RHS Throwback: Gordon Coyle on Using Video to Create Inbound Specialty Liability Leads

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have an episode, a tremendous episode, absolutely tremendous episode, that I have been waiting to do for a while.
It's with Gordon Coyle, the founder and president, CEO, whatever, of Coyle Insurance, downstate, about an hour 45, two hours south of where I'm sitting right now. Gordon and I have been, I guess we started out as like accountability partners.
We met quasi-randomly in a, we talk a little bit about how we met when we get into the episode itself, but we met through Benjamin Dennehy, who is a cold calling consultant and his program he was like, you know, you got to find someone to hold you accountable. And we talk about it, but we started this accountable thing.
And Gordon and I, for more than two years now, have been chatting just about every other week for an hour on Fridays. And we just talk about the business and we talk about our lives and what's going on.
And, you know, I kind of try to cut him loose from doing things the regular way and he tries to keep me semi-attached to the ground. And in that relationship, we've helped each other grow and prosper.
And, you know, my conversations with Gordon are a big part of the reason why Rogue has been as successful as it is. And I value the friendship that I have with him.
And I think his story, particularly someone who, you know, and I don't mean this in any kind of negative way, but Gordon is over 60 and he's taking on content marketing and video marketing and using them to grow his agency and get real, you know, very specialized leads that are his expertise. And it's helping him grow his business.
And it's just so much fun to watch, and I'm so happy for him. And just to put Gordon on your radar, all you listeners on your radars, as someone to just connect with and keep an eye on.
Gordon's a great guy, and this is just an episode, like I said,

I've been waiting to take one of these conversations that Gordon and I have

and share with you guys for a long time, and happy that I finally get to do so.

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You're still muted. Do I have you now? Yeah, I'm good.
How's it going? You're still muted. No.
Make sure it's not me. It's you.
Yep. It was me.
I you're relieved to have the news out in this incredibly, incredibly relieved because I am the worst secret keeper in the history of the world. Like my wife always used to say that she never had to worry about me cheating because she knew that like, I like, it's like the minute it was over, I would be like texting her like, this was awesome.
Yeah. We got to try this sometime.
Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's funny.
I'm just, I'm just a, I am a terrible, terrible secret keeper. Yeah.
I mean, I can, for some reason, I can keep other people's secrets fine. Like I have a lot of things that people have told me that, but my own secrets, I just can't keep them.
Like, I just can't not say what's happening in my life or my mind. I just can't do it.
I don't know what it is. I just.
My wife is like, oh, I got you the best birthday present. You're going to be so amazed.
I'm like, my birthday is not for like, let's say a month. Yeah.
And she'll just keep going on about it. I'm like, you're going to spill the beans.
I know you're going to spill the beans before my birthday. Yeah.
That was always the big joke in our house was like, um, I would get her something and I would have, I would give it to her like two weeks early. Cause I just couldn't handle it.
Like it would just be like, it would literally like be burning a hole in my mind that I had this thing that I was so excited to give her. And I just couldn't wait.
And like for when I proposed, so when I proposed to her, it was in Aruba. So I, I had, I had built up.
I was working for American Express at the time and I was flying from New York City to or no, I was working for a company called RSM McGladry, which is the fifth or sixth largest accounting firm in the country. and I was, I was a math major.
So I wasn't an accountant. So I worked on the consulting side

and I would basically, I was basically the accountant's little bitch. That's basically

