RHS 124 `- Ciara Gravier on Winning the Start-Up Agency Game

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Speaker 7 Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 8 Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. I'm going to be talking with Siara Gravier, the founder of the Bunker Insurance down in

Speaker 8 Florida doing tremendous stuff commercialized agency loves CR she's an absolute killer great at branding great insurance agent great great agency owner and someone I've wanted to have on the show for a long time and I'm glad that we finally got a chance to spend some time

Speaker 8 I just I think the world of the way she thinks tremendous respect for what she's doing and just very happy to share her thoughts her experience and her story with you guys you're gonna love this episode before we get there I want to give a quick shout out to our newest sponsor here on the Ryan Hanley Show, PathPoint.

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Speaker 8 Who thought this would be the next phase of the Independent Insurance Agency World Domination Plan?

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Speaker 7 Hey. Hey, what's up? How are you? I'm good.

Speaker 3 How's it going?

Speaker 7 It's Monday. Yeah.
Cranking along, you know, trying to solve all the problems that came up from Friday at five o'clock till

Speaker 7 this morning.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Same. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 I can't believe we weren't connected on LinkedIn. I always pull up.
Someone in and I saw, I was like, oh, shoot, I got to. So we're remedying that problem, uh, yeah, as we speak immediately.

Speaker 7 Yeah, no, I'm excited to have you on the show. It's um,

Speaker 7 uh,

Speaker 7 you know, I've been a fan from afar for a while, and just obviously, uh, every time I talk to Carruthers, he's like, Oh, see what CR is doing? Oh, see what CR is.

Speaker 7 And I was like, oh, I follow on social.

Speaker 3 So, um, no, I'm just excited.

Speaker 3 What I said, except LinkedIn, apparently.

Speaker 7 Yeah, except LinkedIn.

Speaker 7 Although, yeah, because it's funny how, and this is just a funny thing about the internet, like, if you follow someone one place, which I think, I think the place is probably LinkedIn and Facebook.

Speaker 7 I know we're connected in those two places.

Speaker 7 You just kind of like assume that you're connected in all the places. Everywhere, right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Cause, you know, in my mind, if someone had, I mean, not that anyone like goes around and like.

Speaker 7 Hey, insurance agent, are you connected to this other insurance? Not that that's like a, like a video or like a game show or whatever. but um, yeah, I would have said 100%.

Speaker 7 Yeah, absolutely, but all good. Um, but no, I appreciate you taking some time.
I know you're busy and um running the agency and everything, but I just think you have a super cool story.

Speaker 7 I know you've told it on David's podcast, but no one listens to that podcast.

Speaker 7 I want to get it out to the broader market.

Speaker 7 And, um,

Speaker 7 uh,

Speaker 7 and I just, I just wanted to, you know, I got a a whole bunch of questions i want to ask and stuff so i have some questions for you yeah hey you can fire away too i got a couple this is a this is a conversation it is not uh uh an inquisition so you can uh you can flip the script whenever you feel you want to but i guess my my first question is always um in in scenarios like yours like why

Speaker 7 why start your own agency it's so friggin hard

Speaker 3 we started around the same time i guess i started a couple months before you. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I think you're just like six months before.
Yeah, November-ish.

Speaker 3 We had started a little on paper. We started it earlier, but we weren't really doing anything.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's not even six months because I was

Speaker 7 like five months, maybe four or five months. I was very beginning of March of 2020 is when we launched.

Speaker 3 So yeah, it was like November 2019.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, we've had several agencies in my family. Like, you know, my dad had small states before and

Speaker 3 my parents always worked for corporate America and they were tired of being abused, really, in that and being overworked. And

Speaker 3 at 49, my dad was like, I've had enough and I'm going to open an all state. And so I was with him during those long, hard days of, we started from scratch, zero.
We didn't buy a book.

Speaker 3 You know, and we built it up and then we figured out that every all state agent has an independent on the side. So then I opened up my independent.
I was upstairs. He was downstairs.

Speaker 3 And so he would just, you know, walk at that time, people still came into the office, right? So like he would walk people upstairs.

Speaker 3 And then we, there was way more money to be made on this side. So we got rid of the all states.

Speaker 3 We had two locations, got rid of those, kept the independent. And then he ended up taking that over and he sold.
And now he's retired. And then I was like, well, what am I going to do? Right.

Speaker 3 I'm still young.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So he always made it a point to tell me, listen, if you're going going to stay in this industry, make it your career. So he was one of the people.
He was always after me, get your designations.

Speaker 3 You're going to have to set yourself apart because you're young and you're a woman. It is what it is.
Yep. So

Speaker 3 that's why, you know, I have a couple of designations.

Speaker 3 He, he was like, you just have to.

Speaker 3 show that you've you're invested in this as your career. It's not like you're trying it out, you know.
So that's what I did. And then what am I going to do? You know, I liked the agency side.

Speaker 3 I hadn't really worked for anyone ever outside of out of high school. Yeah, I had a job in high school at a veterinarian office, which I loved because I love dogs.

Speaker 3 But, you know, from working for my dad and responding to him as a boss to going, I've never done it. I've been very fortunate with that.
So he was just like, just be your own boss. You can do it.

Speaker 3 We've done it twice.

Speaker 3 This is what you know.

Speaker 3 And I was like, and he, he, you know, gave me the platform to try it again. He, he always pushes me to just try it again.
And I'm like, well, yeah, I think I should.

Speaker 3 And then here I am doing commercial only.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 this might be, this might be trivial, but did you ever regret letting the all state brands go? Was that a good lead gen or not or no? Yeah. Never regret it ever.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 We didn't regret it ever. We learned a lot with all state as far as underwriting.
It was, I think that.

Speaker 3 It's very good training for someone that has no knowledge of insurance.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Very good training because the, at least at that time, I'm talking 20 years ago, you know, they were very hands-on, almost two hands-on.

Speaker 3 And then once you got the hang of it and they still were hands-on, it's like, all right, I got it, you know, like,

Speaker 3 I know how to do it now. But we learned a lot.
And we've, oh, we've been very successful with kind of being underwriters up front. You know, we don't write bad business.

Speaker 3 Even at our independent, we never wrote like non-standard business ever.

Speaker 3 We don't do that now ever. Like, it's just, it does teach you some of the initial underwriting, how to make a complete submission,

Speaker 3 how to just, you know, do things right. So, we were very appreciative of our time with All State.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Um,

Speaker 7 why do you think a couple is five in South Florida? It's like a South Florida thing because you said a couple designations and you have at least five designations.

Speaker 7 So, I'm wondering, is that like a South? Is that like a South Florida thing where you say a couple and you know I just want to brag?

Speaker 3 Okay, let's be okay. The CAC and the CRM, you can get both, you know, together.
Yeah. So I was like, well, I mean, I have the time.
I might as well do that.

Speaker 3 So that was a two-for-one guy.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 The only one if you had, if you threw the CPCU on the end of it, one, you'd run out of C's. I don't think the, I don't think you can use any more C's on the end.

Speaker 3 I'm going to get rid of the last one. I'm going to get rid of the last one.
That's like the one that I got first. And it was like, it's like a, it's nothing.
It's not like real.

