RHS 038 - Why David Carothers is Building an Army of Middle-Market Producers

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Speaker 5 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. It's been about five weeks since I produced my last episode.
That was the Matt and Amoly episode, which was tremendous.

Speaker 5 And if you haven't listened to that, I encourage you to go back and do so.

Speaker 5 Today, we have David Carruthers, and part of the reason why I have not been producing podcasts is that I have been grinding, getting Rogue Risk, my insurance agency, up off the ground, and things have been going

Speaker 5 okay. They've been going okay.
We're surviving. We're writing policies.
I think we're doing so with an authority and a confidence that

Speaker 5 I probably wouldn't have have if it wasn't for David Caruthers, if it wasn't for having someone like David as a mentor to call on, you know, day in, day out, you know, Facebook messaging him at 5.30 in the morning,

Speaker 5 different questions that I have and ideas and working through things that I'm struggling with.

Speaker 5 And he has really helped me get to a place where, you know, we're writing business and we're writing accounts that are maybe not necessarily middle market yet, but certainly way bigger than things that I I was consistently writing back, even back in my Murray Group days when I was eight years straight of writing business.

Speaker 5 So I think he's helped me jump the line, and it is absolutely, positively my great pleasure to bring him and some of his thoughts to you today.

Speaker 5 With that, guys, I just appreciate the hell out of you and sticking with this podcast. And I know there's been starts and stops and, you know, because it kind of flows along with my life.

Speaker 5 And if you you enjoy this show all i ask is you know if you can tell a friend or leave a rating and review or if you're not subscribed yet just head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe it helps more people listen to this show more people hear the stories that we tell here on this podcast and i know you have a lot of choices and and what you put in your earbuds and i'm just very honored that it would be my podcast.

Speaker 5 So with that, let's get on to David.

Speaker 4 All right, man. Well, thanks for coming on the show, dude.
I appreciate you taking some time out now that you're now that you're killing commercial or teaching people how to kill commercial.

Speaker 4 I'm sure your days are a little more filled than they were before when you were just kind of lounging around the pool down there.

Speaker 9 Yeah, back when I was four.

Speaker 9 It's crazy, man.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it's been good. It's kind of interesting because with all of the stuff that we've had going on, you know, killing killing commercial definitely has taken off.
It takes up a chunk of time,

Speaker 9 but the actual writing of business is not slowed down.

Speaker 9 Our April was better than last year, and that's just crazy to me because we're not really,

Speaker 9 you don't feel it, right?

Speaker 9 You don't feel it as much when you're not out calling on people in person and knocking on doors and doing all the things you have to do to have meetings and get business in the door.

Speaker 9 And it's essentially just coming into you and you're doing everything virtually. It doesn't feel like you're writing as much as you are.

Speaker 9 And then when I get to the end of the month and I start running my numbers, I'm like, holy cow, like this has been a very quiet chunk of revenue that we've written.

Speaker 9 And I'm not complaining about that at all.

Speaker 4 Yeah, especially considering just how crazy, now I know you guys, like COVID to you guys hasn't been as much of an issue as it has been up here and other parts of the country. But,

Speaker 4 you know, I think at least the headlines and stuff make it seem like the world is on fire. But in many regards, it's still cruising on.
And, you know,

Speaker 4 I think a lot of people made the mistake of really throwing the brakes on too hard when COVID hit. And,

Speaker 4 you know, it's been interesting to see those who have kind of pushed through and

Speaker 4 the fact that if anything, they're way ahead now.

Speaker 9 You know, it's interesting because you would think that Florida would have really been hit hard with like shutdowns and things like that.

Speaker 9 And And we have been to a certain degree, but all of it has more to do with tourism and hospitality and nothing else in business.

Speaker 9 But when you contemplate how many aging people we have down here that have come down here to retire, the amount of assisted living facilities and all of that, I would be concerned that we would be the epicenter of all of this because there's such a large concentration and it just hasn't been the case.

Speaker 9 I think by and large, the majority of the people here have used their head. We've had some government intervention that's required things to shut down.

Speaker 9 Like, I feel like an absolute sloth right now because Orange Theory hasn't been open for a month and a half and it's going to be open next Friday, June 5th.

Speaker 9 And the second that I get in there, they're probably going to have a defibrillator on standby for me. But aside from that,

Speaker 9 it really has been business as usual. And even the hospitality stuff, I don't really think

Speaker 9 they've obviously taken some level of a hit.

Speaker 9 But a lot of people have stepped out and supported those places too, with takeout or Uber Eats or however else. So

Speaker 9 it's not been as bad as what, I mean, you guys have had it horrible in New York for sure.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. They just,

Speaker 4 you know, I think, I think, you know,

Speaker 4 a huge takeaway for me from this experience has been,

Speaker 4 besides learning all the, all the ins and outs of starting an agency and

Speaker 4 really a functioning business and all that, has been the resiliency and

Speaker 4 then the counter to that, the lack of resiliency that different individuals have.

Speaker 4 And how do you how to talk people through, you know, just the wide scope of perspectives and how do you navigate that and how do you help people who are in both camps?

Speaker 4 Those are like, screw it, let's just plow through, you know, live free or die, you know, come take my guns, you know, from my, from my dead hands.