what it was. Like they all would like just pat me on that.
Oh, you little math major, you know? Like, so, uh, I, so, so whatever. So I was flying from New York city to San Francisco every week, Monday to Thursday to, we were auditing this, the California state workers compensation fund, which I don't know if anyone who's listening to this remembers, but there was a back in like the early two thousands, the, a couple of the executives got caught embezzling funds, but they couldn't figure out how much.
So we were there doing the audit to figure out how much they had actually stolen. I think it ended up being like 60 million or something like that.
But, but it'd been flying back and forth. I built up all these points.
And then I wanted to propose my wife. So I said, so I had all these points.
I was like, let's go to Aruba and you know, obviously who doesn't want to go to Aruba for free on points. So, um, uh, like we get there and our two year anniversary of our first date was September 29th.
And we got there on the 26th. And my plan was to wait for the 29th and like make it this big special thing.
And like, you know, and I had how I did it was I brought three presents. So one present was like a sweatshirt, sweatsuit top.
And then the next present was like the sweatsuit bottom. And I I'm like trying to build her up that this is just like you know something nice but you are slick but just like whatever and then at the last present was a regular site was a very but it's just filled with garbage like nothing like shredded paper and tissues and shit but at the very bottom was the you know the the ring or whatever and um so in my mind're flying down.
I'm like a wreck because I'm like, I'm not going to be able to wait. Like, I'm not going to be able to wait.
I'm just saying it's like, I'm not going to be able to wait. And she's like, what's wrong? What's wrong? And it's not the proposing that I was worried about.
I was like, I can't, I'm not going to make it to the 29th. You know, I'm not going to make it.
Like I had to get through two days. Sure as shit.
We, as soon as we walk in the hotel room, I'm like, I know I'm supposed to wait till the 29th to give you these presents, but like, I'm going to give them to you today. And she had no idea.
She opens a sweatsuit, you know, and you get like the, oh, this is nice. You know, but I can tell like, you know, it's just a sweatshirt and then the sweatpants and I'm like, ha ha ha.
It's the bottoms matching. And she's like, oh, you're trying to be nice.
Cause I know she was probably expecting something more. I mean mean i made such a big deal out of it and she's getting a fucking track suit or whatever and um and then the last one she opens and she's like what is this and i was like oh shit i grabbed the wrong box i was like make sure that make sure it's in there and she goes well what is it digs to the bottom then she finds it and loses her mind and i got laid like 10 times it's awesome but um you know that's basically my story on i can't keep anything i can't keep anything like that so so holding back this whole si was it was crushing you just absolutely killing me just the fact that for the last seven months i haven't been able to talk to anybody except You've been gripping these little like, oh, wait till you hear this news.
Yeah, I just because I'm like, it's a birthday present. It was that was me just like venting a little gas like I just had to get it out of me.
It was basically like you and like two or three other people that knew no one else knew for six months. It's been absolutely killing me that I couldn't tell everybody.
And, you know, because I want to be like, my way is just to talk about things. I mean, obviously I haven't, I'm supposed to be interviewing you and I haven't shut up yet, but, um, it just, uh, it just is funny, but so what's up with you, man.
I'm so excited to be doing this. So for people, I just want to set a little context for everyone listening.
You may or may not know, no one probably knows, but Gordon and I

have been doing regular phone calls every other week for a year and a half, at least, right? Maybe more. Well, get this.
I thought about it. And the reason we connected, which is so weird, is that we were both on a webinar with Benjamin Dennehy.
That's right. And we were going to be holding ourselves accountable to a cold calling program, which within within six calls or four calls, we were like, ah, yeah, fucking we're not gonna do this.
That's right. That's right.
That was like December of 2020. Ish, November.
I think it was fall winter. Yeah, it was december it was pre-covid so that would have been 2019 right yeah 2019 it's been that long you opened rogue that's right later wow i can't believe that it has been that long i mean that's great i just can't i didn't, I didn't realize it had been that long.
So we've been doing these regular calls and like I said, they started out with a purpose and then we both were like, fuck it. Coca-Cola blows.
We're not doing that. And even though it's important and we all should do it.
And then we just started rapping for what, like an hour every other week and we've just been going and sometimes longer. Yep.
You've walked me off several ledges, you know, talk the ears off a brass statue. We don't have a problem there.
Yes. Yeah.
Several times I've been on the verge of doing something dumb and you've walked me back from that, which is great. You've been like my, my, my, my rational sounding board.
Sometimes you're like, no, that sounds great. Sometimes you're like, what you're saying is crazy right now.
And I need you to back up. And you play the exact opposite role for me.
You're the one pushing me closer to the flame. Yeah.
Hey. Keep going.
Keep going. A little bit of fire is good for you.
Yeah. I never heard anyone.
So for everyone who doesn't know you, hasn't met you, doesn't know, maybe just break down because I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk to you about and share with the audience. I think a lot of what you're doing is absolutely incredible.
And but just kind of break down real quick for everybody, you know, just highlights of your agency, your history, that kind of stuff, whatever you think is important. Sure.
So I came into the

insurance business out of college in 1982. So I'm at 40 years in the business, which I sometimes think to myself, that's kind of an amazing feat in and of itself.
Came into a family agency. I was third generation.
If you were to like, try to sketch out what a traditional agency looked like in the 80s.

