RHS 047 - Erik Garcia on Exactly What You Need to Know to Build a Successful Agency

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Speaker 7 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 7 Today's guest is someone who I have known digitally for a very long time, got to meet in person at Innovation 2020 in San Diego, IAOA's event, and have seen blossom into an incredible content creator, addressing multiple channels, you know, written text, videos, podcasts, and doing it in a very dynamic and systematic way, a very professional way, a very thought-out way, pretty much the opposite of the way that I do things.

Speaker 7 His name's Eric Garcia, and I just wanted to find out why he decided to take on content now.

Speaker 7 I was excited for him because he's doing a great job. And I love the way that his mind works.
I got a little taste of it and innovation. And in this episode, you really get to dive in.

Speaker 7 You get to see, talk to him a lot about process, his process in his agency, how he, you know, went from being a captive to an independent, why, you know, he decided to move into PC because he's his expertise is in financial planning and investments and financial advising and how his partnership works and what he sees his role is in the agency.

Speaker 7 And then we do eventually get to content, content marketing and all that kind of good stuff. This is an incredible episode with a great agency owner and you're absolutely going to love it.

Speaker 7 Before we get there, guys, just, you know, my ask.

Speaker 7 If you want more great content, episodes like this one, as well as, you know, little kind of one-off pieces of content that I think are incredible, that I find

Speaker 7 throughout the industry,

Speaker 7 sign up. You got to get the emails.
The emails are where it's at.

Speaker 7 And then once we start speaking again, once we start getting in person, I'll share, you know, different events that I'm going to be at. I got a whole

Speaker 7 list of events that I'm going to be doing once we can actually see each other in person again and you only get that stuff if you're on the email list. So go to ryanhanley.com.

Speaker 7 You'll see right up on top, you'll see a box. You just pop your email in, you hit subscribe, you're good to go.
And then you get all the cool stuff.

Speaker 7 I also want to give a big shout out to Advisor Evolved. I get a lot of questions about my website.
I think I have a very cool website. I think I have a very dynamic website.

Speaker 7 I'm constantly improving my website. My website guru is Chris Langell.
He's been my boy for almost a decade.

Speaker 7 I've watched this dude move from hawking home and autos and growing an agency to the most dynamic, well-done, professional insurance websites. Insurance,

Speaker 7 you know, it's more than just a website. It's a whole pack of tools.
I don't know how to describe it properly.

Speaker 7 You get so much more. You get quote vids, which has absolutely made me money.
I send quote vids to every account now, especially now with COVID. Like quote vids are just an absolute blessing.

Speaker 7 And people, just the whole way they set up,

Speaker 7 you get notified when people watch them. You get notified when people kind of take that next step and notify you that they're accepting the proposal.

Speaker 7 It allows you to really scale your operation, especially if you like to quote at night, which is what I do.

Speaker 7 So, you know, you're trying to do all the daytime stuff during the day, and then at night, you're kind of working your raters and getting quotes.

Speaker 7 And then I just pound out a couple of quote vids, send those off at night. And then the next day, I see when people accept them.
That's all part of the advisor-evolved evolved experience.

Speaker 7 Chris is always on the cutting edge of tech. His websites are beautiful.
They're fast and the dude just knows what he's doing.

Speaker 7 So next time you're thinking about a website, next time someone asks you who should you use, use the gold standard at insurance websites. It's advisory evolved.
It's Chris Langell.

Speaker 7 Can't give the dude props enough. He's helped me so many times and it's just such a pleasure that he's involved with this show.
So with that, let's get on to Eric Garcia.

Speaker 8 that that's how nuanced carriers are down here if i'm in this zip code this company if i'm in that zip code this company first if i'm in this zip code and the house is over 50 years old this company

Speaker 8 like

Speaker 8 that's that's my world so yeah this is this is an ongoing conversation with jason that he's been like dude you need to you need to narrow it down to three companies okay cool so i narrow it down to three companies hurricane hits and then all of a sudden they stop writing that then where do i go yeah

Speaker 8 which happens down here okay so all all of a sudden this company that's been gobbling up market share hits capacity and then raises their rates by 30 because they don't want any more business then where do i go

Speaker 8 i had a conversation with a rep today one of our one of our carrier reps um

Speaker 8 uh you know we we kind of got into some some uh um we're doing really good with them this year year to date we were we're kind of in in in the the bonus land with them which will be nice um and we talked about carriers like man i'd love to have one company it'd be great it'd be great if i could write all my business to you can you guarantee me that you're not going to raise rates by more than 10 in any given year can you guarantee me that you're not going to stop writing when a hurricane hits

Speaker 8 if you can then

Speaker 8 can you guarantee me that you're going to write a hundred year old house or how about this one

Speaker 8 i write your personal house but then you own a rental property that's 75 years old in a part of town

Speaker 8 where property values are a little bit lower. Maybe the houses are not as nice.
It's got some issues with it. It might have a

Speaker 8 window unit. Then where do I go? Like I need

Speaker 8 10 companies.

Speaker 8 I can't go to four.

Speaker 8 You know, if I lived in Utah, I don't know, I don't know what Utah's market is, or I don't know, maybe.

Speaker 9 Well, see, this is some of the, some of this BOR stuff, you know, so I was talking to,

Speaker 9 well, there's a lot of agents that talk, especially on commercial lines, about BORs, right? BORs. Cass had Michael Salas on.
Charles Speck, Caruthers talks about BORs. What's a BOR? Broke of record.

Speaker 9 Broke of record, right? So commercial line side, you know, a lot of everyone talks about BORs, BORs.

Speaker 9 And I'm not knocking that talk at all. But when you look at Texas, there's like five carriers that write a lot of stuff, right? Like Liberty writes a ton down there.
Hartford rights, a ton down there.

Speaker 9 There's not, you come up to New York, just domestics,

Speaker 9 just single state mutuals. There's like 30.
Regional mutuals throw another like 50 carriers on there. Now you want to talk about the nationals and the super regionals?