Speaker 7 Yeah. No, it's

Speaker 3 crazy i passed the first one

Speaker 3 and then i was just like i did it when when we had sold and i was like well if i'm going to become an underwriter you know maybe that one that one is good for that and i did i passed the first course and then the second one it was like actuarial stuff and i'm like i'm out yeah i'm out and it's self-taught yeah so it's difficult yeah it's very very that one's very hard

Speaker 7 at my wife's uh agency one of the women who is uh is uh she has a CPU she got her CPCU, and it took her like a decade. And that's not because she's not brilliant.

Speaker 7 I mean, she's very, very, she's awesome at her job. She's awesome.
I mean, to be honest with you, if I could hire her away from my wife, I would. But,

Speaker 7 but it just was that hard and time consuming and the self-study. And it was just, it was like a huge deal when she got it.

Speaker 3 And then you buy the books. And then if you don't do it within that window, they could update the material.
You got to rebuy it. So it's, I, I was like, it's enough.

Speaker 7 I will say, and this is, I'm going to develop some haters out there. And I don't mean it.
I don't mean this in a negative sense.

Speaker 7 It is just an observation that I have made, is that people with the CPCU,

Speaker 7 I think, tend to struggle if they're not of the right disposition in sales only because they're taught underwriting, which is say no. Here's all the reasons why you need to say no.

Speaker 7 Where sales is, here's all the reasons why I think you should say yes. And I have found now, again, I'm going to get 10 freaking linkedin dms

Speaker 7 i sell a million dollars in revenue every year ryan i got my cpcu yeah i'm i'm just saying in general broad souping stroke i feel like it is a designation unlike the cic which i found incredibly helpful for sales incredibly helpful um

Speaker 7 and to a certain extent i wish i still had i'm a dumbass and i when i went to trusted choice i let it i let it lapse yeah i'm an idiot and um if i if i i i wish i could have kept it going i know i really do um

Speaker 7 but I've just found the CPCU sometimes is a little no-based because we're a little underwriting heavy.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, I only did the first one, but I can understand how it's useful in that space more than on the sales side for sure.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool.
So, um, so another thing.

Speaker 7 I want to get, I want to talk a little bit about the brand too, but the decision to go.

Speaker 7 So, All State is obviously highly, I mean, you have some commercial, but definitely, I'm sure you were writing tons of personal. Personal.
Right. And then you get the independent.

Speaker 3 I'm sure you picked up a little bit of commercial but probably still did a lot of personal when you started the bunker you went fully commercial do you do any personal at all we did we started doing some commercial because that's what we know we did some commercial at our last agency we bought a book it had a couple large accounts so so we did we know how to do commercial yep but not like well that's why we joined killing commercial not the middle market stuff of trying to get in there like that's a whole nother thing that we do not do.

Speaker 3 But we did

Speaker 3 do,

Speaker 3 I did start with some homeowners, but you know, it's impossible to get appointments here. Yeah.
Almost nearly impossible.

Speaker 3 So I had some relationships with some of the homeowners carriers that had been with us in Saul State and they came through for me real big. That's great.
But as soon as COVID came, they shut down.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Everything is going to citizens, which is the state.
And I do not write with citizens. I don't want to.
And it's a hassle and they pay you nothing.

Speaker 3 So I was like, I'm not going to open this agency to be a citizens agency. Yep.
So then I checked this morning. I have 4% of my book is personal.
I have about nine policies. That's it.

Speaker 7 That's pretty similar to us. I actually just have, I have, it's funny.

Speaker 7 So I have this guy.

Speaker 7 He's a nice enough guy, but he has a

Speaker 7 he has a $900 auto policy and a $481 homeowner's policy with us. And he wants to talk to me specifically.

Speaker 7 And I said,

Speaker 7 hey, Robert, can you talk to Leslie on my team?

Speaker 7 She has the answers that you're looking for, which is basically like, dude, you have, you're paying nothing for your insurance. Stay where you are.

Speaker 7 Like, especially because rates in New York, we just got an announcement, you know, we're probably going to see 15 to 20% increases in rates, which we're going to see around the country, but you know, that that's all coming.

Speaker 7 So, um, but like, so it's just like, stay right where you are. You're in perfect.
And she says it.

Speaker 7 And then he writes me this whole big email about how he's concerned about his relationship with our agency. And I email my wife and I'm like, do you want this guy?

Speaker 7 Like, I will BOR this account to you right now. Like you can have him.
He's perfect. You know what I mean? Like let him like you will crush this guy and he'll be happy with you.

Speaker 7 He's not going to be happy with me. You know what I mean? So it's like, I'm with you.
I feel like it's so difficult. The deeper I get into doing commercial and

Speaker 7 doing it better, right? I'm not going to say I do it right yet because there's a lot of things I'd like to tweak, but certainly doing it better every day.

Speaker 7 Man, the less I'm less, I have zero interest in personal.

Speaker 3 And here,

Speaker 3 yes, the premiums are big.

Speaker 3 They're big. I mean, a homeowner's policy is five grand, right?

Speaker 3 But dealing with the mortgage brokers and the realtors and the closings and I don't have the staff.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 to keep up with it and the service behind it and then the competition. It's just, I feel like there's not much extra value that you can add in that space personally.

Speaker 3 I feel like in the commercial space, especially because we are in South Florida, there's a lot of people that come from other countries that have money and have, and are coming here to open businesses, and they have no idea how anything works here.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I feel like we have, I mean, we speak Spanish, all of us here speak Spanish.

Speaker 3 So we're able to help these people find an attorney, find an accountant, you know, set up their businesses from the ground up, right? They can trust us. That's a problem.

Speaker 3 They come here and they don't know who to trust. So I feel like, and then it just makes me feel good because I feel like I'm actually helping someone.
I'm not just slinging a homeowner's policy.

Speaker 3 Here's your deductibles. You know, like, it just, I like it way more.

Speaker 7 Have you got into the startup scene at all? I know Miami is one of the fastest growing startup and tech scenes in the entire country. Have you been able to tap into that at all?

Speaker 3 I haven't yet, but it is on my list. Yeah.
I've been noticing that and seeing the influx. I just saw like last week, I think it was that there's about like 16 companies coming in.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I know that that's picking up.

Speaker 7 It's, I mean, I'm, I probably

Speaker 7 know a little bit too much about, not, not the specific companies.

Speaker 7 I just, a couple of the podcasts that I listen to that are in the crypto space, not necessarily about crypto in particular, but they're just startup related.

Speaker 7 And these guys are just talking about how there are just so many companies that are either opening up.

Speaker 7 large offices here or moving offices here or that are like founders that would have normally started up in Silicon Valley are now founding in South Florida Florida for a whole bunch of reasons.

Speaker 7 I mean, one, if you start your company there, you don't, you're not, you're not having to deal with California taxes and regulation. And the other side is it's just such a budding new scene.

Speaker 7 It's just, it's cool. And you're, you know, you're right there, Fort Lauderdale.
You know, you're basically basically right there. So that's.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's, it's not far. Yeah.
It's, it's definitely on my, on my list. Like, I, I, I follow a couple of hashtags on Instagram of like women in tech, Miami Tech and stuff.

Speaker 3 And I'm seeing some of the events, which I'm going to go to.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's cool. Pop up.
Yeah. They're, I find that that tech stuff is, is really interesting.
It's, I, we, we don't have a ton of accounts. Um, I, you know, I say, I say all this to you.