You got to remember, this is, of course, pre-internet, pre-computers. It was a pretty traditional agency, home, auto, small business, life insurance, benefits.
And benefits back then was easy peasy. It wasn't craziness like it is today.
And we did a little bit of everything. My father and my uncle ran the agency.
I came in and my uncle retired pretty soon after that. And I was, you know, it was a weird way of doing business when you think back about it.
Like you were typing up sales letters on a computer, I mean, on a typewriter, on an IBM Selectric and sending them out one at a time you know today you're sending out 10,000 emails at a time so the the scale of the way we did business changed and over time my dad well my dad retired when I was like 27 28 years old and I was running an agency and I was learning the hard way, you know, how to do it. I didn't have a mentor.
I was kind of like, just muddling my way through. And over time, we changed the agency around.
We had bought a couple of books of business. We had merged with two other agencies and then split off those partners over time, then started another agency with another partner.
And I'm talking about this spans different decades. Owned, like I said, a second agency with a large real estate broker.
And we were rapidly growing personal lines because every deal they did was an opportunity to sell home insurance. After doing that for probably five years, I went to my partners and said, you know, the transactionalness of this business is not what I am cut out for.
And maybe as some context, I always enjoy commercial lines. I have four professional designations.
I'm kind of a geeky, you know, nerd around insurance. I love digging into stuff, figuring out what's right and what's not right.
So transactional work really was not my gig. And I said, hey, would you guys want, you know, to buy me out? And they were like, sure.
I said, would you be interested in buying my book of home and auto accounts? And they're like, yeah, because we need that to scale to get to the next step. So that took a couple of months to fine tune.
And with that deal, I got out of the personal lines business. I had gotten out of life insurance and benefits years before that and became a commercial only P&C broker.
So that was, I don't know, nine years ago, eight years ago, something like that, you know, took a significant hit to revenue. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we also had reduced expenses. And then over time, it built that back up and it's going really well.
My book of business ranges from, you know, a startup tech firm to large commercial accounts. Like our largest account does probably $400 million a year in sales, million dollar account, great account.
And I love doing those, but I also love everything in between. I'm a good problem solver.
Like I said, nerdy around the insurance language. So I don't know, does that answer it? It does.
So what I find most intriguing about your story was, is that you, and obviously I mean this with no disrespect, at your age and experience level in the industry, you were willing to take, I think, a step that most, the vast, vast majority, when I say the vast majority, 99 point plus percent of agents in your space, agency owners in your space, or your generation would not have done, which is you transitioned that traditional experience, expertise, and nerdiness into a digital marketing program, a content marketing program, and have seen some real success and some pickup. And it's been a huge advantage for you, especially in the market you serve, which is just outside of metropolitan New York.
So what was the, cause you had started that before we started having conversations, you had at least started thinking about it and doing some stuff. You obviously had a nice website at that point.
Like what was the moment where you said, Hey, you know, I'm going to start there. What was the moment where you, you know, your brain kind of went, you know, this is, I know I've always done business this other way.
And over time, technology has kind of come into the business, but, but when did you decide, like, you know, when everyone else is kind of dialing it back or I'm just going to do what I've always done, you decided to take it in a whole nother direction. And I'm just really interested in that thought process.
I don't know if there was any one point in time that, you know, the switch flipped for me, but I got to say a lot of it had to do with conversations with you. You were very motivating and you said you've got to do this.
So I've known this dude for two months. We're talking on the phone or on Zoom and I'm going to follow his advice.
But I have a natural curiosity about things. So, you know, I saw what you were doing and I saw that not a lot of people were doing it.
Yeah. And I was like, this is interesting.
And on top of that, go back to the beginning of this conversation, we got together because we were going to hold each other accountable to a cold calling program that some wacky dude over in the UK was training us on. And we both discovered we freaking hate cold calling and we suck at it.
So, you know, and I don't know if age has a lot to do with it but you know we always kid around oh for a guy for 61 you're doing pretty good you know you're doing i mean here for everyone listening uh gordon is doing himself a disservice he's doing well for any agency not just uh an agency run by a 61-year-old agency owner. So I don't want people to think like, relatively speaking, you're doing well.
Like you're doing well for any agency, let alone, you know, that demographic. And we've talked about it though.
So many of your peers, and you even said like you're in a lot of masterminds and they look at and listen to you talk about the way that you've transitioned your business or at least, you know, a large portion of how you market. I know you do some interperson stuff too and referrals, but like, and they can't relate to it.
And that was one of the things that, and there's a bunch of stuff that I want to talk about that isn't just this. I just wanted to start here because I think a lot of people listening either are the generation