Speaker 9 There's like 500 carriers in New York. So,

Speaker 9 you know, I ran up against account the other day.

Speaker 9 It's a great account. I know the guy.
I got a great relationship with him. He owns this furniture store.
He's got like six locations. It's a great, nice little, it's like $50,000 in premium.

Speaker 9 And I'm staring at, I'm staring at Chubb, Hanover, Cincinnati, Liberty, Hartford for in my pocket, right? So I'm like, I got this guy. Great relationship.
I'm going to do a good job for him.

Speaker 9 I know that he's working with an agent that his mother used when he bought the business from her 10 years ago, who is a small agent. He has her with a company I've never even heard of before.

Speaker 9 And I've been doing business in New York for 15 years. I never even heard of this mutual before.

Speaker 9 the rate of every other carrier that I have, half because I'm sure they banged into this thing and they went, Man, it's got good loss runs,

Speaker 9 whatever. We don't, we're not trying to be some mega national.
We don't care if you know what our margin is on it, we're making money, boom. So, there's just nothing you can do.

Speaker 9 And what am I going to do? I'm going to go get a, I'm going to go get a wholesale relationship with someone to BOR on this tiny little mutual that I'll never write another piece of business with.

Speaker 9 Like, that's

Speaker 9 it's really tough. It's really tough.

Speaker 8 Yeah. We had a case.
This was years and years and years ago.

Speaker 8 We got this call out of the blue from a

Speaker 8 company in the bus business. They were doing hop on hop off services.
And they found us because we spoke Spanish and they were a Spanish company. And the owner flew to New Orleans.

Speaker 8 This was a, this was a, you know, we introduced them to the Spanish Hispanic chamber. I mean, we introduced them to other vendors.

Speaker 8 They're a person on the ground. We became good friends with them.
So this was a big, you know, they were here doing groundwork for six months. Great relationship.

Speaker 8 We send it out to get a price. Great, what we thought was a good price.

Speaker 8 They got a same carrier, same broker, which was a little frustrating, $20,000 less.

Speaker 8 And there's sometimes where

Speaker 8 it's a relationship business to some degree

Speaker 8 on the client side,

Speaker 8 but

Speaker 8 on the carrier side, it's a relationship business as well. And that's the frustrating thing.
If you're trying to break into particular markets and you don't have contracts down here,

Speaker 8 it's not always an easy thing to do. I can't just pick up the phone and call and get a contract.

Speaker 8 Now it's a little bit easier because we've been around for a little while. We got some...

Speaker 8 We got a track record, but like as a new producer, and when I went independent, I was committed to not going through an aggregator.

Speaker 8 I was committed to not going through some of the what I call captive independence.

Speaker 8 I wanted to own our own contracts. I didn't want to give up anything to anybody.
And it took a little while,

Speaker 8 but

Speaker 8 it's tough, man.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it's interesting. That part of the game is

Speaker 9 that part of the game is very interesting. I have hemmed and hawed because

Speaker 9 I do this podcast and because the different, the exposure that I've had to the industry in general, I get calls from marketing reps all the time.

Speaker 9 Hey, we'd love to be in your, they don't know that I don't write that much personal lines, or they don't know that I don't write trucking or whatever, but I get the phone calls.

Speaker 9 And there's that part of you that's like, oh, another market. Cool, more opportunity.
And there's this other side of me that's like, every new piece of technology, every tool, every market, every

Speaker 9 coverage that I want to lead with, you know, I think, you know, this is one of the big things I've been thinking about lately is just that's brain cycles away from what you do best.

Speaker 9 And I think, you know, especially for young agencies or agencies that are looking to grow, that's really feels like the key to me is keep your focus as narrow as you possibly can, even if you're letting business pass you by.

Speaker 9 You know what I mean? Just for get the rec state, tell them thanks for reaching out, and then put them in your database and

Speaker 9 move on. Because,

Speaker 9 you know, I, i uh i you know i i don't i'm probably telling the same stories to the to the audience but like i i quoted up this um moving company uh startup moving company but the guy was super legit had been in business for a long time was breaking out on his own he had trucks you know whatever it was like a nice

Speaker 9 you know i shouldn't say nice but again solid account the guy was legit

Speaker 9 you know moving company in new york is is is the ns go to rt specialty boom get a quote everything's good and i just said to my i started looking at what it's going to take to write it, premium finance it, put it into my agency management system, track it, the time it takes if he ever needs a certificate, which he's going to need for every single building that he goes into.

Speaker 9 I was like, wow, I'm probably an idiot for writing this account. Like, this is not going to be profitable for years and years and years in my current setup.

Speaker 9 You know, me, five years from now, I got someone to help. You know, there's some process, completely different story, completely different story.
But I think,

Speaker 9 you know, in growth mode, it's, you know, that, that narrow focus is the key.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't,

Speaker 8 I can't speak to that. We've never really had a

Speaker 8 particular niche down here on the insurance side.

Speaker 8 In fact, pre-Katrina, New Orleans, so this was in, I came into the business in 2001. I was captive.
And then in 2000 and I went independent. I left the insurance business completely in 2008

Speaker 8 and went on the financial side and then launched the independent agency in 2010 because the captive carrier that I was with, my dad was with, and he was losing clients left and right just because they weren't writing anymore.

Speaker 8 So we launched the independent side. But I remember probably back in, I still have these, I go through all the old emails, it's fun, or the old documents.

Speaker 8 I'll go through marketing plans from like 10, 15 years ago, and it's really cool to see the evolution of thinking in the business. And

Speaker 8 there was the the state plan, Louisiana Fair Plan,

Speaker 8 that basically,

Speaker 8 you know, you'd write stuff that the captive didn't want. And it was complicated, it was a different system, like one different system, right? It was another system.

Speaker 8 Oh my gosh, we have two systems now, and really, really didn't want to fool with it. And I almost made the decision because my dad and I were operating as one agency.

