 6 And then when I'm prospecting, hey, I know who's the most likely person to answer the phone. And that's half the battle, right? Is knowing who's your most likely customer.

Speaker 6 So, but the other thing I want to say about that is like, I think that what people need to understand about technology is that you should do what works for you.

Speaker 6 My agency is not a high volume personal lines agency like we haven't been for a long time probably not going to be for the future i mean so a lot of a lot of those things are not super important to us our agency is not a high volume small commercial agency so the ability or the need to automate certain things you know is it's just not that important to us now

Speaker 6 there are some other people that probably need all of those things in their agency, in their business, but they have a legitimate reason for needing those things.

Speaker 6 And I just don't think that our agency

Speaker 6 does at this moment, right?

Speaker 6 What's the most important thing for our agency is the fact that we can have CSR 24 online for our people to go do their certificates if they want to, for us to deliver the policies, endorsements.

Speaker 6 We have a really good sales tool from that manages our sales process and Salesforce. And then we have some other resources through some different vendors from HR, safety,

Speaker 6 self-service portals and that type of thing. And so that's what's really important to our clients.
And so

Speaker 6 I just really think that like everybody should figure out, okay, well, what is what is really important for my client? What is really important for my agency?

Speaker 6 And I mean, that's half the reason that I'm, that I'm going through this year in review right now and this, you know, living your best year ever is like, hey, what do I need to add?

Speaker 6 What do I need to cut out? You know, and then the other thing is like just developing my own, I think, leadership, you know, and I'm starting to learn a lot

Speaker 6 that just because I'm a good producer, and I would label myself as a good producer.

Speaker 6 You know, I mean, if you just open up the best practices guide and you see, well, what does the average producer produce in this country? you know, I produce a fair amount more than that.

Speaker 6 So I would consider myself,

Speaker 6 you know, certainly above-average producer.

Speaker 6 Um, and so, but that does not necessarily mean that I can impart my knowledge on other people in my organization or train other producers in my organization. So, that's when I've

Speaker 6 been really spending a lot of time. Like, I'm reading the book Traction right now and trying to grow the leadership side.
And I think that's just as important

Speaker 6 as anything else. Boom, there it is.

Speaker 6 I think that's just as important as anything else that we could do is develop leadership, develop our people, you know, and help them be more and more efficient and just not necessarily rely on the computer or the software to do it for us.

Speaker 8 Yeah, this is,

Speaker 8 so one of the things that I became,

Speaker 8 you know, self-aware of in the second iteration of my producing or agency career here is that I'm not a great producer. I mean, better,

Speaker 8 I'm certainly not a great producer. I'm maybe a good producer, but I don't love producing.
I don't love it. It doesn't,

Speaker 8 you know, it doesn't get me jacked up. You know, I've written a policy every single day this week.
One day I wrote two. I could give two shits.

Speaker 8 I wouldn't even list them, any of them as a highlight of my week.

Speaker 8 Because I just don't care. To me,

Speaker 8 what I had to, and again this is speaking to what you're saying is you kind of have to figure out what your strengths are it might mean that you should never be the person who's doing that stuff that you just said i mean honestly if you're a tremendous producer an absolutely tremendous top flight producer why would you ever stop and you like it right and and you like it let's if that's the case why would you ever stop doing that just go hire a coo who do who will do all that stuff for you like don't why would you take yourself out of the thing that you would, and I'm not, I'm not trying to say you specifically, I'm talking in general, but why take yourself out of the thing that you love and are good at and are literally probably world class at to a certain extent and go, now I need to learn all these other skills to be this thing that I feel like I should be, but, but maybe isn't even what you want to do.

Speaker 8 And maybe you do want to do that. I'm not saying you don't, you know, and I had to have that conversation with myself because

Speaker 8 I, I could produce. I could, I absolutely could.
I just, to me, my value, every policy that I write, I consider a loss in our agency. Like, that's, that was a loss.

Speaker 8 Like, that's time that I could have been working on our onboarding process.

Speaker 8 I could have been refining how, you know, who we're quoting, how we're quoting them, getting a better feel for that, digging deeper into new markets that we need.

Speaker 8 You know, there's a million things that are more

Speaker 8 where I specialize in than that thing. And

Speaker 8 if I were to say, if I were to go try to teach one of my current producers, we have three producers, if I were to try to teach them how to produce like you can, I would be doing them a disservice because I don't know that I can, that I'm even as good at them as, as, at that stuff.