Speaker 4 And then the other people who, you know, they're only willing to talk to you through three layers of plexiglass and a breathing tube. And, you know, I think

Speaker 4 it's really been, at least up here,

Speaker 4 it's in your face every day, all day.

Speaker 4 And I think the one thing that I've taken away and killing commercial has been absolutely tremendous for that, just the community of guys has been just it's like, just keep going, just keep showing up, keep going, you know, regardless of how you feel.

Speaker 4 It's like, it's like the working out thing, man. Like sometimes your best days are the days that you did not want to get up and prospect.
You didn't want to get up and email people. And

Speaker 4 that pays tremendous dividends.

Speaker 9 Yeah, you know, my perspective has been a couple of things. To your point about people reacting in different ways, it reminds me of when I got into the industry.

Speaker 9 I had just come out of retail and I was working with a recruiter that was specific to the insurance industry. And I went and did a personality test.
And the results of the personality test came back.

Speaker 9 And she's, the lady calls me and she's like, look,

Speaker 9 you know, I'm just going to be honest with you, your results didn't come back very good. And I'm like, how do you fail a personality test? Like, what does that mean?

Speaker 9 Does it mean I have zero personality? You know, I just need to go jump off a bridge now. What's the story?

Speaker 9 She goes, no, just the way that these companies hire is they're looking for people who fit in a certain box.

Speaker 9 And she said, I've honestly never seen somebody come through for an insurance producer's role that has literally been equal in all four quadrants.

Speaker 9 Like the way that they did it, I was within like one or two points in each of the four areas that they tested. And she said, you know, they're really looking for people to be drivers.

Speaker 9 You need to be heavily weighted over there. I said, you know what? I would have to respectfully disagree with you.

Speaker 9 I would think that if you're that equally weighted, it would be leading people to see that you can relate to anyone at any time and you can basically be a chameleon and adapt to your environment.

Speaker 9 And I said, that has helped me in my career thus far. And I think it will ultimately help me be successful in this industry.
And, you know,

Speaker 9 it was interesting. I just, I never really thought about it that way.
And the other thing is, when I took the personality test, I answered it honestly. I didn't try and game the system.

Speaker 9 You know, I actually,

Speaker 9 I'm smart enough that I would have known that if I needed to be a driver, I could have answered all the questions they were asking me so that it would skew it that way.

Speaker 9 I just answered everything honestly.

Speaker 9 And, you know, as I look back now, 15 plus years later, I think that that's helped me way more than it's hurt me because I look at my book of business and it is like literally a melting pot, you know, personalities, you know, ethnicities, types of business and all of that.

Speaker 9 And I have a very good relationship with each one of them because of the way that I'm wired, I guess, more than anything else. But to your point regarding

Speaker 9 the community and everything else, you know, I joke about it all the time, you know, because people ask me, you know, they ask me, hey, how's Ryan doing? I know you're talking to him.

Speaker 9 I know you're working with him. Everybody's watching Hanley.
They want to see if he's going to succeed or if he's going to fall on his face.

Speaker 9 You know, the whole insurance community is watching to see what happens. And I said, well, two things.
Number one, I've got his back. So if he fails, that means I failed him.

Speaker 9 And that's just not going to happen. So I'm not even worried about it.

Speaker 9 And I said, but the other thing is, you know, a lot of people are probably sitting here thinking to themselves, this clown just opened an agency at the exact wrong time to open an agency.

Speaker 9 And I said, I would agree with you if it was anybody other than Hanley.

Speaker 9 Like, this is actually the perfect time for Hanley to start his agency because he can't go out and get distracted by all of the other crap that you get distracted by when you're out starting to launch your agency.

Speaker 9 He's been forced to sit there in isolation for all practical purposes and really think through decisions to the the point that he makes pragmatic decisions instead of decisions on the fly.

Speaker 9 He's been forced into his strength of creating and distributing content because that's really one of the only things he can do right now.

Speaker 9 And while everybody else is watching to see what's going to happen, all they're watching is the dude's building a rock-solid foundation for what he's going to build his empire on going forward.

Speaker 9 And I believe that wholeheartedly.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Also, fuck all those people.
So,

Speaker 9 I,

Speaker 4 yeah, you know, it's been, it's been so, the whole experience has been wild. I, um, it, it has definitely been

Speaker 4 every bit

Speaker 4 the challenge, uh, both from a technical, tactical standpoint and an emotional standpoint. I think that's almost the harder part.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, you talk about the technology and, you know, yeah, I've got a firsthand glimpse at what agency owners have been bitching about, you know, forever about how shitty most insurance technology is.

Speaker 4 And it is, it's, it's poor,

Speaker 4 but it, it's not a handcuff. You know, what I've learned is, yes, is this, is this a nice, easy, dynamic piece of software to use? If it's dealing with insurance, most likely not.

Speaker 4 However, it is in no way a handcuff to doing business. I mean, there's anyone who says, oh, insurance is shitty and that's why I'm struggling is lying.

Speaker 4 You're struggling because you're not doing what you need to do. So

Speaker 4 I have confirmed in my mind everything that I've heard for so long,

Speaker 4 but the roadblocks really just come down to, you know,

Speaker 4 do you do it? Do you show it? Do you, you know, do you like, like, you know, some of the stuff in the thing, we talk about the 12-month solicitation calendar, right?