Speaker 8 I almost made the decision, like, we're going to not write them anymore. We're only going to focus on if we're not going to tri-line a client, do auto home, and life insurance, we don't want it.
Um,

Speaker 8 Katrina hit let me tell you i'm glad that i did not

Speaker 8 i'm glad that we didn't go through with that plan katrina disrupted it because after katrina

Speaker 8 i mean so much business went to the fair plan that's all that's all we had really yeah um

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 you know we kind of wrote you know personal lines is kind of our our thing so we just started writing personal lines and premiums are so high down here it's probably a lot different than you know if you're writing a home for 700 bucks or 800 bucks I mean, our average home policy is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500, maybe.

Speaker 8 Oh, wow!

Speaker 8 Our auto insurance is our average auto policy is probably 1,500 every six months, or if not more.

Speaker 9 Um, yeah, so it's so that's different than up here. Two cars in a home here is 22 to 2,500 bucks total.

Speaker 8 No, dude, we can do

Speaker 8 we can do auto and home and a life policy and a flood policy and easily be at 10,000 for personal lines.

Speaker 8 Crazy.

Speaker 9 That is crazy.

Speaker 8 It's a crazy market. So,

Speaker 8 you know, for us,

Speaker 8 renewal is a big thing. Like, retention is a big thing.
So, what happened

Speaker 8 last year in May, like our, one of our key employees left,

Speaker 8 and she was our CSR. So, I decided to play CSR for three months.
So, this is going to go back to the original thing that we're talking about, about,

Speaker 8 you know, how do you kind of build it? What's the best way to build it? And this idea of it being very personal.

Speaker 8 I decided to play CSR for probably about three months. I sat in that front desk, answered phone calls, did all the downloads because I wanted to understand

Speaker 8 how the companies communicated to us, how data got into our agency management system, why certain things were happening the way they were.

Speaker 8 And it was probably the most involved I've ever gotten in the agency.

Speaker 8 And from that day on, we have pretty pretty much rewritten all of our processes.

Speaker 8 That and working with Billy Williams, he kind of drove that

Speaker 8 the importance of processes home. But

Speaker 8 I think that you can't, as an agency owner, I think it's very difficult for you to import someone else's processes into your agency.

Speaker 8 I think that you have to go

Speaker 8 This, this is, I know people who do it differently, right? Like the franchise model is, this is like anti-franchise model, but if you're building something from scratch, I think you kind of have to

Speaker 8 work through your processes. If you take someone else's process, you're going to have to make it your own because it is personal.
It's the way you do business. It's what systems do you use.

Speaker 8 You know, we're talking about

Speaker 8 agency Zoom versus better agency.

Speaker 8 It's all going to come down to what agency management system do you use? What phone system do you use? That's going to dictate some of the technology used.

Speaker 8 And then the technology you use might dictate certain parts of your process. So it's impossible to import someone else's process into your agency and expect it to work.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 You might have a staff person who's more tech savvy than someone else, who brings a different skill

Speaker 8 to the game, to the business. So you want to build up the process maybe slightly different.
Now, elements, there's key components, right?

Speaker 8 There's like milestones or elements of processes that should all be the same. But how you execute it, it, the mechanics of it,

Speaker 8 man, that's

Speaker 9 why the

Speaker 9 it's why the good consultants in our industry get paid what they do, because I wholeheartedly agree with you. And, you know, you just look at the difference,

Speaker 9 the experience that people have carrier to carrier per state. You know, there are people, like I had someone the other day, I was talking to, I think it was a podcast I did with Seth Zaremba.

Speaker 9 I was talking about

Speaker 9 if I could become a captive agent with Cincinnati, I would.

Speaker 9 And the reason I said that was the way they quote, the way they handle changes, their customer care center fits exactly the way that I want to work.

Speaker 9 I hate, hate with a passion going into carrier systems, to quote commercial lines. I hate it because

Speaker 9 Liberty's looks nothing like Hanover's, looks nothing like Chubbs, looks nothing, you know, and you're like, oh my God. And then tools like Tarmica, you know, which I'm a huge fan of, are fixing that.

Speaker 9 But, you know, they're, you know, they're still building carriers and there are classes that carriers just don't want.

Speaker 9 You know, like Liberty will write excavators in New York State, but they won't quote excavators on Tarmica. So I had an excavator come in

Speaker 9 account.

Speaker 9 And I knew Liberty wrote them, but I wanted to see if anyone else did. Everything cancels out because they don't want to compare to rate it.
So then you're going into their.

Speaker 9 So I guess my point in saying that is someone reaches out to me and they go, what am I missing with Cincinnati? We have Cincinnati and we're struggling with them. We can't get anything done with them.

Speaker 9 And it's like, just that simple fact makes it incredibly difficult to take, like, say, if I were to take that agent who reached out to me, his processes down in Virginia or Ohio, wherever he was located, versus mine in New York,

Speaker 9 there's no way to overlap those two because simply just how you deal with the carrier is different state to state and the reps and the underwriters. And, you know, it's just, it's.

Speaker 8 I think this thing, when you're building a business, okay, or you're trying to build out a process or, or forget the process for a second, the first question you have to ask is, what's the pain point?

Speaker 8 The way I'm approaching this right now is what's my pain point? Yeah.

Speaker 8 So like our pain point for the past few months has been phones. It's been miserable.

Speaker 8 Like our phones just ring off the hook and like our producers are constantly answering phones and it's, it's, they're getting pulled into things that they shouldn't get pulled into.

Speaker 8 Um, so I was like, Okay, that's our pain point, we got to figure this out. So, we had someone who was answering the phones.
This was actually started, started last year.

Speaker 8 We had someone who was answering the phones during the busy times from three to five. We had a kind of a remote person, and then

Speaker 8 you know, quarantine hit. And

Speaker 8 we have we have three virtual assistants with us right now. And at the time, we had two, and they couldn't make it to their service center because of transportation.

Speaker 8 Um, so a group of the the VAs that worked for that company were quarantined in the service center. So they assigned us a different VA.

Speaker 8 They had all of our processes and she jumped in and like, we didn't miss a beat. It was amazing because we had all these processes we're not, because we worked through them.

Speaker 8 Quarantine was coming with.