below trying to get their agency principal to take on some of this stuff, or they're an agency principal of a similar age and they're saying, geez, well, if they're listening to this show, they probably are doing it. But I think a lot of your peers are perfectly willing to just keep doing what they've always done.
And I think it takes a lot of guts. I think it takes, like you said, curiosity.
I'm just interested in what you think those traits are about yourself that you said, you know, I'm one. I'm willing to listen to this fucking wacko kid from two hours north who's never really built an agency before.
Like, listen to him and and then stick with it because you, because you have, and, and, you know, as we've always talked about, that's really the key. Well, so consistency and discipline, I think are, are key, not only for marketing, but a lot of things in whatever you do, whether you're great at cold calling or drop buys or referral networking or exercise or lifestyle, whatever it is, consistency and discipline, I think are really important.
And I think that that's probably one of my stronger suits. So yeah, that's a good point.
But maybe what I kind of viewed was, look at where we are. Now, I'm only going to talk about commercial lines because personal lines to me is a totally foreign subject.
I don't really understand it anymore. And to me, that's so transactional.
But commercial lines, whether we're talking about small business owners, medium sized business owners, esoteric coverages. And I don't really think it's esoteric, but do you know, specialty, specialty coverages.
Look at what we're looking at right today. We've got our own insurance companies beating the hell out of us online.
They're spending, outspending us. I don't know what the multiple is, but if you do a search for any business insurance term online, who's going to be at the top of paid and organic search? The carriers that have called us partners for a million years, and they're forcing all that business that they're harvesting from online sources to their own agencies that they own for their own benefit.
Let's just be honest about that. We've got InsurTechs, which have changed the entire model of how business is conducted.
They've made it fast and simple. And sometimes I believe that fast and simple isn't necessarily a good thing, but for the person that's looking online, and that's where every buying process or journey starts, they're at the top of every organic and paid search for a particular product or vertical or service.
So they've got a better product, a better price, a better process. It's faster.
So you've got this kind of unrelenting competition. And then in the traditional sense of agents like me, they've been rolled up, many of them have been rolled up into these big organizations who have a lot of great services and tools and techniques and resources that maybe these smaller agents didn't have on their own.
So you've got this kind of like, you know, trio of forces that are changing the marketplace. So how do you combat that? I don't think that traditionally you can make enough cold calls to get enough traction to grow a book of business.
So if you want to 5x or 10x your business, how do you do it? How do you scale it? And I think that we're seeing that inside insurance, outside insurance, a durable product, a non-durable product, an intangible product. Everybody is gravitating to the internet, of course.
So how do you do it? How do you get traction? How do you get recognized? How do you get noticed? And that's where the consistency comes in. And that's kind of thing in a long roundabout way.
I think that's what drove me to say, pushing the chips forward, I'm all in. This is what I think is my future.
And I think it should be the future of a lot of agents and brokers around the country. And one of the things that I want to highlight is, you know, you're not working on, your primary market is not Main Street, BOPs, you know, $500 contractors.
It's specialty coverages. You're writing, and guys, I hope that this opens your eyes.
I mean, this is, you know, I've been blown away by Gordon's success in the spaces that he's attacking, which are large scale DNO accounts,

financial institutions, investment, venture funds, PE companies. And then they're referring

you into their startups that are doing cool technology things and all kinds of international

companies that come through the city that need whatever. And that to me is one, what I love about it is, one, is what you enjoy, right? So it's feeding your personal enjoyment in the industry.
If you were getting $1,200 contractors, you know, there's not a lot to enjoy about a $1,200 contract. I mean, we write a decent amount of them because it's part of our mission, but it's not, it's more like a labor of love than it is anything than like we truly enjoy it.
But you're getting accounts, you know, and some of the accounts that you've discussed with me, at least have been meaty and interesting. And these people, you know, and I'd love for you to talk about the guy who watched, you know, I don't want to give away the lead, but basically like watched, came to your website and essentially it was like, you're the guy.
Like I watched a couple of your videos, like just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Like, can you, can you, do you know who I'm talking about? Do you remember that story? Yeah, there's been a couple of them like that.
Yeah, so talk about that. I think that's interesting.

So there was one that was really kind of wild. It was a horse farm in Lexington, Kentucky that had like multiple businesses, like a wedding venue and a photography studio and all these different things.
And he goes, I watched a couple of your videos, man.

And you are like, you're on point, man.