Speaker 4 Do you create it and put people in it and make it your own and

Speaker 4 work it? Or do you just keep watching the videos over and over again and go, oh, that would be a cool thing to do?

Speaker 4 And I think a lot of,

Speaker 4 you know, it's like every other business. It's whether, you know, for me, it's the speaking business or,

Speaker 4 you know, the marketing business, you know, whatever. It's, do you show up and do the work or do you not? And, you know, I'm, you know, there's nothing special about my game.

Speaker 4 I'm not, I'm not even the best content creator. Like literally, my superpower is only that I am so freaking dumb or

Speaker 4 rock that I just keep showing up. I mean, that's really all that it is.

Speaker 9 That's 90% of the battle, man. And I mean, that's, that's the thing.
I think that people don't realize fundamentally our industry has not changed in 100 years.

Speaker 9 It's not going to change fundamentally in another 100. And what I mean by that is, yeah, policies will probably change.
New software products are going to come out.

Speaker 9 You know, perhaps personal lines and small commercial ends up becoming even more commoditized and automated and you're competing with the likes of google and amazon but at the end of the day it still means you have to call on a certain number of people to get a certain number of people to meet with you let you present and all of those things and there's never going to be a magic wand that removes all of that right so i can give you the greatest platform in the world i can teach you the way that i have been successful in middle market the how i research accounts all of the things that we do But at the end of the day, if all you do is watch the video or you listen to the podcast or you read a blog post and you don't take action,

Speaker 9 then all you've done is watch a video, listen to a podcast, or read a blog post. That's it.
And, you know, that's the thing that just frustrates me more than anything else about this industry.

Speaker 9 But it's also the thing that I love the most about this industry because I know that I take action.

Speaker 9 And anybody who does is ultimately going to be much more successful than the average person in the industry.

Speaker 9 We're an industry full of people who do what they need to do to get by. That's it, and that's you know, that's part of the problem.

Speaker 9 You can make a very comfortable living just doing what you need to do to get by. So, if you want to be an average player, come on into the insurance industry.

Speaker 9 We have low barriers of entry and above-average income if all you want to do is show up.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the good news about that is, and I think this is where the content game comes in. And, you know, one of the things about

Speaker 4 Killing Commercial that that's been reassuring to me is, you know, like when I first started talking to you, I knew,

Speaker 4 you know, and for anyone that's listening, like we haven't really known each other that long, but we have become, you know, we talk quite often.

Speaker 4 Whether that's because you feel obligated to or not, I'll take it either way.

Speaker 9 Well, it's funny, man, because if I don't hear from you for like a day, I feel like, all right, I got to talk Hanley off the ledge. Something's going on.
I haven't heard from him.

Speaker 9 He hadn't asked me any questions today. I hadn't really been active on social media.
Something's going on. Let's go get his head cleared out and get him back focused.

Speaker 4 Well, you know, the good news is lately I've been responding to you, hey, the problem is I got stuff coming in. I'm trying to put some premium on the books.

Speaker 4 you know, it's, it's, it has been, it's been interesting.

Speaker 4 You know, so one of the things about Killing Commercial that that I loved or that was reassuring to me when I first got there was, you know, I didn't really know what to expect.

Speaker 4 And I'm assuming these are like hardcore sales tactics, you know, get in and wedge and, you know,

Speaker 4 question answering sequence. And

Speaker 4 so much of it is

Speaker 4 doing business the right way.

Speaker 4 It's so much more. I mean, even

Speaker 4 I just put, I literally just finished the 12-month solicitation calendar today.

Speaker 4 This morning, I finished the last email for the sequence. I'm just getting it set up.
And I already have people going, but whatever. Just I got the last email set up.
And,

Speaker 4 you know, in it, it's, you know,

Speaker 4 80%, I think you say something like 80% of agents focus on 20% of what matters, which is price. And at, you know, in your case, in the case of the years, it's Florida Risk Partners.

Speaker 4 We focus on the 80%

Speaker 4 of

Speaker 4 what matters that actually determines the 20% that's price. I'm kind of butchering the way you say it, but the idea is

Speaker 4 so much of what

Speaker 4 we do in this industry is just, let me quote your price, let me quote your price, let me quote your price.

Speaker 4 And if I've learned, if anything has been reassuring to me being part of Killing Commercial in general, and then just it matching up with my philosophy, which is doing what's right by people,

Speaker 4 that was that was very,

Speaker 4 for me, it made me feel like I was, I had found my tribe or whatever, because I would never be, I can never be someone who just quotes on price, tries to jack around.

Speaker 4 You know, we were just, I was just bitching about someone who was jacking around with coverage to screw someone's rate up

Speaker 4 before.

Speaker 4 And like, I can never be that person. Like, it's just not in me.
So that has been so reassuring to surround myself with a group of people who feel that same way and are doing it at scale.

Speaker 9 Well, and the thing, the thing is, is the average insurance agent is an insurance agent right like that's what they do they're insurance sales people

Speaker 9 they their compensation is derived from the sale of a product and they for all practical purposes there's a large subset of agents out there that are very successful selling a product that's it that's that's the name of the game The issue is we will always beat those people.

Speaker 9 Always.