Speaker 8 Can you hear me? Yep. Yep.
Okay.

Speaker 8 I'm changing microphones. Is there going to be too much feedback? Can you hear yourself with the microphone? You're all right.
You're all right.

Speaker 8 I got to figure this out like i don't know

Speaker 9 wait let me say that one more time

Speaker 9 yeah we're good yep i'm not getting any feedback okay

Speaker 9 so uh i lost you at um

Speaker 9 the the new va uh

Speaker 9 your processes and and you didn't skip a beat you didn't skip a beat We didn't skip a beat.

Speaker 8 And then when quarantine was done, we had to make a decision because our normal two VAs were coming back. Well, we really, we really like this girl.

Speaker 8 Turns out she worked at a call center before, so we took her to voice. She's been answering phones for us for three weeks.

Speaker 8 And let me tell you, it's been like night and day, it's been huge, it's been huge. Something simple as that: what's the pain point? Let's solve the pain point.
Yeah, um,

Speaker 8 so right now, our current pain point, the current process that we're trying to nail down is our new business process.

Speaker 8 So, like, once it, once a producer sells it, I really don't want them having a full with the follow-up unless unless they have to get involved.

Speaker 8 so we built out a pretty extensive auditing process um you know you know how limited our agency management system is we have to do a lot of workarounds um

Speaker 8 so we have we've we've created this this pretty cool auditing process so whenever something is sold it automatically populates into uh and this is we're integrating it with better agency qq

Speaker 8 um and a google sheet and we have all all the all the things that are necessary to complete the audit. One of our VAs picks it up once it's sold.
So we're testing testing that.

Speaker 8 It's about a weekend and it seems to be working.

Speaker 8 But yeah, building processes, it's hard work, man. Like, but this is the thing.
Kind of, again, to go back to where we started is you have to get in there and

Speaker 8 do the work. If you import someone else's processes into your agency, you're still going to have problems.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 I think you can, you can, you know, use someone like

Speaker 9 Obviously, I think the world of Billy Williams, and I think he's one of the best resources in our entire entire industry, you can take the high level of what he's telling you to do, but then you still have to imprint that on your own agency and on your own process.

Speaker 9 And that is one of the, I think that's one of the lessons, you know, if I was, if I was thinking back to like back when I started the agency, my, my, one of the fundamental reasons why

Speaker 9 or one of the fundamental advantages that I thought I had coming into starting the agency was that I had had 10,000 conversations with agency owners like yourself, right?

Speaker 9 I've, I'd heard all the, all the, all the wins, all the losses, all the gripes, all the frustrations, all the, you know, how all the solutions to the problems. I've heard them all.

Speaker 9 I've heard them all.

Speaker 9 You know, there's nothing that anyone could say that I'd be like, I've never heard that that's an issue before.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 what I found incredibly interesting is that that being the case, that I have this Rolodex of problems and solutions, obstacles and advantages.

Speaker 9 I've run into them all myself because just like you've said, these are all individual.

Speaker 9 I used to give agents a hard time because everyone acts like their agency is a unique, this unique snowflake and we all don't understand, right?

Speaker 9 And what I found is I think everyone understands each other's problems, but

Speaker 9 agency owners are right and correct that every agency is a unique snowflake because of personalities, locations. You know,

Speaker 9 you have to deal with hurricanes. You know what's something that I never have to deal with ever?

Speaker 8 Hurricanes? Ever.

Speaker 9 Because I don't.

Speaker 8 You know what doesn't happen down here?

Speaker 8 Snow.

Speaker 9 Exactly. 100%.
Right. So it's like, there's all these, you know, there's, there's.
simple things like, you know,

Speaker 9 well, yeah, that it's just 100%.

Speaker 9 And then carrier differences and regulatory differences. And there are certain policies up here, like New York State short-term disability.

Speaker 9 You don't even have, you don't have a commercial line short-term disability policy that is mandated by the state per employee. Don't have that.
That's a New York thing.

Speaker 9 And there's all these nuances, location, carrier mix, personalities. markets.

Speaker 9 And I think to that point, and I think to the point that we're trying to make here, and then I kind of want to move on from this topic and talk to you about some of the stuff that I brought you on the show to talk about, not this, is that

Speaker 9 if we mimic,

Speaker 9 if we mimic other people's processes too much, we're ultimately just going to run into the same problems again. That the high-level stuff,

Speaker 9 the high-level ideas, yes.

Speaker 9 The core processes, we have to figure out for ourselves. I just, that's, I think, the truth.

Speaker 8 So, one of my best friends is a couples counselor. And

Speaker 8 I remember he said once,

Speaker 8 he goes, oftentimes the process of counseling is as important, if not more important than the actual counsel itself.

Speaker 8 So like I took that, I'm like, God, it's interesting.

Speaker 8 In my business, on the financial side, on the planning side, I've come to learn that, hey, the plan is important, but the process of walking someone through the planning process is as important.

Speaker 8 to teach them how to make decisions, how to change behaviors, to think about the planning process.

Speaker 8 Oftentimes we make too much of a big deal about the plan, but it's the process that's important.

Speaker 8 I would say the same thing for owners trying to build out their processes in their business is we focus too much on the process and not on the process of building the process.

Speaker 8 Like the process becomes the goal and it's not.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 8 There's a Bruce Lee quote. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 8 I'm going to summarize it. He goes, before you learn the art of martial arts, a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick.

Speaker 8 As you're learning it, a punch is no longer a punch and a kick is no longer a kick. But once you learn it, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.

Speaker 8 And the idea is that as you're learning something, it becomes more complicated. It's simple when you don't understand it, and you're starting to learn it.
It gets really complicated.

Speaker 8 But then once you learn it, you're able to simplify it again.

Speaker 8 And I think that process of learning it, of it getting complicated, breaking it down is important for agency owners if you're building a process or financial, if you're building a financial plan, or if you're in counseling, whatever it is, yeah, sometimes you have to get complicated to simplify it.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I think that's a tremendous advice.

Speaker 7 I do.