And it's always nice to get stroked and everything. But, um, you know, after I talked to the guy and then, and his renewal is like four days away, I'm like, dude, I'm sorry.
There's not a heck of a lot I could do for you, but here's kind of the things I would think about for the future. He'd also had had a I remember correctly, I think he had a big hail loss that damaged like all the roofs on his property.
But that was an interesting conversation. And what I was just telling somebody yesterday was a lot of calls start with, hey, I saw you on YouTube and I feel like I already know you.
And when you hear that, you're like, wait a minute, you watched a seven minute video and you feel like you know me. So what does that tell you? That there's a high degree of trust that's imparted through video.
And, you know, maybe take a step back and just kind of think about the way the traditional sales process works. You make a call to somebody who's not expecting your call, who doesn't want your call, who doesn't want what you're selling, and you've got to kind of push them into thinking about having a conversation with you.
Versus digital, where somebody's searching for something because they've got a pain or a particular issue or problem, and they find you or somebody else online, and they say, oh, this guy sounds like he knows what he's talking

about. Maybe he can help me with my problem.
And that's how that goes. Last week, I had a call from a guy who's in a, I don't want to talk too much about it because it's still in the works, but But it's a tech firm, like way out there tech, not technology from an aerospace perspective, which is like, where in the world is this coming from? Small public company.
So they're publicly traded. And they're like, I watched a couple of your videos on D&O insurance.
And I'm totally confused. And my partners don't know what to do.
And we're looking for D&O insurance. So that deal, it hasn't been put into the market yet, but it's going to be six figures.
So I guess from a ROI perspective, if you watched a couple of videos that I invested a few hours in,

and here's a six-figure premium, that's going to be a nice commission check. And that's not uncommon.
Now, maybe not to that degree, but we've written some larger accounts and some more sophisticated, complex deals all over the country because we've been able to answer a question. I am convinced that we have hit a point in that we're at an inflection point.
And it's it was part of the reason I did a deal with SIA because I believe we're currently inside a window of time in which, as you described earlier, directs, captives, insurance carriers, you know, all these lead gen companies have dialed down and commoditized the form fill online leads so much that people who are willing to spend the time to actually explain things, to truly deliver value, to go deeper and be subject matter experts online are about to reap major reward. I mean, we put out five, you know, our videos range from three to seven, in some cases, 10 minutes about everything from bakery insurance to nail salon insurance to whatever.
Right. And people fucking love it.

They love it.

They're like,

you know what I mean?

Cause this is,

cause again,

we don't,

we think,

Oh,

who would want to watch about nail salon insurance?

A nail tech would.

Yeah.

Someone who owns a nail salon would love to watch a video about the nuances of

their business and how they apply to the insurance coverages that they have to purchase. There might not be 10 million of those people.
That video may never get, you know, a hundred thousand views, but it could get the right 5,000 views or the right 10,000 views. Or the right 50 views.
Or the right 50 views. I think, and that's one of the problems that I have and you probably share is that we look at the metrics and we're like, oh, this video has only got 45 views.
But you can't, in my opinion today, you can't look at that one video. You've got to look at it in the whole of what you're doing.
You know, watch hours. When you think that there's a population out there that's watched I don't know a thousand

hours of my videos I got to just bring up a quick spreadsheet just to you know verify that number but

watch time 65 hours 70 hours whatever maybe that's not right but whatever the number of

hours that your videos are being watched, there's something going on there. Yeah.
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here peace let's get back to the episode yeah I mean we just crossed this month we crossed 10,000 views in the last 28 days we had 10,280 views in the last 28 days on our YouTube channel like I think about that and I'm like, that's freaking nuts. 10,000 views on an insurance YouTube channel in 28 days.
Like, and, and look, I've been building it for two and a half going on three years. You know, and, and, but it just keeps adding and it keeps snowballing and, what YouTube and again, I think people forget that, like.
What you're doing is you're helping YouTube do their job better, right, by answering questions by the Marcus shared and they ask you answer thing, which we talk about all the time, like you're just YouTube's job is to get people the solution they need so that they come back to YouTube again. Right.
That's what YouTube wants. YouTube wants everyone to keep coming back to YouTube.
And if someone comes to YouTube and they type in a search and there's no answer to their question, or at least not one that they like or that they watch or whatever, then that person's not going to come back to YouTube again. Or, you know, that's kind of the thought process.
And by serving these questions or solutions or videos to YouTube and to search engines over and over again, what you're doing is telling Google, I'm helping you do their job and they reward you with traffic. That's right.
That is the whole game. If you can just frame it that way, you don't have to go any deeper than that.
You're helping YouTube and Google are selfish and you are helping them be selfish. That's what you're helping them do.
And in return, you get to reap that benefit. And it is just nuts.
It works every single time in every industry, for every agency, for every business. It works no matter what you're going after.
You got an aero publicly traded aerospace technology company to to watch your video call you and think that you know what you're talking about that is insane it is insane it is insane um so I'll tell you a quick funny story so last week I had to go to a sign shop that um was doing like some no parking signs for me for my parking lot here at the office and um so he starts asking me about, and I've known this guy for years. He's done signs for my office.
I have a main street location, which is just totally unnecessary because I have a remote workforce. Everybody works virtually except for me because I come to the office every day.
So he said, you know, well, what about redoing your, the salt, the sign on your lawn? And I lawn? I was like, you know, I don't really, why? And he goes, well, doesn't it attract business? And I'm like, yeah, maybe a hundred years ago, but come on, dude, you know? So he goes, well, how do you get business? And we start talking about it. And I said, I don't, I don't need, I could work from anywhere.
He goes, what do you mean you can work from anywhere? I said, I can work from a boat in the Caribbean. And he keeps probing.