Speaker 9 There's never a time where they're going to come in with a focused approach and win um if they do it's because we've done a horrible job of qualifying who we're talking to as a buyer because they never would have fit our philosophy to begin with and so it just it's it doesn't happen and what i mean by that and to sort of clean up a little bit of of what you were talking about is if you look at the the total cost of risk calculation um not from a number standpoint, but just the sub parts of it.

Speaker 9 There are five sub parts of total cost to risk. Insurance premium is one of them, right? And so if you look at it from that perspective, where

Speaker 9 insurance premium is one of five, the way I explain it is it's 20% of the formula, right? So it's 20% of the total cost of risk formula or what comprises total cost to risk.

Speaker 9 And what agents do is they focus on price and insurance premium is the only thing that's really price driven. And they focus on beating that down.
And the issue you have is there's a floor.

Speaker 9 You can only negotiate price so low.

Speaker 9 If you're not focusing on any of the other stuff or worrying about cleaning up any of the other things associated with total cost of risk, you're really doing your client or prospect, for that matter, a disservice.

Speaker 9 Because, I mean, you were on one of the live call that we did last week where I, I mean, I just basically went off on a tirade about indirect costs.

Speaker 9 Well, indirect costs are a huge part of a client's total cost of risk. Agents don't talk about that.

Speaker 9 And when you look at where their claims are, especially if you're like inside of a guaranteed cost type program, the client doesn't feel that.

Speaker 9 You know, if you're paying guaranteed cost for workers' compensation, for example, and you have $500,000 in claims, you don't feel that.

Speaker 9 The carrier pays those claims because you're on a guaranteed cost program.

Speaker 9 You're going to feel it when your mod comes out in a year or two, and you're going to feel it through increased premiums then.

Speaker 9 But for all practical purposes, even then, it's just going to be a small subset of what was actually paid out that affects your increase in premium.

Speaker 9 But if you look at the things like the indirect costs that are associated with those claims, those are hard dollars leaving a company's financial statements. And agents don't talk about that.

Speaker 9 They don't understand it, they can't quantify it. It's very difficult because the average business owner has never heard somebody talk to them like that before.
They've never had somebody explain it.

Speaker 9 And so, as long as you can be articulate in how you present that message to a prospect and give them concrete examples of things that would contribute to indirect costs of claims, you're going to blow their mind.

Speaker 9 Because in that scenario that we just, that I just said, if a client's got $500,000 in claims, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, indirect costs on that are anywhere between two and 20 times.

Speaker 9 Well, indirect costs aren't getting eaten by the insurance carrier. They're coming directly from their financial statements.

Speaker 9 So when you go in and tell a business that had $500,000 in claims, they had a million dollars in direct costs, it's a tough pill to swallow.

Speaker 9 And they don't believe it until you start pointing out all of the different things. And then eventually they connect the dots.

Speaker 9 That's where agents miss the boat, in my opinion, more than anything else. They focus on a product.
They don't focus on solving problems.

Speaker 9 And if anybody's ever heard me speak, I say the same thing over and over and over again. And, you know, that's the other thing that's frustrating about this industry.

Speaker 9 I can stand on a mountaintop and yell it. And I know that 95% of the people out there are just going to keep doing things the way they always do.

Speaker 9 I call them lemmings because that's what they they are. They're all jumping off the side of the cliff.

Speaker 4 You know, I,

Speaker 4 so I have been preaching content marketing for 12 years in the insurance industry now. Changed my life as an agent.

Speaker 4 It took me from being, I couldn't, me as a dropping off business cards and strip malls was not a value provider.

Speaker 4 Me creating content, educating people on coverage, on how people should be, you know, served, all the things that I did.

Speaker 4 I'm actually in the Murray group today when I'm recording this, all the things that I did when I was here, like it changed my life.

Speaker 4 I now had people calling me who had already developed at least a small appreciation for a different way of doing business.

Speaker 4 And I've told that story for 10 years on stages. And

Speaker 4 still,

Speaker 4 still, nobody is doing it. And then, you know, and I just get this pushback.
I don't have time. I don't have this.
And, you know,

Speaker 4 I can see how it's easy to make that excuse. I can, you know, now that I'm actually doing all the fun, every single function that exists in an agency, I can see how it's easy to make that excuse.

Speaker 4 And then,

Speaker 4 you know, but I get up at 5 a.m. in the morning, so I can do it.
But people don't want to do that. So it's like, I am glad there's a certain part of me.

Speaker 4 And I don't mean to just, I don't want this to just be hammering on other agents because there are so many very good agents as well.

Speaker 4 But I guess my things that I've learned very quickly are, you know, if you scatter shot the industries that you work in, if you don't pick a couple industries and go after them, you just can't, you can't be successful, right?

Speaker 4 It's too hard to learn, you know, it's too hard to learn funeral homes versus cabinet makers versus retail business versus LROs versus home and auto.

Speaker 4 It's just, it's impossible to be a value provider if you have that many different classes that you're working with. I mean, not impossible, but very difficult.

Speaker 4 And the other part is, and this is something that I'm really interested to talk to you about too, is

Speaker 4 like going deep with your underwriters. Like we had a conversation inside of that same

Speaker 4 Zoom last week that you did for

Speaker 4 our live, whatever Facebook Live it was, about going deep with your underwriters. Like, how often do you call your underwriters?