Speaker 9 I think that's absolutely tremendous advice. And as ethereal as it might seem, I think taking that time and budgeting time to think about these things is very important.

Speaker 9 Because as I've started, you know,

Speaker 9 I put kind of a moratorium on prospecting for myself for the next two weeks. And the reason I did that was

Speaker 9 because signing right now, not that I'm not going to write a piece of business if it comes in the door, but like right now,

Speaker 9 I, and I, and I think I said this before we started recording, but every new policy, every new account that I write today actually sets me back two steps because of all that.

Speaker 9 because my i have no process and and workflow for

Speaker 9 actually putting actually doing the thing that we do right like processing issuing reporting capturing how like right now i have no idea how much how much commission i've actually made as an agent i have an idea but i don't actually know no right because i haven't taken the time to take all

Speaker 9 the commissions all the commission splits for all the different products for every carrier that i have and then run the actual reports on what's happening so you know i can go like 14 of how much premium i've written but you know who the hell knows what that that means?

Speaker 8 But is it all commissionable premium? What percentage of that premium is not commissionable, right? Yeah,

Speaker 8 because you're fees and you taxes, yeah. So, you know, you met Giovanni, right? My business owner, yeah, my business partner.
So, Gio's a Gio's a workhorse.

Speaker 8 Um, and he has been the past, our commercial producer left a couple months ago, and it was amicable.

Speaker 8 Um, so Gio took over all commercial business, and he is just like exploding, he is writing business left and right.

Speaker 8 And it's funny, I notice when he's um, when he's doing more service work, because his production just stops. So he texts me or slacks me yesterday that he just he's BORing a pretty big

Speaker 8 comp case and we're going to get the liability, maybe $50,000, $60,000 case.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 he goes, man, you know,

Speaker 8 I could focus more on production if I don't have to deal with this other stuff. I can do more of this.

Speaker 8 And it's just, it's funny that

Speaker 8 you're not prospecting for that very reason. So this morning, I'm like, man, Geo is just, I mean, I think he wrote like single-handedly in like in a month or two, maybe 150,000 on his own.

Speaker 8 And I'm sitting here thinking like, man, he's like writing all this business, dude, he's driving revenue. Like, what am I doing? Like, I don't like PNC.
I can't even spell commercial.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, dude, I'm building a platform to let him to do this.

Speaker 8 We're putting the processes in place.

Speaker 8 Typically, the way it works is, I get an idea. I'll float it by him to see if he thinks it'll work.
He thinks it'll work. I'll try to build it out.

Speaker 8 And then I'll have my assistant kind of start working it through the system. And then we'll teach it to one of our VAs and then we'll kind of roll it out to everybody.

Speaker 8 I'm like, dude, I'm not selling it. I didn't VR anything.
But the fact that, you know, we have a voice virtual assistant now, that we literally, I think we broke out 27 possible phone call requests.

Speaker 8 So we sat down and said, what do people call us for? And we literally,

Speaker 8 on a spreadsheet, the 27 possible worth 23 or 27, I don't know what number it was, but add a car,

Speaker 8 cancel something, an endorsement, need a COI, and then explicit instruction on what she needed to do.

Speaker 8 And she got those, who to send it to, and then what are the things that we can teach her to do as she's more comfortable. And

Speaker 8 yeah, so

Speaker 8 operating the agency is as important as producing. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Those people who are pure producers, who produce a lot of business really fast, they're going to have a lot of problems a year and two years and three years, and all that business starts renewing.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I agree. So, the reason that you know, here we are 40 minutes into the show, and I haven't even asked you about what I the like the initial reason that I reached out to you.

Speaker 9 Well, one, I just wanted to talk in general because this is like free time to talk to people I'm interested in and consulting and all that kind of stuff, you know.

Speaker 9 But um, the other side is, I, I, I've seen you really take on the content side of marketing, podcasts, video shows, like you've you've got some solid branding coming and you know i just i was really in one it's really well done i like the time and and you can tell that you've put thought into the topics you can tell you've put thought into the to the copy and to the messaging and i'm just i was just super intrigued by like

Speaker 9 Why now?

Speaker 9 Why have you taken on content? Like, what have you seen? Like, I just, I feel, I was having a conversation with a guy who's a old buddy of mine from my content marketing days. And

Speaker 9 this is a few episodes ago. And I just said, it feels like in general, content,

Speaker 9 good content with a purpose, we've kind of stopped talking about that. It's all lead gen

Speaker 9 or technology. And, and to see you, you know, take this on and go after it.
Um, I've just, I've been impressed seeing it.

Speaker 9 So I just wanted to learn more about what your thoughts were, how it's working, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 8 So, remember when I said I don't do anything fast, I don't jump in. Yeah.

Speaker 8 A good friend of mine once told me, he goes, dude, anything you do, you're successful at. And I'm like, what are you talking about, man?

Speaker 8 He's like, yeah, whenever you like, you have two businesses and they're successful. And I'm like,

Speaker 8 yeah, but I don't do just anything. And before I do something, I'm pretty much,

Speaker 8 I'm going to say methodical. I don't know if I'm methodical, but

Speaker 8 I think a lot.

Speaker 8 I'm like, my mind never stops thinking. So years and years and years ago,

Speaker 8 i'm going to go back to a luncheon that i went to when i heard tony she speak tony she is the owner of zappos yep ceo of zappos

Speaker 8 and his

Speaker 8 his kind of his culture that he was creating at zappos just kind of like turned everything around for me i'm like oh that's really interesting and right around that same time i got introduced to simon sinek right around that same time i met um

Speaker 8 i met jason

Speaker 8 at a conference. He was speaking at one of our local

Speaker 8 annual meetings.

Speaker 8 And I was really intrigued what he was doing on Facebook. I never really did any Facebook marketing, I was really intrigued.
And we struck up a friendship. And I remember he said, Oh, dude, you should

Speaker 8 check out this guy,

Speaker 8 Hanley. He's doing a video.

Speaker 8 Seriously, this is how it started. He's like, He's doing the video a day, Your Hunger Videos.