So I start to tell him about YouTube.

And he's like, his head's spinning.

And he goes, I'm on YouTube all the time.

I don't watch any TV.

I said, and what do you go on YouTube for?

He says, like, really to learn stuff.

I'm kind of a constant learner.

I'm like, well, then if somebody's got a question or they've got a problem or they have an issue about anything, where do they go?

They go to Google. Where do they go to YouTube? He goes, yeah, yeah.
I said, the same thing applies for insurance. Have a question about business insurance or DNO insurance or cyber insurance, they're going to look.
And that's where this traffic is coming from. And that's where my leads come from.
But the other thing that it does is that it expands your horizon. I'm not doing business in downstate New York exclusively.
A lot of my business is here, but a lot of my business is out West. It's all over.
This aerospace company- Well, we've talked about targeting Chicago and how you would target Miami and some of these other, Austin, some of these other epicenters where a lot of businesses and funds are starting to pop up. Yep.
Yep. just it's just kind of a funny perspective when you talk to the quote man on the street meaning this guy at the sign shop it just totally blew his mind like he had no he had no point of reference like how in the world is this guy doing this yeah and i just i just chuckled you know i thought this is this is great it is it is i mean one we're both doing something wrong because neither one of us are doing this from a boat in the Caribbean.
So that's definitely. Next winter.
Next winter, buddy. I'll send you an invite.
That would be fun. What are you guys doing? Well, we're going to go work.
Well, we're just going to stare at each other and do work on a boat in the Caribbean. That's what we're going to do.
Actually, that'd be great. Free from everything everything.
Oh my gosh. I couldn't even imagine that the worst part is what I would want to do is set up like a video studio just so no one would bother me and I could just pump out videos.
And that's, that would be like heaven for me at the end of the day. There's like a cool view.
I can go for a swim, but just have no one bother me for eight hours. So I could just do videos and create more content.
That would just be amazing. So, so Ryan would be, you know, in one of the master suites in this big old yacht videos, I'd be sitting out back surfing or fishing or whatever.
It just it's funny, man. You know, I, I, I just believe I've just learned, I believe in my core, I mean, it's probably obvious to everyone listening that a habit of constantly creating content will do nothing but improve your life.
Unless you're being a complete a-hole and then you get, because you get, well, I shouldn't say, you get back exactly what you put out. So if you put out negative content, stuff like that, then you're going to get negativity back.
But if you're positive and you're trying to help people and you're educating or trying to be, you know, trying to be funny without, you know, hopefully being overly offensive. Although I think you gotta be a little offensive to be funny.
You know, we like to make fun of Democrats on this show. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

I'm just saying it's actually, well, whatever. We're not going to go there.
But it just, to me, this process of, it could be like, again, I'm a reference Mark Sheridan again, just because I think people know here, he's, he's a pretty good buddy of mine. Um, he, he had a goal last year of getting to a hundred thousand follows on LinkedIn and he didn't get there, but I think he got into like

the 60 or 70,000 and he started with like 15 or 20 and he did it by every day, just creating a,

a text-based LinkedIn post. And he still does them to this day.
If you, if you follow him,

he does these text posts. Some of them are short.
Some of them are like five sentences. Some of them