Speaker 4 I literally email my Cincinnati and Hanover underwriters just about every day.

Speaker 4 If I'm not on the phone with them every week, something's wrong, but I am certainly emailing them questions about accounts, questions about programs, you know, whatever whatever needs to get asked.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it feels like these are, some of these things, we just gloss them. We don't ever actually take the time to go deep on these things.

Speaker 4 And I don't know how you can do business without these conversations. Like,

Speaker 4 I don't know how you can do business without these conversations.

Speaker 9 No, I mean, listen, man, there's an art to being really good in this industry too, right? And I'm a firm believer.

Speaker 9 I have to have a bunch of handlers. Like, I'm all over the place.
My life is far from perfect. Like,

Speaker 9 professionally, personally, it's a freaking train wreck, man. It is like on the weekends, our house is a free-for-all.

Speaker 9 And, you know, my professional life would be the same way if I didn't have people that were, you know, helping me stay on track. And I just,

Speaker 9 I have to schedule everything. Like, my calendar, I live by it.
If it doesn't make it to my calendar, there's a 100% chance I'm going to miss the meeting. Like,

Speaker 9 I had one last week where I was walking out the door to go to a meeting that I had booked on my calendar. And apparently, I had verbally agreed to meet with another guy at the same time.

Speaker 9 And he's pulling into the office as I'm walking out to the other meeting.

Speaker 4 I'm like, crap, here we go again.

Speaker 9 Content marketing is the same way. And you and I haven't had this conversation because your content game is strong.
There's no reason for us to have it.

Speaker 9 But anybody else, you know, that even comes into killing, that's one of the first things I explain to them.

Speaker 9 You know, you've got to have, you've you've got to make time for it right and this is where i tell them you have to practice what i'm telling you and don't go to my website right now and look because my blog game is weak on florida risk we've been really really busy but that changed that changed two months ago and so for us when everything with covet hit i just basically stepped back and said okay here's what we're going to do we're going to focus on everything we needed to do from a content standpoint now because i want to be running on the street so we looked at our 12 months.

Speaker 9 We said if we were going to have X number of blog posts, we need to get all of this done over the course of the next month.

Speaker 9 And then that turned into two months, and here we are, like two, two and a half months in, and we're continuing to do it.

Speaker 9 And the way I did it was I basically challenged my producers to find areas where they needed to learn, where they thought they were weak, or where they thought they wanted to specialize. And so

Speaker 9 the deal was real simple. Every single day during the work work week, by close of business, they are required to submit a blog post to me and a Word document.

Speaker 9 And I've been sitting here just accruing these for the last couple of months. And slowly but surely, I'm starting to get them into Grammarly, tighten them up, get them ready to go out.

Speaker 9 But we have so much content in our arsenal right now that we're going to be pushing out, you know, on an every other day basis going forward. It's only going to help.

Speaker 9 And I think that agents don't realize that we, you know,

Speaker 9 they realize we're in a digital age. But if I were to give them any advice at all on things that could help them,

Speaker 9 the content piece is one, and the other piece is making sure they're tight on their LinkedIn profile and their LinkedIn profile is completely built out. Because what I do know is this.

Speaker 9 Anybody that's planning on meeting you in this day and age is going to do two things most likely. It's the two things I do every time.

Speaker 9 I google somebody and I go to LinkedIn and I look at their profile to see what I can learn, who we have in

Speaker 9 common that are connections and all of that. And if you don't think that the prospect you're calling on are doing research on social media, you're kidding yourselves because they are.

Speaker 9 And if you've got a garbage profile that's got a gray headshot, you know, grayed out icon for a headshot and doesn't have work history or any accolades or anything,

Speaker 9 you're dead in the water. They're not even going to waste their time

Speaker 4 yeah i uh everyone keeps talking about how video proposals and zoom calls are the future of selling insurance

Speaker 4 maybe three years ago i haven't sold a single policy via zoom or video proposal and the reason is is because if you go to rogueris.com you cannot hit a page on my site that doesn't have a video i don't publish a page that doesn't also have a video attached to it.

Speaker 4 And the reason I do that is because if you've seen me on video, you don't need to do a Zoom call. Now, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 I can, and what, what not, and I'm not saying I'm anti-Zoom because I'm not, but you know what Zoom is?

Speaker 4 Zoom is a whole nother layer of trying to get someone to connect and a whole 15 minutes of, oh, my internet's bad and now it's choppy and versus here, I'm going to email you this PDF, pull it up on your screen, and we're going to talk through it on the phone.

Speaker 4 Or I sold a home and auto belly to belly yesterday. It was fucking amazing to shake someone's hand again and talk to them across their kitchen table.
A guy lived in my neighborhood, but like,

Speaker 4 you know, and you can COVID shame me all you want, but like, you know, I had a conversation in person with another human, answered his questions, and it was, it was amazing.

Speaker 4 I mean, I love to sell insurance that way. And, you know, I just think that

Speaker 4 if you do the things like have a LinkedIn profile that's well done and you have video and you have content and you have images on your website, you can, some of these extra layers that in my mind almost, they just add more things for things for people to think about.