Speaker 8 So it's, you know, I feel like we all have to figure out. And I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you're doing because, because you should, if that's what you feel is right.

Speaker 8 But I think it's worth considering. And this goes to like your technology thing, right? Like feeling pressure to take on tech.
You probably feel pressure to lead.

Speaker 8 Dude, I do not, I think it is a misnomer that just because you're the owner, you also have to be the day-to-day leader. I think that's a complete misnomer.

Speaker 8 I think as the owner, the, the, the, the, or an owner.

Speaker 8 the freedom that you get is to choose to do whatever it is that you want to do and be wherever it is that you add the most value and find someone else to do all the other shit that you

Speaker 8 that isn't either what you want to do or something that you're good at and um

Speaker 8 you know i i don't you know i feel zero pressure to be a producer and when i walk into a room full of agency owners i know that they look at me like i'm freaking crazy i've sat at a table before and said every policy i sell is a loss and watched guys literally stink eye me like what's wrong with this guy is not a really

Speaker 8 what's he you know what's he talking about i've watched that literally their eyebrows that that face no one watching can see but that face that i just did i have seen that face from people when i say that and it's because i know at best i'm a good producer at best that that's me on my best day i'm a good producer i have never been a great producer nor will i ever be and So my that, what that tells me is my value to the organization is not production.

Speaker 8 It's something else. And, you know, that's why I do everything I can not to produce

Speaker 6 you know what my one of my business partners he said something to me recently that man it hit me like a ton of bricks and he said and and this is why i'm this is what the whole reason that i'm reading the book um

Speaker 6 he said do you know what the most valuable thing in the insurance industry is and i said My ability to produce new accounts.

Speaker 6 And that's really, that's what I thought for a long time, but he said, it's not not the most valuable thing he said equity is the most important thing in the insurance business right building your balance sheet is one of the most is the most important thing in the insurance industry because we can produce a book of business we can create cash flow through that through that and i've certainly done that and i've enjoyed that and i've had a lot of fun doing that It's been awesome.

Speaker 6 I mean, I've gotten to go all different kind of places, trade shows all over the country. It's been a lot of fun for me.
In fact, I'm going to Iowa next week.

Speaker 6 So Sunday, I'm going to Iowa and I'm going to doing a little tour through there and through Missouri and,

Speaker 6 you know, going to see some clients and some prospects. And that's a lot of fun.

Speaker 6 But I think what you're really saying

Speaker 6 is you're trying to build the equity of the business. You're trying to build the value of the company.
And I think as an agency owner, whether you own 100%

Speaker 6 or whether you're a minority. I'm a minority owner in my agency.
So it's not like I'm the, you know, the president or anything like that. But, you know, what can I do to help grow that balance sheet?

Speaker 6 And so, you know, if one day I end up being,

Speaker 6 you know, owning a, you know, super significant portion of our agency, then,

Speaker 6 you know, those will be.

Speaker 6 that'll be the same priority. But I mean, right now, the most valuable asset that sits on my personal balance sheet is my agency.

Speaker 6 That's it. That's the most valuable thing I have.
And so I think from an ownership perspective, if growing the value of your agency is through personal production and you can do that, then do it.

Speaker 6 If it's through creating systems for other people to produce, then, you know, then do that. There's no right way to do this.

Speaker 8 100%.

Speaker 6 There's no wrong way to do this.

Speaker 8 I mean, I don't know that I disagree with that second part. There's absolutely a wrong way to do it.
And I think it is. I think it's your point.

Speaker 8 I think to the point that you just made, the wrong way to do this is to

Speaker 8 put yourself in a position that you think you should be in, that you shouldn't actually be in.

Speaker 8 Like, you're like, you're reading IAOA posts and you feel pressure to do this or to do that when really you know your value is here or there, right? Like,

Speaker 8 I feel like that's, that is the cardinal mistake is

Speaker 8 a, it is so, here's a common example. The cardinal mistake that I see is

Speaker 8 agency principal is a rock star producer. Just has all the connections in town, knows the coverage, knows the carriers, crushes business, does a great job.

Speaker 6 Customers love him, love her, whatever.

Speaker 8 Just dominates.

Speaker 8 Never hires an operations person, never gets a COO, never finds the partner to run the business.

Speaker 8 And what happens is outside of that agency owner's personal production, the rest of the agency is in shambles. And you see that over and over and over and over again.

Speaker 8 And it's, it's, they never, there was never enough self-awareness in the moment to say, I'm just going to freaking crush forever and build a team around me that allows me to do that.

Speaker 8 And that, that to me.