Thank you. a text-based LinkedIn post.
And he still does them to this day. If you, if you follow him, he does these text posts.
Some of them are short. Some of them are like five sentences.
Some of them are paragraphs long, like all the way to the character limit. And you know, some of them are really introspective.
Some of them are just kind of talking about something fairly, fairly shallow. It's all, it's different every day, probably just whatever mood he's in or whatever.
But that consistent content creation allowed him to build up an audience that then allowed him to launch a second business, which is now he does has this charter fishing business. Cause that's like a big hobby of his.
So he's got his pool business, which he started with content marketing. Then he's got his speaking marketing business.
And then, and my, my point to people listening is not about Mark's fishing business. It's that if you wanted, so bringing this back to insurance, let's say you were consistently creating content, Gordon, and now you said, you know what? I really want to get into media tech liability.
That's a new specialty liability coverage that kind of fits my, what I'm interested in, but I've never really gone after this vertical. I like to work with startup media companies or companies that have media tech liability.
And, and I want to, because you have this consistent base of content, because you have this routine, because people are used to seeing content for you, from you, when you release into that new market or vertical or product, whatever, it's just a, everyone just immediately one sees it, gravitates towards it, and immediately, whether it's true or not, believes you know exactly what you're talking about. Like, that's the thing, like, with going.
Just to interrupt you for a second, I think that what happens is that the consistency around video creates an aura of expertise, knowledge, whatever it may be. You become a very believable character.
I think you know everything about insurance. You got everybody beat.
It's working, Gordon. It's working.
We hope your new partners aren't watching yes yes i turn this part off i actually don't know shit but but um but it's true so to to kind of even go one step further i could go into media liability but if i wanted to open a deep sea fishing charter boat in mi or wherever, I could do that and harness the followers, the skills, the techniques, everything that you've already built to transition and transport it to another area. What I don't do a really good job at is repurposing content.
It's very difficult. Yeah, on multiple platforms.
And my marketing assistant probably should be doing more of that for and with me but you know just to kind of continue the thought process of media liability or a fishing boat what would happen if you created a two-minute video on whatever subject it may be and you put it out onto your social media where you have 500 or 5,000 or 50,000 followers. Now you're introducing that audience to a new product skill or whatever you have.
That's walking into a door or through a doorway that most people don't have access to. Yeah.
So, so funny story.

I, you actually encouraged me to do this

was I started a podcast.

So I post the first episode on our platform

and on YouTube.

And then I cross posted it on Facebook.

And my daughter-in-law texts in the family text chain podcast. What? Like, and that was the whole text.
Like, so, so my son then texts a hashtag media, hashtag mobile. And my response was hashtag not quite.
Yeah. Not yet.
Yeah. But that's the point is that, um, you're creating, you're creating, uh, whatever you want to call it content or media, um, that very few people are doing.
And the more you can broaden your audience, um, the more powerful that becomes. Yeah.
I, I think, uh, very, uh, very underestimated benefit of consistent content creation is that inferred expertise. And like you said, like, let's say you did start a fishing boat, right? Well, if someone had been watching your videos on D&O insurance, and appreciating them, right, watch them and like, man, when we're ready, this is the guy we're going to call this guy.
Like, this is this is legit.

He knows what he's talking about.

And then you start the fishing boat thing. What there would I think a lot of people would go, ah, people are going to what the hell do I know about fishing? No one cares about that's not actually true.
Now, some people will. You know, I'm not a big ocean fisher, so I think it's cool, but I'm not particularly interested in it.
However, let's say I was. I would immediately assume that if you're as thoughtful, if you're as authentic, caring, if you have as much expertise as you do in insurance, that when you did start something new, like a fishing boat, this could also be it from a jump from personal lines to commercial lines or commercial lines to health insurance or adding a life insurance product or a second location or whatever, right? So don't just think this kind of big jump.
I would say, geez, if he's willing to put that much thought and energy into his insurance business, I'm sure he's going to do the exact same thing in his fishing business. And that jump may not seem logical to everybody, but it is exactly what happens.
So that's why, yeah, it's, it just, you, you, you can't, once you've, once, once I've put the tag on you, this guy's a smart guy or a thoughtful guy or a, or, or a organized guy or, or woman person, human, sorry. You, whatever.
They, that doesn't change because you're talking about something different for most people. Now, there are going to be those people out there that love to find holes.
You know, what does Gordon know about fishing? Those people are assholes. You can't even worry about them.
The vast majority of people are just going to continue to apply that expertise over to the new thing or the new area or geographic area or whatever. And, and, and the work just builds, it just continues to build.
And that, that is a loss. I think a lot of people don't pick up on that nuance of content creation that, and the opportunities that come to you.
I mean, I know you've talked about how a couple of the podcast people have called you and just, you know, about different interviews and it just, it opens up so many doors when you're creating content and it doesn't have to be a podcast. It doesn't have to be video, but it has to, but it really needs to be something.
We need to have some vein that we're consistently creating on. Well, I think outside of insurance, every sales job is all about getting noticed, right? You have to kind of build interest.
You have to have, you have to get your foot in the door, your toe in the door. And, you know, how do you do that? How do you get noticed? And I think that there's a lot of good opportunity to do that with content, Like you said, whether it's written, whether it's podcasting or it's video, the more you do it, the more you're going to be known.
And you may only be known within a small community, but a small community of a couple hundred people is better than not having a community at all. And if you can go from a couple of hundred