Speaker 4 Like if I'm pitching someone or walking someone through an insurance program, I do not want them also to be thinking about the Zoom connection or what do I look like on camera or do I sound good or does my backdrop have a book that says something about me that I don't want this person to know?

Speaker 4 And these are all the things that are going through people's head. And I just want them to be focused on the work.
And so I've, I haven't, I haven't pushed that stuff at all.

Speaker 9 And, you know, know maybe i'm wrong for that but that's where i've been at no i mean we don't we haven't really done much with zoom outside of like webinars the stuff that we've done live has been more educational stuff yeah educational stuff is different for sure yeah but you know i'm a big believer in video proposals in terms of the recorded ones like the ones we have you know on advisory law website yeah because what i've found is that you're non-intrusive at that point, right?

Speaker 9 It's no, it's really no different than sending them an email with the PDF, but you actually remove that layer of having to have the phone call for you to explain it because you're doing a voiceover and walking them through it and then they can watch it on their time.

Speaker 9 And it's crazy because I think we're so forced, again, you know, it goes back to. selling a product and not solving a problem.

Speaker 9 One of the biggest issues I see with newer producers when they come in from other industries is they're walking in and boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 9 They're just constantly, they're basically have diagnosed all of the issues for this person before they've ever talked to them.

Speaker 9 And so they know, you know, oh, well, what we need to do is we need to get you this coverage or that coverage or whatever else instead of, you know, taking it from a different perspective and asking the open-ended question: hey, I noticed through the review that you didn't send over a director's and officers policy.

Speaker 9 Is that something that just got left out, or have you not contemplated that in the past? And then let them tell you why it wasn't there. Don't just assume that it's not.

Speaker 9 Maybe they have been educated and chose not to buy it or whatever else.

Speaker 9 You end up doing yourself a disservice so i'm a huge fan of people um doing a ton of research before they go in but then not uh allowing that research to cloud how they approach the meeting right you don't you can't go in just assume everything that you've read online or that you've researched is 100 accurate use it to formulate your questions use it to qualify the answers that you get back and then redirect to validate either what you found was right or wasn't right and then move on from it but you know know, with quote vids,

Speaker 9 the reason for me, it was a mental block, right? I'm used to doing exactly what you said.

Speaker 9 I want to go in and put on a suit and tie, shake somebody's hand, look them in the eye, thank them for the business. And for me, I just had a hard time doing that because

Speaker 9 with quote vids, because you're not doing that, right? You're not going in and doing the things we've been brought up doing. And so

Speaker 9 once I got it mentally through my head that you have to meet people with information where they want to receive it, not where you think they should receive it, then it was done.

Speaker 9 I just made up my mind. We're doing quote vids going forward.

Speaker 9 I have never in the entire existence that we have had a personal lines division done a single quote presentation or anything that wasn't video.

Speaker 9 In the entire time I've had my personal lines division, we never meet these people in person. They never come to my office.
We don't go to their place. They are 100% of the time done in video quotes.

Speaker 9 And we get massive feedback from people who love it, right? They love the fact that they get an email with the link. We push the same message out to text with the link.
They can click on it.

Speaker 9 They use their email to log in and it's done.

Speaker 9 They love that, man. It's an ease of doing business.

Speaker 9 And, you know, that's why it's not been hard for us to pivot with COVID because we already had, I mean, like I said, Quote Fids was the future three years ago.

Speaker 4 It's not, it's not the future anymore it's now and actually if you're not doing it you're already too late yeah i've had so many people ask me oh you know should i use this vendor or advisory evolved and i'm like advisor evolved like and then they're like wow you know and i'm like quote vids advisory evolved just don't make this decision hard for yourself like just put this one on the rack and move forward like you've got that like that's that that technology is going to help you yeah i you know i'm i am uh i another thing that i found it so it's been been so interesting for me coming back into this.

Speaker 4 And I've been so busy, I haven't been able to do a lot of podcasts, so I haven't talked about it as much, but like things that I've learned about myself, like

Speaker 4 I definitely, I definitely love when I'm selling personal, for some reason, I love sitting across the kitchen table from someone. I just do.
Now, I don't know why that is.

Speaker 4 I don't know if it's because 90% of the policies that I sold when I was with the Murray Group were across someone's kitchen table.

Speaker 4 I used to stack seven, 8, 815, 930 appointments, and I would drive to homes throughout the capital, throughout the region, and I would sell home and autos at people's houses. And

Speaker 9 did you have a background in Kirby vacuum cleaners prior?

Speaker 4 Oh, dude, I could tell you where to take a dump in a capital region. I knew all the cleanest bathrooms.
I knew everything. It was the best.
My buddies would text me like, hey, I'm in.

Speaker 4 I'm out in Burnt Hills. Like, I'm hung up.
Like, where's the best place? I'm like, oh, go down Route 50. And there's this Duncan Dunkin', not the first Duncan, the second duncan that's the queen

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 but you know and and breaking some of those habits like

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 you know i i've also found like i but i agree with you your point of go this guy doesn't have a computer or email so this guy wanted me to come and sit at his house

Speaker 4 exactly yeah i think it plays both ways man my whole point is you got to meet people where they want to that's that is the key that is absolutely the key because i got a guy who i'm actually quoting i was was quoting right before we jumped on this call who works for Facebook.