Speaker 7 And then, you know, obviously, I'm not drinking my own Kool-Aid. We have New York.
You know, it's only two and a half hours from here.

Speaker 7 Um, I've gotten a few, a few accounts from New York City that are startup tech related. And they are really fun to work on.
I find it a very interesting class because.

Speaker 3 Who do you write them with?

Speaker 7 So we've written Chubb and Hartford have been the majority. And then we, the tech E ⁇ O,

Speaker 7 Chubb has a tech E ⁇ O product. They just, that's actually pretty good.
I like it. But

Speaker 7 they tend to be fairly selective in who

Speaker 7 they'll write it with. So then we have, I've pretty much written all the rest of the tech E ⁇ O has been with Beasley.

Speaker 7 So Beasley's been the tech E ⁇ O for us.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't have any direct appointments like that. So I have to go through brokers.
So it's a challenge for me to

Speaker 3 even

Speaker 3 get familiar. Like, I asked for like uh specimens of the policies and stuff, but I live in like excess and surplus world, don't you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, you know, so it's it's been that's been a challenge for me to, you know, and then you have these underwriters and these brokers that say that they do it all.

Speaker 3 Yes, they can do it, but like that's why I'm I started working with pro writers, yep, and they've been very, very helpful. They're reliable.

Speaker 3 Yep, my underwriter there will will take the time, explain things to me. Like, I've really enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 My relationship so far with them because of that, because they're the specialists.

Speaker 7 I really like ProWriters. Um,

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 use RT specialty to get to Beasley because ProWriters doesn't have Beasley yet. But other than that Beasley relationship, that's I've gone to Pro Writers quite a bit.
ProWriters has been the big one.

Speaker 7 I agree with you. I think Brian Thornton and oh, dude, what is her name?

Speaker 7 uh man our direct our direct underwriter they've just been they have been uh very good very professional i like that they have multiple carriers that they can walk you through i think that's tremendous so i don't know i i felt like i i you know i

Speaker 7 i feel bad that you don't have to any direct appointments now i'm no it is

Speaker 7 i i can't as has

Speaker 7 it's you gotta find a way there's gotta be a way right i mean why what is the why would they say no what are they saying no to well it is i mean

Speaker 3 progressive i had a book with progressive at my other agency for 12 years on their special tier commission and they won't give me an appointment because i don't have three years of because i'm not an agency owner for three years progressive is the worst though but i know business good business with you i'm on a higher tier commission for 12 years so you're going to take someone someone that will show you that okay i've owned an agency for three years but you've never seen me produce yeah that doesn't make any sense is it the south is it the the southern florida thing yeah that's what it is yeah because none of these people write property here yeah either so it's like they they so even i have access to like the hartford through halcyon which is also owned through brown and brown so i don't like to use them yeah so you know like i'm i feel i can't trust them with my stuff you know what might be a good fit for you is um

Speaker 7 uh the Simon agency, which is they're uh they're just a straight wholesaler out of New York City, but they have they have Next, they have Hartford, they have Amtrust, they have, and I'll tell you, for small liability policies, Next is great.

Speaker 7 Um, did you hook up with Codery?

Speaker 3 I did.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Codery is great too.

Speaker 3 I'm very happy that they added hired and unowned.

Speaker 7 Now I will use them.

Speaker 7 Yes, that was, I know, the other thing that I wanted them to add, and I think they're coming out with it in early 2022, is a supplement for sexual abuse for some of their like professional and sports and camp line, like sports camps.

Speaker 7 Like I wrote a tennis instructor the other day who does events and it was perfect. You get your GL, your PL, it's all together.
Like it's super clean, super easy.

Speaker 7 But then we had to write the sexual abuse on like a separate form,

Speaker 7 which sucked, you know what I mean? Cause then it's just like another thing, which,

Speaker 7 you know, but but

Speaker 3 I'm very happy though. I have them and I haven't used them because I need that hired and on on, but I'm glad that they came out with it.

Speaker 7 It is very difficult to write a general liability policy today and not have a hired and non-owned endorsement on it. Like that's, you know,

Speaker 7 unless they have that separate auto policy, you know, you're, I don't know. I feel like it's.

Speaker 3 I feel like it could be like like, so down here with the bops, right?

Speaker 3 It's, it's a challenge because any of those bop carriers, which there's not many still doing it, they don't, they won't do the wind.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So it's like, I can't move them there and then have not have the hired and unowned. I have to give them at least that and then I do the separate property.

Speaker 7 Yep. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 That makes sense. I'm very happy that they came out with that, though.

Speaker 7 That's good. Yeah, that was a good one.
Well, I think Simon would be a good one.

Speaker 7 Well, I'll send you some other recommendations offline. I mean, these are, these are not tried, and these aren't like set and stone.
They're just some.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I do have an Amtrust appointment. For the comp, I have some direct.
I have an Amtrust and ICW.

Speaker 7 Amtrust is good. Yeah.
I wish. But they

Speaker 7 amtracism is. Oh, they haven't opened up the rest.
Just beat them over the head. Just

Speaker 7 them over the head pound them

Speaker 7 daycare right a daycare i have a direct appointment with amtrust only for workers comp i got a quote through wesco for the daycare through household i can't do it direct just here's here's my method and for for for marketing reps i will literally email them every i'll just make their life hell i'll just email email email email here's another account you lost here's another account you lost here's another account you lost and finally they're just like what i got to get more aggressive with that it's a button button push for them.

Speaker 7 This is, you know what I mean? All the guy goes, he goes into his system and he goes, the bunker open.

Speaker 7 I mean, it's not like, and in their mind, they're like, oh, we need to make sure that she's going to write enough comp with us.

Speaker 3 Come on, I don't get it. I don't get it.

Speaker 7 Well, because, and here's the other thing. This is what I said to him.
I said, bro, if you open up your stupid comp restrictions and you make it so I can actually write accounts, I'll write accounts.

Speaker 7 But if you say the first nine things I sent to Amtrust, they declined. And I was like, guys,

Speaker 7 this is not how you start a relationship. Like, you know, you can't, you know, but they're like, well, you're new.
So we got a heavier pen. I'm like, wait, wait, just think about that.

Speaker 7 You want me to get rolling with you. You just sent me an email that said, Hey, let's get rolling, right? Like some stupid marketing email.

Speaker 7 And you declined the first nine things because I'm new and you're unsure about my submissions. I'm like, where's the logic here? Where's the logic? Now, I will say, once we had these talks and stuff,

Speaker 7 we've been writing more and more with Amtrust, but um, it just, I just find,

Speaker 7 I don't know, I have no problem talking smack about how these carriers operate at our level, right? Like, because because, and this is why you know it's a big game.

Speaker 7 Because if you had, if you like, were swinging some like three million dollar book, they would do anything that you wanted, they wouldn't even have to start anything. What do you want us to do?

Speaker 7 We'll do it.

Speaker 3 It's like, I mean, I had it though, yeah, I did have it, you know, they make someone's track record like you have.

Speaker 7 It should, it should not be that.

Speaker 3 It shouldn't matter. Yeah.
It really shouldn't. But I mean, and Amtrak did come through and it's like the same rep, our rep is super nice, very helpful.
Yeah. So I'm glad that I have them on my side.