Speaker 9 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 I kind of followed it, and I'm like, I really like that idea.

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 8 I never really did anything with it. And

Speaker 8 I was working with

Speaker 8 Grow at the time,

Speaker 8 right? With the Grow team and they were doing some blogging for me and they actually

Speaker 8 created a podcast intro track. This was probably like four years ago.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 It was called the Lang Yap Show. So down in New Orleans, we say Lang Yap.
It's French for like something, a little something extra. Yep.
Right. It's usually free.

Speaker 8 So it's like planned wisely, the Langyap show, something extra. Never did anything with it.

Speaker 8 I started doing a lot of collaboration with this couples counselor that I mentioned. You know, he started sending some clients to me.

Speaker 8 We talked a lot about the intersection of money and relationships and how money issues can

Speaker 8 be fuel in the fire of relationship issues. So

Speaker 8 we started doing some collaborating. We did some speaking together at some conferences.
And I remember having a conversation with Joey Gingola at

Speaker 8 one of the mastermind

Speaker 8 Brain Shares.

Speaker 8 And I had this idea of doing this podcast with the couples counselor to talk about money and marriage and that kind of thing. He's like, dude, you should do it.

Speaker 8 And there were compliance issues. I'm like, I don't want to deal with the compliance issues.
And

Speaker 8 so I started doing some videos here and there, got a nice camera, started having fun with it, but never did anything consistent with it. And then

Speaker 8 last

Speaker 8 year,

Speaker 8 on the investment side, on the financial side, I had

Speaker 8 some extra money that had to go towards marketing stuff.

Speaker 8 And a buddy of mine called me up. He's like, hey, there's this company.
They work with financial advisors in the digital space. They're running this deal on podcasting.
You should do it.

Speaker 8 So I had literally 12 hours to make the decision. I'm like, it's not my money.
I've been wanting to podcast. So

Speaker 8 I hired him. I said, if anything, you know, I got to pay for six months.
If anything, I'll get six podcasts out of it. It's cool.
We started podcasting and we started the Plan Wisely show.

Speaker 8 We were doing about an episode a month. I had about 10 or 11 episodes out there.

Speaker 8 It turned into more of an interview show, people that I found interesting and trying to find the intersection of money and something else.

Speaker 8 I didn't want to be another, and the reason it took me so long to do podcasting, I didn't want to do more noise, man. There's enough noise out there.

Speaker 8 There's so much financial noise and I don't want to add to it.

Speaker 8 So I said, I want to bring in other people and hear their perspective. So we interviewed the owner of my gym.
We talked about

Speaker 8 money and fitness and how close they are in terms of goal setting. And CPA, the couples counselor, we did a couple of shows with him, a child therapist, teaching your kids about money.

Speaker 8 One of my latest interviews is with Sarah Falau. Her dad wrote The Millionaire Next Door.
Oh, wow. And she wrote the follow-up, The Next Millionaire Next Door.
It's a pretty good show.

Speaker 8 And that was all fun, but I still had this idea of the content with the couples counselor. Like, dude, we've got to launch this.
So we

Speaker 8 we finally launched it. We're about four or five shows, and they haven't all dropped yet.
Um,

Speaker 8 yeah, and it's just it's it's it's fun. It's a unique space, it's a space where there's, I don't think there's a lot of noise there, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I didn't want to be another voice, another, you know, we're just a cacophony of noise in the financial space, or so much of that already. It was just, it's, it's fun, it's fun.

Speaker 9 Have you seen any impact? Have you seen people reaching out? Have you had any, um,

Speaker 9 have you had people sniffing around asking questions stuff like that like prospects

Speaker 9 anything you know i mean i i um

Speaker 9 so i do a local business podcast called the capital region business podcast and some of it's just people reaching out wanting to be on the show but they're new contacts to me they're people i didn't know before so um so here's what it's here's what it's doing especially the new show um it's only been live for about two two two three weeks now and that show already in two or three weeks has about 25 percent

Speaker 8 about 25 percent of the downloads that my other show that's been running 10 months has already in two weeks so I think this is going to be I think this show is going to be good what it's done what the podcasting has done

Speaker 8 it's made more people aware of the fact that I do financial planning more than investing so we have had a small increase in financial planning clients yeah um and really my purpose is we're in the i'm building out a a

Speaker 8 like i budgeting course, if you will, to roll out to clients and also to have like as a standalone offering.

Speaker 8 So a big part of the podcasting for me is hey, I want to build a list to be able to do some of these other projects that are not necessarily directed to investment management.

Speaker 8 They're not necessarily directed to direct financial

Speaker 8 planning. But there are other pieces in the space that are important that people will do without necessarily engaging me directly.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 But it's fun too. It's fun.
So I have seen an increase in website traffic, just an increase in those types of things. Can I directly tie it to X amount of revenue? I can't.

Speaker 8 Everything I've learned about podcasting, it takes a while

Speaker 8 to happen.

Speaker 9 Content in general, man. I mean, it's a serendipity play.

Speaker 9 That's always been the hardest thing about it. And, you know, I've been talking about content marketing in general for a decade, right?

Speaker 8 I mean, can we talk about that artwork of your book from uh content warfare never quite understood that

Speaker 9 that

Speaker 9 we can yeah we can no but we don't have to no i uh no we can i um

Speaker 9 so

Speaker 9 so the guy that did it um

Speaker 9 the guy that did it i love his artwork his name's mars dorian he's a german guy and he just has this very odd

Speaker 9 very

Speaker 9 um

Speaker 9 i i don't know how you describe his style i'm not an art guy

Speaker 8 Well, it's cool, it's odd.

Speaker 9 What I will tell you is my vision for what I see his work and what actually came out in terms of what the book

Speaker 9 didn't translate the way I wanted.

Speaker 8 You know, I'm dogging, I'm dogging your book on your podcast. That's messy.

Speaker 9 That's okay.

Speaker 8 I'm hey, the book is good.

Speaker 9 I'm uh, I'm, I will say that, so two, there's two things there. That book is about

Speaker 9 80%

Speaker 9 where I think it could have been.