Speaker 4 He lives down on Long Island. One, I can't go there.
That's a four-hour drive from me. And two,

Speaker 4 he doesn't want, you know what I mean? He doesn't want me to spend all that time on the phone with him. He's a busy dude.
He's got a family. Like, he's going to get a quote vid.
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 You know what I mean? I'll finish the, if it finish it up, package it up, quote vid it, boom, send it to him. He's going to be happy as hell.
So,

Speaker 4 you know, it, I think the key is, is being like,

Speaker 4 you know, what is Bruce Lee? Be like water. You know what I mean? Like fill the cup that's in front of you.

Speaker 4 And that's how you get it done. So, all right, I have a couple of other questions that I want to ask you real quick.
What has it been like?

Speaker 4 So you're

Speaker 4 you have this process. You've trained producers to do this process.
What, what, what made you say,

Speaker 4 like,

Speaker 4 I want to start teaching people my process for attack? Like, was there, you had gotten a number of questions? Like, what, what? I mean, because this is a lot of work for you.

Speaker 4 I mean, this is a big, you know, and, and not that you aren't getting paid.

Speaker 4 I mean, obviously, it's a, it's a paid program to be part of a group, but like, you know, it's, it's not like you probably could have made more if you had taken that same time and just doubled into selling insurance.

Speaker 4 So, like, what got you to start teaching this program?

Speaker 9 Yeah, it's interesting, man.

Speaker 9 It's really two reasons. The first one is because of how I hire people and get people from outside the industry, specifically in production,

Speaker 9 I had to get a way to get my process like documented video so that when people come in, I can just have them run through the process instead of me repeating it over and over and over again.

Speaker 9 Because the way that we're working right now, I've got six to eight producers that are going to land in the next 12 to 18 months.

Speaker 9 So I was trying to figure out a way to go and get everything into like an e-learning, basically killing commercial the way that it's set up right now.

Speaker 9 The other thing is, you know, when I was at innovation in San Diego back in January, I had so many people that had come and listened to me speak, come up and ask, hey, can you consult with my agency?

Speaker 9 Do you work with producers? And, you know, my biggest issue has always been, I don't want to be that guy.

Speaker 9 I don't want to to be the guy that's putting the new course out, that's got the new video deal. Look, we've got mutual friends that have done this.
They've been very, very successful doing it.

Speaker 9 It's just, again, everything with me almost, everything is mental. I've got to mentally accept things before I can push forward and do them.

Speaker 9 And I basically got to the point where I said, you know what? I've got to do this anyhow because it's best for my agency. So I might as well do it.

Speaker 9 I'm not going to be competing with people all over the country because I have no interest and I have plenty of business where I'm at in my wheelhouse.

Speaker 9 I'll make it available to other agents across the country because I think that they'll benefit from it. And so, you know, that's really what it was.

Speaker 9 You know, the monetization piece is nice.

Speaker 9 It's, you know, I probably could do way more than you make a lot more money even doing that just because of the level of personal involvement that I have with everybody when they need it. But

Speaker 9 it really was to monetize my training program at a rate that was painful but not punitive. That's what I tell everybody.

Speaker 9 Look, you know, it's got to be painful enough that only serious agencies are in. And you've seen behind the curtain, so you get it, right?

Speaker 9 The real angle of killing commercial really has nothing to do with training people how to sell. I mean, that's a component of it, but it's building the foundation of it.

Speaker 9 The real glue for killing is the social community that we're in the process of doing.

Speaker 9 and getting user engagement and having agents from all over the country that have geographic territories that are exclusive to them when they get into the program, being able to collaborate.

Speaker 9 And again, when I have those calls with people that want to get into the program, I tell them, you know, this is all about collaboration without competition. And we have that.

Speaker 9 You know, that's something special that's difficult to build, but it's special and it's powerful.

Speaker 9 And so, you know, my end game and what I really see from it is taking the power of the community that we're building.

Speaker 9 Yes, I need these people to understand how to sell middle market because they have to be effective at doing that and be able to bring premium on the books.

Speaker 9 I need them to understand the process and do it the way that we teach it to be done because I know how much that affects retention. And I need them to write profitable business.

Speaker 9 And so, you know, the real experiment is going to be how powerful does that community become over two years? Two to three years down the road, we've got a really rock-solid group of people.

Speaker 9 We can use that power. We can leverage vendor pricing.
We can leverage program business with carriers. We can leverage commissions.

Speaker 9 We could go to carriers and look to see if we could put together a master contract with sub-agencies for everybody that does not have direct appointments right now and get better commission and profit sharing that way.

Speaker 9 And, you know, my end game has always been, let's go launch a captive. You know, let's take an aggregated amount of premium from the community with critical mass.

Speaker 9 Everybody who wants to participate can come in and we can create a partnership and launch a captive for all of the business that we're writing. And I mean, I think that's a huge deal

Speaker 9 and will build significant wealth for everybody that's involved if it's done right. But I mean,

Speaker 9 at the surface, yeah, you know, let's go learn how to sell middle market insurance. Well, here's the first thing I tell everybody.
I will always be an agent first.