Speaker 3 But it's that, that has been a challenge for me,

Speaker 3 you know, putting business on the books because

Speaker 3 my arms are tied.

Speaker 7 Yeah, the, the, that, that extended. That extended relationship is tough.
I, that's one of the reasons. Um, so

Speaker 7 I, I will only work with excess lines brokers now who have quote bind issue platforms.

Speaker 7 So, like, we're really developing relationships with PathPoint and RT specialties version of that, which is RT Connector. So now

Speaker 7 I love these two platforms. And I won't say that I have a winner or loser yet.
They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Speaker 7 I'm perfectly fine using both of them. I like both of them.
I think both are doing a good job.

Speaker 7 I just think I'm very happy and excited about this movement to where like some of these smaller excess lines accounts and property accounts in particular, like I had a guy, he needed,

Speaker 7 he needed

Speaker 7 $50,000 in property coverage for chemicals that he stored that weren't necessarily hazardous, but they were, you know, chemicals. And, you know, who the heck is going to write that?

Speaker 7 So you know it's excess lines. Well, normally now I got to put together a 125.
I got to put together a 140 or whatever it is. And then, you know,

Speaker 7 that's so much time. And with connector, you just jump in,

Speaker 7 you know, 10 seconds later, you're like, oh, 700 bucks, perfect. Let's go.
And that's a game changer, I think, for a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 3 It is, especially for someone like me that I have, everything I do has to wait. I have to wait.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like I got this one really good underwriter now that he's young and he like I have his cell phone. I can text him.

Speaker 3 I call him and he turns things around for me same day, which has had a substantial change in our agency because now he's my first choice.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I don't have like even the prior relationships that I have, it's just like, I can't wait two days for a quote anymore. I just can't.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I

Speaker 7 really struggle with the,

Speaker 7 I had a, I had a carrier give me the

Speaker 7 franchise value talk the other day. Just don't, do you understand the franchise value of having an appointment with us? And I was like, no, what am I getting? What does that get me?

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, what am I?

Speaker 7 How much am I, are you increasing the multiple on my, when someone buys me because I have an appointment with you? I don't know. Yeah, I guess I don't, I don't understand.

Speaker 7 And, and, and, and, um, and they were responding to my beef, which was they were like, well, how come we're not getting as many submissions as we did earlier, you know, like when you first were starting?

Speaker 7 And I said, well, I've taken on a couple more carriers. And they respond to me quicker.
And I could care less if I write write them with them or you. And it's like, I,

Speaker 7 they had, they were blown away. Like they were like, what?

Speaker 7 What do you mean you don't care? I'm like, I don't care if I place the business with you or them.

Speaker 7 And whoever gets back to me first is who gets, like what you're, the paper, you know, the, the words on the pieces of paper in your contract are almost verbatim to the words on the paper and their contract.

Speaker 7 So.

Speaker 7 I don't, I don't care if it's with you or with them. It's whoever gets back to me first.
If I got to wait three days for you and they're getting back to me in a day, they're getting the business.

Speaker 7 That's, there's no, I don't care about franchise value. It doesn't mean anything to me.

Speaker 3 This morning, I just got a declination for a workers' comp account that had an effective date of 1022.

Speaker 3 We sent that to them in September.

Speaker 3 This morning I sent it to Guernsey. I said, just in case you were waiting still, here it is.
Here's your declination.

Speaker 7 Well, here's the worst part. Someone was working on that.

Speaker 7 Like, that's the crazy part. No, there is someone at a carrier who's, who was working on that account.

Speaker 3 This morning at six o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 7 They're like, oh, I got to get this out declined, you know, and they're wasting. And you're like, I didn't even know that this was still out there.

Speaker 3 They had already declined it. It's, it's baffling.
It's, it's, it's baffling.

Speaker 7 And then you get the, again, we're just trashing carriers right now, but I think. I think they need general ribbing.
It's, I mean, we, we're all partners. I get it.
We all need each other.

Speaker 7 But like at the same point, like, I don't know. Like, I got this from my chub guy the other day.
Ryan, you don't understand. We're having a hard time staffing because of COVID.

Speaker 7 I'm like, bro, we're, we're almost 24 months into this thing. Like, you need to figure it out.
Like, we're, you know what I mean? Like, come on, you're chub. Throw a freaking

Speaker 7 indeed zip recruiter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn recruiting. Like, there you go.
Go get some. I mean.

Speaker 3 That's not an excuse at that level.

Speaker 7 Oh, at all. Like, bro, this is taking way too long.
Ryan, you don't understand. He's the nicest guy, too.
He's the nice guy. He's a guy to have, right? Yeah, he's the nicest guy.

Speaker 7 I have no beef with him. I just like, man, because I know it's not, he's not the one doing the staffing, making the decisions.
He's this messenger, but I'm like, dude, I don't care.

Speaker 3 No, everyone's having the same issues. You're not, I am.
Like, we're having the issues of, of, of fucking people. So, I mean, we can't tell that to our customers.

Speaker 7 Yeah. Sorry.
So, um, so what, uh,

Speaker 7 what stuff is working for you? Like, what, and I don't mean that like a bunch of stuff isn't working.

Speaker 7 Just, you know, what is, what is, so you've, you've kind of had this very unique career and that you, you haven't had to go work for it.

Speaker 7 You've been able to kind of craft and have a lot of autonomy and insight into running the business. And you've seen it personalized and you've seen captive and you've seen independent.

Speaker 7 And now you're fully commercial, essentially, your own agency. Like, what is the stuff that's really hitting home for you? What do you get excited about?

Speaker 7 You know, what is it for you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, we, we, so we joined Killing Commercial and we have our, you know, what we're doing there. And that has really been the best thing that we've done because

Speaker 3 I did some commercial, but it was also either we bought it in the book, it was a referral. We never went and got it ourselves, like those large, large middle market accounts.

Speaker 3 So learning how to do that has been very good.

Speaker 3 And I'm very, I mean, COVID has been a terrible thing, but I think if COVID wouldn't have happened, I don't know that I would have done, you know, made the investment into Killing Commercial because I would have been busy doing homeowners policies.

Speaker 3 So I think that for our agency, you know, we used that time to really learn how to get our foot in the door and the process down and all of that stuff and the lingo to speak.

Speaker 3 We just had, we didn't get the account, but it was our first one of the killing commercial, you know, target that we were going after.

Speaker 3 And it was us versus Brown and Brown, which was the incumbent. And, you know, we asked all the right questions.
We did, you know, we asked her, listen, if we're going to, she had a mod of bubble one.

Speaker 3 We did everything. It was tech support.
You know, and then we asked the question, listen, you don't have an insurance problem. You know, you need risk management.

Speaker 3 You're going to, you're, they're going to close your doors if you don't get this under control. Yeah.
Because she had a lot of auto losses too.

Speaker 3 And she said, no, she said she was not going to sign the BOR. And we were like, okay, well.

Speaker 3 We did it anyway. We felt like we needed to get that experience at that level.
And also, especially going up against Brown and Brown and another really, really large agency down here in South Florida.

Speaker 3 So we were like,

Speaker 3 let's just go through the process and learn. And at least it gives us the confidence to ask the questions.

Speaker 3 She was helpful.

Speaker 3 She wasn't like, no, I'm not going to send you anything. I'm not going to sign that.
She was helpful, giving us all the information we needed.