Speaker 9 I lost focus because five months before that book published, I joined TrustoChoice.com and I started flying to Minneapolis three times a month. I had work to do there.

Speaker 9 And the deal was, you know, they did not want me promoting it because

Speaker 9 it wasn't in the ecosystem.

Speaker 8 So, and my point is-cause you were captive, man. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 9 yeah, yes. You know, one of the lessons that I've learned in life is you can't work for anyone else unless you're into that, which I

Speaker 9 have learned many times now that my personality does not mix well with authority.

Speaker 9 So long story short, I, there were, there were concessions that I made in producing that book that if I were, if I had given it my full attention, I would not.

Speaker 9 And eventually with the cover in particular, because the book itself, the words in the book, I feel are 95%, 99%. You know, you can always find a few things, but like they're there.

Speaker 9 The stories, the lessons, everything about it. The cover, though, it's one of the worst covers in a business book all time, maybe.
I mean, maybe. You know what?

Speaker 8 Here's the thing, though.

Speaker 8 Here's the thing. For the longest time, I produced a lot of content that I have never published.
I have never put out there.

Speaker 8 It's pointless. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Other than maybe you're kind of like refining your art or, I don't know, thinking ideas out, but you put it out there. And I think it's a big thing with content is

Speaker 8 some of it's going to suck.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 9 Right. I have zero qualms with hitting publish.
I have no, I am, I'm unconscious when it comes to hitting publish.

Speaker 9 I do, I mean, obviously, I have a my skills have increased, but they've only increased because

Speaker 9 I produce stuff. I mean, there are posts that I've written.
If you went back and look at the archive, I mean, you'd look at it and go, what the hell is that? Doesn't even make sense.

Speaker 9 The grammar is terrible, punctuation, the, you know, the whole structure of the article. And I think the point is, like,

Speaker 9 you know, I learned so many lessons producing that book in particular, because that was a, that was a big endeavor. I mean, I had to, I crowdfunded it.

Speaker 9 Once the crowdfunding was done, you know, then I had to produce it. I had to publish it.
I had to edit it.

Speaker 9 I had to hire all these people because I didn't have a, you know, no, this wasn't like a New York Times, you know, it wasn't like a Simon and Schuster weren't, weren't pushing this one out the door, you know, I mean, this was Hanley Media Publishing at its finest.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I could have used someone that told me that's not a good cover.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 it ultimately came down to that he gave me seven different variations and I could not get my vision of what I had for the cover. to him in a way that he could produce it.

Speaker 8 And I think that that's one of those things that I wish I had just given to someone else and said here make a good cover for this book and give it back to me because i i was too involved in that process yeah so we we uh i've got an eat book out there plan uh it's um lord have a mercy i can never remember the name five pillars of financial security a guide to managing your money wisely right so it's and it's it's kind of one of those things it's kind of like this is the stake in the ground this is my philosophy on money this is what i believe yeah you work with me if you want to know what i think about money this is what i think about it um

Speaker 8 And it's out there, it's on my website. I do a terrible job of promoting it.
I'm a terrible promoter, terrible promoter.

Speaker 8 But it's fun, it's fun creating the content.

Speaker 9 It is. You know, I found, and then I'll be respectful of your time and we'll wrap this up.
But

Speaker 9 I have at times found myself to be a terrible promoter as well.

Speaker 9 And then I realized that there's just one key to promotion. One key.
Just say it over and over and over.

Speaker 9 because i think what happens is particularly to maybe someone who it doesn't come naturally to do that to or or like in my case i'm always creating something new and uh a guy who's kind of a lot of the insurance industry has become accustomed to is uh marcus sheridan

Speaker 9 um he's the one who really taught me because i used to create each presentation that i would do for like a big eye association or a carrier or whoever i would create something relatively new And he called me one day and he said, what's going on?

Speaker 9 We're talking. And I told him and he's like, what are you doing?

Speaker 9 He's like, you create one presentation and you just do that presentation over and over and over and over and over again until he goes, you give the same presentation.

Speaker 9 He goes, I've given the same presentation three years in a row to the same group and they just keep hiring me. He's like, because

Speaker 9 different people hear it. The second time you hear something, you learn more than the first time you hear something.
He's like, and you just, he's like, you think everyone's heard your message.

Speaker 9 That's not even close. He's like, people have to hear your message, you know, what is it, seven times before they even remember it?

Speaker 8 That's the thing for me. It's like, I feel like,

Speaker 8 I feel like, man, I don't want to keep, I don't be so pushy. I'm a terrible, I'm a terrible salesperson.
I'm a terrible salesperson. That's why I'm glad Gio's out selling.

Speaker 8 and I'm in here building processes and doing that kind of I'm a terrible salesperson.

Speaker 8 And to me, it's like, I don't want to be too pushy and like keep putting the same thing in front of people, but you're right. You have to, people have attention spans that are this big and

Speaker 8 you got to be in front of them. And I'm terrible.

Speaker 8 I'm inspired. I'm inspired, Ryan.

Speaker 9 That's the key, man. You just keep saying it over and over.
I mean, that's

Speaker 9 this show. I say the same stuff over and over and over again.
I've been pushing content for 10 years. You know what I mean? People are just starting to get on the bandwagon.

Speaker 9 I think that, you know, look at all the things Cass has said. Look at all the things

Speaker 9 that are said over and over and over. And it just takes.

Speaker 9 And then finally it's almost like you know the person's right it's not that you don't believe them you just finally get sick of them saying you're like screw it i'll just do this thing that i should have been doing two years ago just so you'll stop telling me and and they're happy about it right they're happy about it i mean how many people that do business with you maybe you had to ask three four five times or you know you know talk to them a little bit and finally they say yes and then they'll be like geez i'm glad you stayed on me you know because i knew i needed to do this but i just you know other things get in the way and it's almost, you know, I started, especially with sales, telling myself, like,

Speaker 9 I'm doing, if you believe in what you're doing, which obviously you do, and so many people who are listening to the show believe in what they're doing, if you believe in what you're doing, if you don't continue to reach out to them, you're doing them a disservice, right?