Speaker 9 I will always own my agency because you don't have credibility or you don't have as much credibility as far as i know or i think if you're not like if i if i hadn't sold a single policy in 10 or 15 years and i'm out coaching agents on how to sell in the middle market today what credibility do i have i'm out actually doing what i'm teaching what i'm telling them to do

Speaker 4 Yeah, I know. And it keeps sometimes you from picking up the freaking phone when I call you.
So that pisses me off.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 9 every once in a while, man.

Speaker 4 Hey, you've got that 530.

Speaker 9 You've got that 530 Facebook message down on lockdown, though. So there's a need to call me during the day.

Speaker 4 That's right. I get all my, I get all my questions out early

Speaker 4 when I'm humped over my computer at 5 a.m. I, well, you know, man, I'm sure that we will do this again.
I wanted to, I just wanted to get you back on.

Speaker 4 I wanted to get you on the show and just kind of expose you to the audience a little bit.

Speaker 4 what you have going on and and and you know and for whatever you know at this point i feel like my my uh my

Speaker 4 recommendation of something has probably lost weight considering that i'm just a little podunk startup agency owner now and not this big marketing guy but um i have found uh the work that you do and the philosophy behind killing commercial to be exactly what i've needed to be successful.

Speaker 4 And though I haven't landed what you would consider a middle market account yet, it has only been eight weeks during COVID. But I will say my

Speaker 4 confidence, even going after some of the larger, small commercial, like some of these $20,000 to $40,000 in premium business accounts, my confidence is way up.

Speaker 4 Like I feel like I'm not coming, I'm coming from a position of power, which, you know, the last time I sold, I, I, you know, I told you this $1,500, $2,000 account, I'd be shaken.

Speaker 4 You know what I mean? Oh, I hope this guy buys, you know, and I think.

Speaker 4 It just, it has really catapulted me forward and given me, like, I just had a conversation with Greg Hogan, who's, who's part of the, who's part of, who's a cold-blooded killer. And

Speaker 4 he's two and a half hours south of me. We're talking all things shop, giving him all my secrets.
Yeah, my secrets, you know, talking everything we're doing.

Speaker 4 We're two and a half hours from each other in the same state. So technically, we could be competitors, but because we're in the group, we trust each other.
We know what's going on. It's all good.

Speaker 4 We're helping each other grow. And I do think that killing is

Speaker 4 a special community.

Speaker 9 I'm very uh honored to be a part of it and um i think you're doing really good work man and i just appreciate the fact that you know i know that it's extra and uh and uh i think it's i think it's good stuff yeah i'm excited man we're in the process of wrapping up the development of the mobile app and so once the mobile app comes out user engagement will go through the roof you know it's not lost on me right now that we're web-based and that can be a little bit cumbersome for people that are on the fly but once we uh once we're wrapped up that's the one missing component you know and i'm I'm pumped to have that come out here in the next probably next month or two.

Speaker 4 It'll be yeah, the social aspect to the community is very, very cool. It,

Speaker 4 you know, I definitely, I'm probably in there two or three times a week, but then the conversation, a lot of times I'm connecting with dudes from the thing on Facebook Messenger.

Speaker 4 And, you know, so I think

Speaker 4 that that part of it is really dynamic. So, all right, man, well, I'll let you go.
I know it's Friday.

Speaker 4 I just wanted to get you out in front of the, in front of, you know, my audience and, and, um, just expose people to the idea that like

Speaker 4 you can be

Speaker 4 new,

Speaker 4 you can be in the business for a long time. This idea that you can go out and target middle market businesses and be a true value provider to them, it is within all of our reach.

Speaker 4 I haven't sold a policy or hadn't sold a policy for almost six years. And

Speaker 4 I'm walking around

Speaker 4 feeling very confident with it with a solid idea for the value I can provide. And I know I'm going to make mistakes as I get into it, but

Speaker 4 I would not be as confident in my business today if I wasn't part of this community. So I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Speaker 9 Awesome, man. Well, we're happy to have you in there.
And I can tell you firsthand, you know, you're in a group with a bunch of alphas, whether they're male or female, they're alphas.

Speaker 9 They're not necessarily obnoxiously alpha, but I can assure you they're type A and drivers.

Speaker 9 And, you know, to that point, just the fact that, you know, we've become fast friends has pushed my content game to the next level.

Speaker 9 So, I do owe you a thank you for that because whether you realize it or not, with all of the stuff that I tell you, just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing.

Speaker 9 Part of that selfishly, me saying, I need Hanley to keep doing this because when I see him do it, it's going to force me to do that next video or get out of bed early and do that next blog post.

Speaker 9 Because I want to be on that level of content distribution and I'm capable of doing it, but it's just like people who need a personal trainer sometimes, right?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I know what I need to do to go to the gym. I want the accountability, whether it's formal or informal.
So, you know, thank you for that.

Speaker 9 That's definitely helped me a lot over the last little bit and just getting some processes dialed in.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And don't think I'm just going to seed that to you either.
So just be aware of that.

Speaker 4 All right, bro. Well, hey, I appreciate you, everyone.

Speaker 4 killingcommercial.com. Check out Connect with David on LinkedIn.
You'll find him.

Speaker 4 Rio deal Holyfield. Absolutely been a pleasure, man.
And be good.

Speaker 9 Absolutely, man. Have a great weekend.

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