Speaker 3 And we even asked her, what's your connection to your Brown and Brown person? Because she had just gotten to them last year. So this was her first renewal with them.

Speaker 3 So we're like, okay, she's not connected. There's not like a relationship there.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, she ended up staying with them. And then when we're sitting there presenting to her what we had, she's like, oh, you know, I do a lot of work for them.
They're electricians.

Speaker 3 And we're like, why are you wasting your time then?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, but

Speaker 3 that experience has already given us the

Speaker 3 the knowledge of how to ask the questions and how to get our foot in the door. It was necessary.
We learned a lot. It was a win for us anyway, because right after that,

Speaker 3 we've realized that the way we used to do commercial, where it's like someone would call us and be like, hey, you know, like I have, I need a GL, I need this.

Speaker 3 Okay, well, here's some supplementals, which is torture. Here's some supplementals.
Fill it out. We'll talk.
Now we got a phone call for a referral from a lady, an elevator company.

Speaker 3 She got hit with an $80,000 audit.

Speaker 3 because her agent misrepresented the sales.

Speaker 3 And we're like, well, we can't help you until you hire us.

Speaker 3 You know, before I would have tried to fix it and then hope she gave me the policies. So I think that doing business this way is way more fun,

Speaker 3 way more fun and obviously profitable because I'm not going to work for you until you hire me. Yep.

Speaker 3 So I think that that's the biggest piece. And I got a call.

Speaker 3 Last week, I sent an email saying, hey, I know you probably already got your renewal, but you're paying 40% more on your comp. Did you know? What has your agent told you?

Speaker 3 The lady called me crying on the phone. My agent is not helping me.
I'm getting non-renewed. We need help.
Can you help us? I got her non-renewal lifted because I wrote a narrative about them.

Speaker 3 Lost runs, the mod report, everything. A submission this tall.
And I got her non-renewal lifted. And that her agent couldn't do that.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 that that makes me feel i like i saved these people's business yeah that i that warms my heart and i was like this is what i I love to do for sure.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

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Speaker 7 I think that's awesome.

Speaker 7 I think that's, I love that part too. I love the, and I think, I think that's probably why most of the people listening love what we do

Speaker 7 is when you get to like really be a true value provider, problem solver, it's great. I struck, what I struggle with as a business owner is that

Speaker 7 I want to help both types of people. So I

Speaker 7 also get off on building the systems and processes around helping that person who's like calling you, who's buying buying their first truck

Speaker 7 or their and like, man, can some of those be a pain in the ass? Like, oh, it can be such a pain in the ass. But I

Speaker 7 wrote down really early in Rogues like history, this concept of no customer left behind that

Speaker 7 I'd been in so many rooms.

Speaker 7 And I'm not saying this is what you're saying by any, by any regards, but I've been in so many rooms where agents would say things like, those small accounts, like, I don't want, you know,

Speaker 7 or you know, excess lines, we don't do that, or you know, this stuff. And

Speaker 7 I completely get it. Like, I completely get why they say that.
Like, it can be a hassle. And people who have 500 bops, you're making 50 bucks on it, 60 bucks totally.

Speaker 3 You have to remind them for their payments.

Speaker 7 Yes, and their payments, and they're still going to call you. And

Speaker 7 I get all that. And then there's this other part of me, and maybe it's a,

Speaker 7 maybe, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a personality feeling, but like

Speaker 7 the fact that other agents that agents look at that stuff and don't want it makes me want it because i see i've i see opportunity like we're really getting into excess lines big time um

Speaker 7 and we're writing a lot of it uh

Speaker 7 mostly because other agents don't want to deal with it So it's not, so for example, we don't have a threshold, right? Yes.

Speaker 3 And I'm not, we've even scaled down the people that we were going after because we feel like we can't provide value. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, for example, if they have, you know, a board that decides, I don't feel like I'm useful.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 which I probably shouldn't say that about myself.

Speaker 7 You probably would be.

Speaker 3 I probably would be, but I just don't, I don't, I like to help. Like I said, the, you know, we have a manufacturer here that's from South America.

Speaker 3 It's a hundred thousand dollar account, him and his partner, and they call us for everything because they need help that's what that is what i love that that that business owner that has you know has the money to do it and but really needs some guidance yeah that's really and it's usually not you know i'm not making you know 25 000 in revenue on those accounts but i'm okay with that yeah i'm fine with that and i'm with you i i i think that i think

Speaker 7 I think there's just a lot of, especially in small commercial, which everyone defines differently, but I think in small commercials,

Speaker 7 for me, for our agency, we define anything under $150,000 and premium as small commercial. That's our kind of our space.
And then anything over $150,000,

Speaker 8 we would call middle market.

Speaker 7 I think that's still probably small for some true, certainly for middle market shops, but for us, that's what the,

Speaker 3 I would say, yeah, mine's probably lower.

Speaker 7 Well, so we, so we have, what we call select business is 25,000 and premium and under. That is very transactional.
It is, it is, what's the problem? Here's the solution.

Speaker 7 Do you want it or you don't want it? We have a very defined process, very defined funnel. It's, it's like, it's step by step by step by step by step.
It's, you know what I mean? Like it, it is

Speaker 7 get through, get through it fast. And that 25,000 and under.
We call that select. Anything over.
25,000 a premium, we call rogue premier. And that is what we call true small.

Speaker 7 That's probably true small business anything under 25 000 is probably probably micro i don't know you know what i mean i guess micro really is whatever every define this is how we define it but then over that 150

Speaker 7 we would have to we would have to put some thought into

Speaker 7 and we only have one account at that level right now we would have to put some real thought today today's version of rogue into whether or not we were willing to take that on only because i would be like you like i would be nervous that we're not set up to handle that kind of account today.

Speaker 7 That's how I feel.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not set up for it. And

Speaker 3 not saying one day, I mean, the goal is to be set up for it, yeah. But right now, I'm not.

Speaker 3 And then, like, how much service comes, especially if they're contractors, if the manufacturers here, the service-wise, it's better, yeah.

Speaker 3 But if it's a contractor that size, the service is heavy, yeah, heavy.

Speaker 7 We have one that we charge, we actually do a policy fee on because they do so many friggins.

Speaker 3 I have such mixed emotions on the fees and

Speaker 7 I have come around to them.

Speaker 3 I just told them last week, I was like, you know what? Maybe I'm just not meant to make money, but I feel bad.

Speaker 3 I feel like it's my job to do that.

Speaker 7 So I used to 100% agree with you. Policy fees are for scoundrels and the whole thing.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's the way I felt. Like, if you, why are you feeing this?

Speaker 7 We get paid a commission.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I will say, you know, again, this is not advocating one tool over another, but agency Zoom released this service pipeline feature, which tracks time per task. So now I can actually see if we put

Speaker 7 a task in one of the service pipelines, how long it takes to go through, how many we've had, how many touches. It's pretty cool.

Speaker 7 It's not like Salesforce in depth, but it's pretty, it's, it's pretty in depth. Yeah.
And

Speaker 7 two things that i saw were cui requests and billing were our two biggest time sucks solved a lot of the billing issues by moving over to a send

Speaker 7 which is just a payment tool which we really like um helped us a lot uh but but for the cois

Speaker 7 there's some ways to streamline it and we're working on those but man it's just some of these accounts we're talking like three four cowis a day for one account when i see that i saw that and i just said to them i said said, God, I said to this, because

Speaker 7 it's, you know, it's comp.