Speaker 8 is the mistake or the great producer who stops producing. And I'm not saying this is what you're doing, stops producing to go chase technology and process, right? Like you're a great producer.

Speaker 8 Keep producing.

Speaker 6 i don't know that's my that's my thought process well i guess what i mean is like when i say there's not a wrong way let me explain that well you're being very nice i get it you're southern i i understand

Speaker 6 well i mean what i mean by that is i all right so a year ago i was in st louis all right i got a client that's not too far from there i was in st louis um

Speaker 6 you know jason cass is not far from st louis and so Carruthers was going up there to hang out with Jason for a day or two. And it just happened to be like the same, the same day.
All right.

Speaker 6 And so there was a guy that we ended up meeting up in the lobby of a hotel.

Speaker 6 And we just were all, we were all just talking. And the guy that was already in St.
Louis was there. And he was talking.
And he was telling me he was a personalized guy.

Speaker 6 And he was talking about getting into commercial insurance. And I said, man, tell me about your agency.
And I got to be honest with you, I expected him to say

Speaker 6 that he was like a one-man shop. I mean, to hear the guy talk, he was so humble.
But then he drops.

Speaker 6 He's, I mean, they got like a freaking zillion employees and like a gazillion dollars in revenue in personal lines. And I just told the guy, I said, look, I said,

Speaker 6 you may think that you're doing something wrong, okay?

Speaker 6 But, but, dude, you are crushing.

Speaker 6 You are crushing. I said, if you're writing this much personal lines, if your agency is like $3 million in personal lines revenue, like commission,

Speaker 6 why don't you just do more of that? Like, why would you stop doing that and decide, I want to be a middle market insurance agency? Like,

Speaker 6 no way, man. I would just, I was like, I would just keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's that's just me. And so I was just trying to encourage him to say, hey, you're not doing anything wrong, dude.
You're doing everything right.

Speaker 8 You know, yeah, I think, dude, I think, I think this has kind of been a

Speaker 8 narrative throughout this conversation has been

Speaker 8 it is it very easy, and this is a life thing too, right?

Speaker 8 This is why we make a lot of the bad decisions that we make throughout our life, not just in insurance, but we look out at the world and we go, man, I get this thing I'm doing right now.

Speaker 8 Ah, man, geez, I'd love to be doing that thing too. Or, you know, listen to this guy, he's selling life policies.
I need to go get my life license and become a life expert, or whatever, right?

Speaker 8 Or, man, if we only had

Speaker 8 text automated text messages that can't, you know, you know, all this different stuff.

Speaker 8 when you know i think i think a big part of it is is you know i said this before but i think a big part of it is self-awareness and just just

Speaker 8 double into your strengths like what are you good at what are you good at if you're good at that thing be the absolute tippy top world-class best at that thing if you can be it before you ever consider moving into other spaces and

Speaker 8 You know, I've learned this lesson the hard way so many times in my career.

Speaker 8 And then I had to learn it again, probably the first year that Rogue existed when I made a million bad decisions and pivoted 15 times. And like,

Speaker 8 you know, where we are today,

Speaker 8 you know, this episode is going to come out after an episode that I kind of explain,

Speaker 8 you know, the maturation of where we are, which isn't necessarily different just as we continue to evolve and what we're doing.

Speaker 8 So you can go back and listen to that. But, you know,

Speaker 8 at heart, you know, I'm a hype man.

Speaker 8 I support people. I get people jacked up.
I put them on the path. You know, that's, that's, that's what, what I do.
I'm good at process. I'm good at getting people excited about things.

Speaker 8 I'm good at culture. I'm not a great insurance guy.
I'm not like, you know what I mean? You know more in your left pinky finger about insurance than I probably do.

Speaker 8 I, you know, enough enough to be dangerous, but,

Speaker 8 you know, I have to own that that's not who I'm going to be. And I think, you know, we all have to figure out that thing.

Speaker 8 And once you figure out what your thing is and you double into it, that's how you really get to the next level. Because then other opportunities do come, right?

Speaker 8 Like you may find from being the absolute best and pinning your niche or a couple niches that there's this third niche that you can get into because it's a natural fit and it's easy and they're they're aligned with the business you're already in.

Speaker 8 But the only way you get to kind of, that materializes in a meaningful way is if you're really pinned in that one place.

Speaker 8 And I feel like how we get in trouble is we get like kind of good at something and we hit our first real plateau and then we go, ah, this thing's dead. I got to go do something else.