Speaker 9 You're doing that because,

Speaker 9 you know, they see a message from you. They're like, oh, I got to reach out to Eric.

Speaker 8 And then their kid texts them because it's time for you them to come pick, you know, you got to go pick them up from school and then they forget and they never reach out and then the information that I have the information that is going to change your life literally if you listen to me I'm going to change your life financially yep I mean there's no way around it yeah and it's fun and sometimes I say that and then sometimes it's like really like do you really like come on are you that like no seriously like Like that's what we have to believe.

Speaker 8 Like what I have is so important that it's going to, and sometimes I feel like insurance is like, man, I'm breaking up a 10-year relationship you're with that company and I'm bringing you over here am I really putting you in a better spot maybe maybe not we'll we'll serve you better like on the financial side it's like no like you're not doing this

Speaker 8 and if you do this now what I'm telling you like your life is going to be yeah

Speaker 8 like I'm going to add that much value to your life I remember I had a conversation with a neighbor just we were over a beer and budgeting came up And I said, hey, this is what I do.

Speaker 8 This is how I budget money. This is kind of how this budgeting idea came up.
And I said, this is what I do. This is how I manage my money from a spending standpoint.
He's like, That's cool.

Speaker 8 Six months later, he's like, Dude,

Speaker 8 like

Speaker 8 life-changing. I'm like, What are you talking about? Because my wife and I started doing that.
And like,

Speaker 8 the way we manage our money now, the way we budget with our bank accounts, and this and that, like, it's totally changed

Speaker 8 our day-to-day finances. I'm like, really?

Speaker 8 He's like, Yeah, I'm like, dude, oh my gosh. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So now I'm in the process of how do I codify this? How do I formalize this to make make it more scalable to give it to more people? Yeah. Also, also more,

Speaker 8 I say not just scalable, but

Speaker 8 cost-effective.

Speaker 9 Yeah. You know, it's like you got to hit them from every angle, social, digital, physical, e-books, web.
And you hit them from every angle. And then, because everyone reacts to stuff differently.

Speaker 9 You know what I mean? You catch me on the right day on Instagram. I don't care what you're selling me.
I'm going to click on that button. Another day, I never will.

Speaker 9 It all depends on my mood and how drunk I am. You know, I mean, that's what's important.
So

Speaker 9 I think, you know, it's just hitting them over and over and over again in every channel that you can and

Speaker 9 being very clear. And I love, I mean, that passion that you just had, I was ready to buy something from you.
You pitched me some, you pitched me some mutual Omaha something or whatever.

Speaker 9 I would have been, I would have bought it. I would have put my credit card right in front of the screen like this.
Here you go, man.

Speaker 8 I got some

Speaker 9 i got some stocks for me over there what do you what do you got

Speaker 9 a piggy bank

Speaker 8 i'm a big fan of uh

Speaker 8 of you know money money is so digital right it's so like intangible so like with kids like i love the idea of like telling people like get a piggy bank even if it's like immaterial the amount of money at least they start to connect yeah

Speaker 8 with stuff that's tangible yeah they can actually physically see it grow yeah

Speaker 9 we do um

Speaker 9 we have this big bureau. It's like a dining room bureau thing with wine.
And there's two drawers side by side. We have two kids.
One drawer is for money for one kid.

Speaker 9 And one drawer is, so when they get, you know, a couple bucks from grandpa or someone sends them some money in the mail for a birthday or something, they go, they open their drawer.

Speaker 9 put the money in the drawer. Now, when they open the drawer, you know, they got these little stacks of cash in there.
And it's like a fun thing for them. You know what I mean?

Speaker 9 I mean, who knows what they're doing? Cause they, they're probably just going in and using it like toys, but uh, who cares, you know?

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, that's their money drive. I bought, I put the down payment, check this out, on my wife's engagement ring with a bunch of like coins I've been collecting for like years and years and years.

Speaker 8 I'll take it to the bank, dude.

Speaker 9 That's amazing.

Speaker 9 What are you buying with all this with all this with all these coins?

Speaker 8 An engagement ring. I'm proposing.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 You need to get a job, sir, before you start.

Speaker 8 Man, we're living on love. I don't need money.
I got love.

Speaker 8 True story. Like $640 something dollars of like coins.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that is amazing. Well, dude, hey, I appreciate you.
I know we've been all over the place, but I just thought this was a great conversation. And

Speaker 9 I just, you know, I'm glad that we had a chance to connect really. And it was awesome to meet you in person down in San Diego this year and chat for a little bit.
And,

Speaker 9 you know, I just, I wish you nothing but the best, man. I love the work you're doing.
I love the way you, the way you do it.

Speaker 9 And I got to spend some time with your business partner at Billy Williams's thing. And so, dude, I think you have a great shop.

Speaker 9 I'm always, you know, when I see your stuff come through my feed, I'm very impressed with it.

Speaker 9 And I would encourage anybody who likes to kind of voyeur what agents are doing really well, take a look at what Eric's doing because this stuff is good stuff, man. I'm impressed.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Yeah, I got to check out the new show, Building Us.
We're on

Speaker 8 Apple, Spotify,

Speaker 8 Itcher,

Speaker 8 whoever.

Speaker 9 We'll have it linked up in the show notes, but just Google it. You'll be able to find it.

Speaker 8 Good show. It's good stuff.
We have

Speaker 8 the one, the show that just dropped last week is on

Speaker 8 School Out Forever. And I have a conversation with two family therapists about this idea of are kids going to be in class learning?

Speaker 8 Are they going to be distance learning and the impact that has on family finances and family relationships? So it's a good conversation. Yeah.
And then tomorrow, drop in well this is not

Speaker 8 this it will have published by the time people watch this yeah listen to this uh but giving as a financial principle so it's an entire show on just the idea of giving how that's a a solid financial principle i love it

Speaker 1 good stuff cool bro

Speaker 9 dude be good thank you yeah take care

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