Speaker 7 So we're not, we're only making like 9%.

Speaker 7 And I'm doing the math on this. And I'm like,

Speaker 7 we're getting killed, like absolutely killed. And you don't have a portal.

Speaker 3 You don't have like a self-service portal.

Speaker 7 We're on. We don't have one yet either.
We're on now certs. Okay.

Speaker 7 I've been, people have been giving me a lot of crap lately for trashing now certs.

Speaker 3 I don't want to. I don't have any.
So, and I have Hawksoft as my managing system. They have a portal, I guess, but I haven't.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I'm really hoping that something like Glovebox is awesome. I'm just, I just assume it's going to take a while because I know they're not there yet.
So I'm not really.

Speaker 7 There is a there is a thing. It is not great.
So we basically our VA,

Speaker 7 our VA that we have through agency VA,

Speaker 7 his number one, two, and three responsibility in in our agency is COIs. So when one comes in, he drops whatever else he's doing, unless he's also doing a COI at that point.
And he does that COI.

Speaker 7 So we're able to do our right since he's basically, but that's a full human body task to basically one thing. And then he just backfills some smaller tasks when he has time.

Speaker 7 And so we policy feed that account and they didn't even blink at it. They're like, oh, that makes sense.
I was actually waiting for that because we send so many requests to you.

Speaker 7 Didn't even blink. It's.

Speaker 7 And I was like,

Speaker 7 so am I on the dark side now or am I an idiot? Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 Like, oh, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with it

Speaker 3 bad, honestly. I just feel, I feel like, I feel like I could use that against the agency that does charge them.

Speaker 7 Yeah, the difference is you, so this, and this is, because I thought about that too, because this is, this is a tough topic. And I, and I get that.

Speaker 7 And there's people that are out there that are listening to this going, I policy fee everything. And there's people out there that are going, I would never, I'm with, I'm with you.

Speaker 7 I would never policy feel anything.

Speaker 7 I,

Speaker 7 here's what I would say. If one of my competitors took this account and didn't charge a policy fee, I would be fine with it because I would know that they were losing money.

Speaker 3 They're losing. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah. They're not.
I just, I've done the math. And I just, the reason, and I don't think the policy fee was outrageous.
It's not like I did some crazy number. Yeah.

Speaker 7 It just, I did the math on the amount of time and how much we were making. And we are, we were losing money without the policy fee.

Speaker 3 So for a rewrite, I understand. I'm down with the policy fee because if you cancel and you're one of those people, you deserve it.
I'm down with that.

Speaker 3 I feel like just, I'm struggling with it. And, you know, I've, I've, the podcast that you had with James Jenkins was so, so good.

Speaker 3 The one about like, are you running a business or are you running an insurance agent? Ever since I heard that podcast, I have, it is a struggle because I am an insurance agent first.

Speaker 3 I'm trying to do this side and I'm trying to do this side better.

Speaker 3 You know, and like now at renewal time, I sit with my renewal list and I think, okay, well, what am I making on this account? Is it worth it?

Speaker 3 I'm thinking in revenue now, which it's been a shift, but I feel like I just, and it would, it would, it multiplies pretty quickly too with the policy fees. So it really does add up.

Speaker 7 So I'm trying to think.

Speaker 7 I think you just said a policy. I think if you can get a close calculation on revenue for a specific account, I think it's just a calculation.

Speaker 7 I mean, I would not have, I mean, in all transparency to everyone listening,

Speaker 7 I would not have policy feed this account if the math didn't make it unprofitable. And the, and the,

Speaker 7 the commission on the policy per the time that it was taking with the number of COIs we were getting, it just made it unprofitable. And that's with the VA who, who, you know,

Speaker 7 it's not like we're paying a full-time client success person who's licensed in the U.S.

Speaker 7 so if this was a this was a client success person someone here in the states and we were paying states rates we would have been getting slaughtered i mean it was you know so so that was that was the calculation i to the thing with james jenkins i think um

Speaker 7 um

Speaker 7 I think this is the hardest part of our business is one, the self-awareness, and obviously you already have it of

Speaker 7 am I a producer, agency owner, or an agency owner who sometimes has to produce? I think that's a really,

Speaker 7 I think that's very tough self-awareness question for a lot of people.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I recently had to let a producer, one of my producers go.

Speaker 7 Thankfully, I hired another one on the same day who just started today, who I'm super excited. Shout out to Will.

Speaker 7 And I, so, so like the last two weeks has been all hands on deck.

Speaker 7 One, I don't know if you've ever, and you probably have, and many people probably have, but this is the first time I had to have to look through a producer's email inbox who you had to let go.

Speaker 7 It's like you, you're essentially like knifing yourself in the chest, like every 30 seconds, because you're like, wow, there's a bind order he just never forwarded on to the service team. What the?

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? You're like, as you're chugging freaking whiskey on the side to comment

Speaker 3 undone. Yes, you're like,

Speaker 7 how is this? How is this person existing? Like, no wonder.

Speaker 3 Well, that's why, yeah, that's why, like, I just finished reading traction, and I mean, there's two of us here, you know, so it's a lot where I don't, I'm trying to like scale it down to me for what I can implement right now.

Speaker 3 But that's one of the things, too, about like firing quickly.

Speaker 3 Like, if you, if you mess, if you were back and forth about letting this person go, I mean, how much, how much did you miss of what they didn't do?

Speaker 7 Yes, like, it's here's the crazy part:

Speaker 7 so

Speaker 7 and I'll just, I'm, I'm canon about numbers, but like, so he was, his goal was

Speaker 7 like 65,000 in premium, right? Which to me felt like commercial. Yeah, felt like a fucking layup.
Layup. I mean, we have 215 leads a month that come into our agency inbound.
This is a layup.

Speaker 7 This is like, this is like Michael Jordan putting a perfect pass right on your hands as you're going up into the, I mean, this is like, it doesn't get any more easy.

Speaker 7 This might be Michael Jordan shooting a three and and all you have to do is like tap it on the way in and um

Speaker 7 if you could jump that high uh

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 you know he was not hitting that number not even close and um so whatever no no big deal you know i i'm training and i'm trying i'm not the best trainer so some of this is on me and and whatever and to traction's point i think it was more of a uh a

Speaker 7 right butt, wrong seat kind of situation. Like, I think he's going to have a tremendous career in the insurance industry.

Speaker 7 And I would i actually would would give him a glaring a very positive review just wasn't right for us but that's okay well sure

Speaker 7 in two weeks we hit our we have our first two two weeks of me producing on these leads we have our first 100 000 premium month in our history you know so 17 months in whack there's six figures in premium just in two weeks of me working i'm going I'm like, I'm like having panic attacks because I'm like, we could have been doing this for months and months and months and be how much further along?

Speaker 7 I probably could add another two or three producers by now if we had been producing at that level. And like, now, now I'm having panic attacks.
Now I'm like questioning every life decision.

Speaker 3 Yeah, everything. Every, what do you do? I mean, what, so what's the solution? Where,

Speaker 3 do you like, do you audit? How do you not you specifically, but what is the solution? Do you audit them?