Speaker 8 And it's like, no, you just hit the first of like 17 plateaus on the way to being great.

Speaker 8 I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but.

Speaker 6 No, I mean, I mean, it definitely does. I mean, I know that

Speaker 6 that's just what I tell people all the time is just like, hey, you do the thing that you're really good at. And then everything else, you know, everything else is going to work out.

Speaker 6 And you don't have to self-promote that hard because people can see through the bullshit if you want to know the truth. Like

Speaker 6 they can see people that are really genuine and they, you know, really want to help.

Speaker 6 other people. And that's in, I mean, that's just all over the place.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's just kind of like the podcasts that people listen to the most, insurance people listen to the most, are the ones that they feel like people are just being real.

Speaker 6 And the people that buy these products from us, that we create these relationships with, they want to deal with the people that are that are real.

Speaker 6 And so that's why I've just always kind of been a cut to the chase kind of guy and, you know, and just not been a really. fancy word, you know, salesperson.
And so, I don't know, man. I don't know.

Speaker 6 I can tell you this. I've enjoyed talking about this topic.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 So I want to be respectful of your time, but real quick, you only got through the first five. What was number six on the list?

Speaker 6 Well, number six

Speaker 6 is something that I think that everybody should do. All right.

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 6 golly, it's Christmas time. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been listening to the counting crows long December

Speaker 6 on repeat, or if it's just the fact that, you know, we went and saw Santa Claus last night. I don't really know.

Speaker 6 But I want to end this the way that I end everything, every talk that I've ever given, everything I've ever done. And this is really one of the things that I'm the most grateful for is that

Speaker 6 no matter what I have done throughout this year, I have not delegated the things that are the most important. to me.

Speaker 6 And I'll give you an example. I'll give you three things.
All right. So the the big three gifts that we got our kids for Christmas this year is we got a GoPro.
All right. I got my kids a GoPro.

Speaker 6 Thank goodness they're like six and three and they can't listen to this. Got them a GoPro because my son loves to swing his golf club.
He loves to be outside. He loves to make crazy videos and stuff.

Speaker 6 So I got a GoPro so we can take it to the beach and do family stuff together. All right.
I got my kids a 3D printer. My daughter loves little jewelry and all this kind of stuff she can make.

Speaker 6 So she's got a 3D printer.

Speaker 6 And we got them this big, like massive jungle gym that my neighbor, who is awesome, is going to let me put together inside of his garage and keep inside of his garage until Christmas Day.

Speaker 6 And so the reason that we did those things is because we like to do stuff this active.

Speaker 6 We like to do stuff where we're not just sitting in the house all day long and get out and move around, whether it's using our mind or whether it's using our body.

Speaker 6 But I would tell everybody that's listening, and I set it up to to say this, is that there's two things that you can't delegate.

Speaker 6 I don't care. Two things you can't delegate, you can't automate.
And the first one is the relationship that you have with your spouse.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's the most important thing on the planet is that you have to walk in every day, kiss your wife or your husband before you kiss your kids.

Speaker 6 If I could give people one piece of advice, do that. Kiss your wife or husband before you kiss your kids.
All right. That's where it all starts.

Speaker 6 Don't try to make that relationship not as important as something else. And the second one is the relationship with your children.
You can't delegate that. Nobody else can do that job, but you.

Speaker 6 And so if you're planning for next year, and this may come out in 2022, but for 2021, if you're planning for next year, like no matter what, don't delegate those things.

Speaker 6 Don't put those things to the side. Make those things a priority.
Plan out that time with your family. It's the most important thing that you have.

Speaker 6 The girl that I sat next to in college orientation has got incurable bone cancer. It's crazy, incurable bone cancer.
And so for her, I mean, she spent this time, became a nurse practitioner.

Speaker 6 And like, at the end of the day, she's a 37-year-old that has a terminal disease. And so you just, I think you just have to keep it all in perspective.
and say, this is fun.

Speaker 6 This is something that I get to do. But the most important thing is not what you do, but who you raise.

Speaker 6 Amen to that, man.

Speaker 8 Amen to that. 100%.
That's a great way to end it. Dude, I appreciate you so much

Speaker 8 getting to know you and the conversations that we haven't shared and never will and shouldn't

Speaker 8 over the course of the last year plus have been very meaningful to me. And it's just such a pleasure to have you on the show, bro.

Speaker 8 I'm so happy for your success and thank you for sharing what you have with us and wish you nothing but the best and Merry Christmas and a Happy new year and crush 2022 right same to you my friend same to you

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