Speaker 7 Do you? I think the solution. So it's a really good question.
I think I made a couple mistakes that if I were the consult, a third-party consultant, I think would have been very obvious.

Speaker 7 And I, you know, that I just, so one,

Speaker 7 you need to have a regular, you need to have someone who's a sales access as a true sales manager. Now, that would have had to have been me, right?

Speaker 7 or or but someone in your agency has to be a sales manager how many calls did you make today? How did they go? What's going on? What are you at? Like that really annoying shit that sales managers do.

Speaker 7 It's important because it forces people to stay on it and you can kind of figure out what's happening sooner. Two, I was a poor mentor.
So I take full credit for that.

Speaker 7 I'm obviously doing a few other things that not every agency owner does.

Speaker 7 And some of those things, i didn't slow down and be a real mentor and i should have been that and i wasn't and i'll take i take full responsibility for that so i think that those two

Speaker 7 that though that's good because you you have the power to change that aspect of it and then you know i think those if i had done those two things those two things were different i would have caught and or moved gone a different direction earlier and or possibly been able to write the ship and and everything would have been fine so you know, I think it was a couple different things.

Speaker 7 It was just, it was a really good lesson as a leader. I'm glad it happened early.
Yeah. It does make me want to run headfirst into a wall thinking about, oh my God,

Speaker 7 stepping into this maelstrom for two weeks, I was able to do this much. Like, oh my God.

Speaker 7 But whatever. So you said you had questions for me.
I want to be respectful of your time. So whatever you have, fire.

Speaker 3 Yeah. so

Speaker 3 i have to book time on your calendar you told me to a while back ago and i have not about seo yeah

Speaker 3 and um

Speaker 3 i just you know i do you have a crypto calendar

Speaker 3 do i have a crypto yeah where i could ask you questions about that is it too late for me to get into it like what's the deal cryptocurrency My brother-in-law is constantly telling me, C, what do you want?

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So if you want to get into crypto, it's never, the cool thing about crypto is it's never never too late do you like to go to the casino no i don't

Speaker 7 do bet on sports i don't do any of that don't do any of that okay all right so all right so the good news is you're not a degenerate gambler bad no i'm not that's the bad news is you won't be attracted to the 24 24 hour nature of the gambling that is cryptocurrency that being said i um so so the cool thing about crypto is that um no one really has any idea what it's going to be.

Speaker 7 Oh, I would, I, that being said, because I think we're in like

Speaker 7 the top of the first inning. If this were a baseball analogy for crypto, like it is, it is, we are just, just getting started.

Speaker 7 Like people would be like, oh, well, in 2017, all these things were 100th of what the value is today.

Speaker 7 But in 2017.

Speaker 7 This was such a long shot. You had to be a crazy person to put any substantial amount of money in.

Speaker 7 And the people who you see on like the TV that have gotten these like, like, you know, changed their whole life, like they were living in a gutter and now they're like have their own yacht.

Speaker 7 Those are crazy people. Those are legit.
Those people are legit bonkers and they just cashed a one in a trillion lottery ticket. Okay.

Speaker 7 But despite all that,

Speaker 7 today I think, I think one, it's a little more stable. I think they're, I think, I don't think the technology.
and the networks that are being built are going away.

Speaker 7 What, what they're going to be, how much are they going to be valued at? Which ones are going to be the winners and losers?

Speaker 7 You can have opinions, and I certainly do.

Speaker 7 I just don't know that anyone knows for sure. Bitcoin seems like it's not going away.
That feels like, you know, Ethereum, there's a couple others that feel like they're not going away.

Speaker 7 What they're ultimately valued at, do they go to a million? Do they go down to $10?

Speaker 7 I don't know that anyone knows, but it does feel like they're going to be here.

Speaker 7 The technology itself, which I've really nerded out on, is incredibly interesting, incredibly interesting. And I actually had this guy,

Speaker 7 shoot, I'm going to forget his name, but he's from Steady State DeFi Insurance.

Speaker 7 He was on the podcast. His episode was maybe like four or five weeks ago, somewhere in the last few months.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he, oh, so he said some really cool shit on the air.

Speaker 7 The stuff that he said off the air. was even more incredible just and and i can't really share exactly what it was other than

Speaker 7 he, and again, he's 25 years old. Who the hell knows? But he did seem pretty brilliant to me.

Speaker 7 He's just like, we are, we're, we are, we are literally just getting started. So I would say take some small amount of money, very small,

Speaker 7 you know, whatever that is for you, and get a Coinbase account.

Speaker 7 and like buy some Bitcoin, buy some Ethereum, buy some Cardano, like just buy like four or five of the blue chip kind of cryptocurrencies and just watch them.

Speaker 7 And then what's naturally going to happen is you're going to do a little research and then that's going to turn you on to something else.

Speaker 7 And then, you know, if something fun happens and one of them goes crazy, you win. But,

Speaker 7 you know, I kind of, I have my bets on the table. I haven't bought in in a while.
I've kind of just been letting it ride. But I don't know.
It's interesting.

Speaker 3 It's just. Yeah, I know.
I know it's a whole thing, but I feel like

Speaker 3 it's not that I don't trust it. I just don't, I feel like I don't have the time to dedicate to it.

Speaker 7 Yeah. And that part I get.

Speaker 3 That part I get. And like, it's, you're up at all hours and doing stuff.

Speaker 7 I guess if you're really heavily investing in it, like, you know, it's been, it's also, I started reading about it probably about this time last year.

Speaker 7 So.

Speaker 7 It's just been slow, you know, slow.

Speaker 7 Like I listen to a couple of podcasts that just, you know, when I'm on the car, I'll catch 20 minutes of a show talking about something and then i don't know i just pick it up and and i also uh i have a really hard time personally uh when i when something like catches my interest not like completely nerding out on it like it's like uh it's like a tick like i can't stop reading about it because i what if that next piece of knowledge is the piece of knowledge that changes everything for me like i don't you know and that's not the rabbit hole that's a crazy way to to think, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 I get it. No, I get that.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 What, what other you could be so close, you know, just set up one more nugget and they could just set it off. I get it.

Speaker 7 XRP army for life. Just if anyone's listening knows what that means.
I still believe in XRP big time.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 7 what other? Any other, what other questions?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I had a question. I wanted to know, like, give me, what's your best piece of advice for the protege? I'm one of the coaches.

Speaker 7 What do I give me some insight? Yes. So I would say,

Speaker 7 and I mean this not negatively towards anyone, anyone in particular, but I would say figure out who's there to win early.

Speaker 7 That doesn't mean you can't help everybody, but I found that there were a couple people that I invested a couple substantial amounts of time in who then all of a sudden were like, hey, I don't feel like doing this and just like bailed.

Speaker 7 And you're like, oh, wow, that's like, that was like.

Speaker 7 three or four hours of my life and you just decided to bump the pull the pull the parachute you know whatever that's kind of the way it is but like um I would say the time spent with Keating, because he, because he took it very seriously from the very beginning, was, was wholly bought in.

Speaker 7 And, you know, he didn't end up winning, but obviously now he, Cruthers was awesome and gave all three of the final

Speaker 7 memberships. I would, man,

Speaker 7 I really enjoyed being part of his journey. Just the questions and watching him work through things and then listening to uh who's your uh co-coach?

Speaker 3 We don't know yet. Oh, you don't know yet.

Speaker 7 Okay. Okay.
So

Speaker 7 Ricky Hader was the co-coach for our team. And

Speaker 7 listening to the way, I found it very valuable, listening to the way. So Ryan would ask us a question or whatever.
He'd have a problem and we'd be working through it.

Speaker 7 And Ricky would have a different spin. And then really trying to think like, you know, how do I feel about that? And I learned a ton from Ricky as well, which was awesome.

Speaker 7 And it was, it was just a pleasure. The whole experience is a pleasure because David's great.
The community is great. Um, I think it is well worth investing time into the process.
I, I guess.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm definitely going to learn. Like, anyone I'm paired with, I'm excited to learn from because I love to learn.
And I, and you know, that's what's great about this industry, right?

Speaker 3 Is everyone can achieve success however they want. Yeah.
And everyone has a different roadmap to it. Yeah.
So there's always things that you can learn from anyone else, which is great.

Speaker 3 Are you going to IAOA?

Speaker 7 I wish I was.

Speaker 7 i am not oh no i know i know i it is it is nothing to do with ioa i will be there in spirit i promise i have to go to arkansas on the 5th for a speaking gig that was supposed to happen in the spring of 2020 and they rescheduled it for this week on the 5th so that was my primary obligation and and i'm looking forward to it i don't want anyone to think i'm not i'm not like i am but that and then um i've been on the road the last two weeks as well so this will be three weeks in a row so it was like the idea of going, you know, two weeks ago last week and then going to IOE this week and then parlaying IOA into this speaking gig at the end.

Speaker 7 It just, it was more than I can handle with bringing on a new producer and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 7 But I, I'm, ah, man, I am. Um,

Speaker 7 there was like this little part of me last night, actually, where I was like, wonder how much plane tickets

Speaker 7 are.

Speaker 3 I mean, you can at least go to the boot camp, right?

Speaker 7 I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss the boot camp.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I,

Speaker 7 It's a bummer. But no, I am not going to be there.

Speaker 7 That should be a tremendous time.

Speaker 3 I'm excited. Yeah.
It's about a three-hour drive for us. So we're leaving tomorrow.

Speaker 7 What? Now, okay. So you're for Lauderdale.
Yes. You go, you're going north and west.
I'm actually going to be

Speaker 7 right across Alligator Alley from you in Naples on the 9th. On the 9th.
Yeah. So my wife's family has a house in Naples.

Speaker 7 Her dad, and

Speaker 7 once or twice a year, we go down there. And it's, I just like it because it's like this golf community.

Speaker 7 It's set away from the ocean. And I love the ocean, but it just, it's very quiet because, you know, you get closer to the coast, it just gets noisier.
And

Speaker 7 you can just kind of like woosah and like just feel the stress like fall off you. And how long are you going for?

Speaker 7 I actually don't know. Five or six days.
We usually don't go for a full week. It's hard because I mean, you get it, right? Like, like my wife owns an agency too.
I own an agency.

Speaker 7 So it's two separate agencies. So it's not even like we can co-work, right? It's two separate entities.
And

Speaker 7 it's just tough to be away from it from that long. So we get, we try to get the WUSA, spend some time, and then

Speaker 7 you can come home and get back after it, I guess.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Naples, we went there

Speaker 3 actually was this year for our anniversary.

Speaker 3 just we uh our brother-in-law and our friends rented us an airbnb and we went and stayed there it's it's really nice and very very relaxing and the sunsets are beautiful and you can see dolphins like in the ocean if you and marco island is beautiful and yeah what do you drink wine

Speaker 3 i i i do a little i guess i'm not really a wine drinker but okay well there's a really good wine shop there i don't know if you're into like natural wines but there's a really good wine little boutique wine shop there in naples and we drive to it from here oh really that's cool Yeah, and the guy

Speaker 7 drinks wine, so maybe we'll take her there.

Speaker 3 It's like funky wines, though. Just, I don't know if she likes conventional wines or they're like sulfate-free, low-intervention.

Speaker 7 I have never

Speaker 7 referred to my wife as funky before.

Speaker 3 She's your wife is a beast.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 7 I have referred to her as that before. Yeah.

Speaker 3 She

Speaker 3 is

Speaker 3 fit.

Speaker 7 Yes. She's awesome.

Speaker 7 she has figured out the optimal way for her to relieve the stress of her day-to-day life. Uh, and she enjoys it.
So I just, God, no matter how hard I work out, I just, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 7 I look like a, I look like a slug next to her. Jeez, she's, she's, uh, she texted me today.
I'm going to work out for the second time today. I worked out this morning and so did she.
And then, um,

Speaker 7 and then she texted me. She's like, she's like, you want to go to Orange Theory? Cause she has Orange Theory for like the cardio part.

Speaker 7 She's like, you want to go to, you want to go to Orange Theory this afternoon? I'm like, no. She's like, well, I'm, I'm going at four and I think you should go because I think it'd be fun.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, oh, and she's like, I signed you up. You're going.
I'll see you there at four. I was like, oh, shoot.
Now I got to go.

Speaker 3 Her asking you was just a

Speaker 7 more like, she's being polite, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 That's awesome. That's awesome.

Speaker 7 Well,

Speaker 7 I want to be respectful of your time. I appreciate you so much.
I'm glad we did this.

Speaker 7 As

Speaker 7 your agency evolves and things goes on, we got to have you back on again. I got a whole series of questions I wanted to ask you about your branding and the marketing and all that.

Speaker 7 We never get to any of that stuff. We didn't even get to it.
That's a great reason to have you back on the show, which we'll do in a few months and it'll be fun. But I just appreciate you.

Speaker 7 I appreciate you coming on. I love what you're doing.

Speaker 7 And just thank you. I appreciate you sharing.

Speaker 3 Thank you. You know, I had met you at Elevate

Speaker 3 and I think that that convention really did, you did such a good job there.

Speaker 3 And you've done so much for our industry and agents and, you know, you and Paradiso, the GNN guys and, you know, Carruthers, Jason Cass, you guys have, you guys have really made an impact.

Speaker 3 And I've seen the,

Speaker 3 I've been here since I graduated high school. You know, the agency is shifting in the right or the industry is shifting in the right direction.
I think.

Speaker 3 I think that you guys have been working hard to make ripples and it's happened. Thank you.
And it helps people like us, you know, that are young and that are coming in with not a lot of support.

Speaker 3 I mean, I do have that platform, but for other agency owners, you know, that, that don't have that, you know, you guys have been a really good asset to our industry. And thank you.

Speaker 3 And I'm glad that we've kind of become friends.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, no, me too. And

Speaker 3 yeah, and I hope you enjoy your trip to Naples. And yeah.
All right. And the next convention we'll see you at then.

Speaker 7 Yes, for sure. And I definitely, again.

Speaker 7 this isn't i'm not not going for any other reason that i can't go sometimes people read into things please do not this is only because I want to remain married to my very fit wife.

Speaker 7 Because if I travel that much, she will

Speaker 7 not.

Speaker 3 Also, it's like you're coming here, and then what by the ninth, you have to be back in Naples. I mean, that's that's a lot.
It's a lot. You're right there.

Speaker 7 You might as well just stay.

Speaker 7 All right. Thank you.
Have a great day. Take care, Ryan.
You're right.

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