to a couple of thousand to tens of thousands,

you know, am I going to have 100,000 followers on YouTube?

Probably not, but that's not really my gig.

That's not why I'm doing it.

Or is it necessary for you to be successful?

I think that's a good point.

Yeah, true, true.

Yeah, I think we have to align our goals with what is necessary for success. Again, I keep bringing up Marcus.
I don't mean to. It's just a good example.
Yeah, I think he's an excellent example of what happens when you do this. For him, as a professional international speaker who charges five figures, 100,000 followers is an important goal for his business because it gives him social credibility and he needs to reach a layer inside an organization that will, will write a check that big.
Right. So like if he had 5,000 followers on LinkedIn and you know, someone who puts an event together comes to their boss and says, Hey, I'd like to have this guy speak.
He seems amazing. And the boss goes and checks it out.
And she says, Jesus only got 5,000 followers. I mean, who the hell is this guy? You know, that that's something to overcome.
But if that same boss, she goes on LinkedIn and she sees 100,000 followers and he's consistently creating content around his topic and all this. Now the boss is going to go, yep, he looks awesome.
Let's go. And that's the same thing with us, right? If, if someone, it is not always that the business owner is the one who's actually doing the research.
We get a lot of calls from, from, uh, you know, the, the office managers or executive assistants or, or receptionists or someone inside the accounting department is, you know, we get calls sometimes I'd say the accounting department is rare, but, but we do get some calls there and they have to run the decision up the tree. And when they can show that whoever the decision maker is our YouTube channel, and we have almost a thousand followers and a hundred thousand plus total views on our channel and all this kind of stuff and all these videos, the boss go, ah, these guys seem legit.
Yeah, we can, we can do this. This is fine.
That's a huge, huge bonus. Something else you just said that kind of triggered an idea in my mind was for a lot of the guys or folks that are listening, you mentioned business owners.
So I'm thinking, you know, this strategy of content is not just about agency principle. It's certainly a lot easier if the agency principle, you know, blesses it and gets it going and funds it.
But if you're a producer in an agency that is not into digital, there's no reason why you can't do it. And I've seen it happen where producers become successful through their Facebook channel, through video, whatever it may be.
But if you're a producer, don't wait for your agency principal to, you know, sprinkle holy water on this and say it's a go. Yeah.
If you're excited about doing it, do it. There's really nothing that should stand in your way of doing it.
You know, look at somebody like, oh God, the producer that we both know that's down in Austin that just changed jobs not recently, not too long ago. We see him on LinkedIn all the time.

Oh, Micah Saas. Micah.
So, you know, he's not doing the kinds of videos that we're doing. He's running in a different track.
But look at the following that he's creating. And he's talking about why the insurance process is all fouled up, why the bidding process is all screwy.
That's his message. You got to reinvent the way you're selling insurance.
And so who's following him? A whole lot of producers, a whole lot of agency owners, a whole lot of people in the insurance industry. But there's also a lot of other folks that are probably following him and saying, that's interesting.
I never thought of it that way. And his videos are pretty short and some of them aren't even video.
It's just posting on LinkedIn. I think he's doing a brilliant job of building a following and being consistent around the theme.
The theme is that the insurance, the commercial insurance industry is broken. And if you keep doing it the way you're doing it, you're just going to, it's a road to ruin.

You got to fix it. Yeah.
Think about the asset that Marsh lost. I mean, I know Marsh is so big, they could give two shits about somebody like Micah, but like, what a talent.
And, you know, he basically, I don't want to tell his story for him, but you know, he made that move to have more freedom to do the things that he's doing. And I think I'm with you, man.
I think he's absolutely crushing it. He is someone, and if you guys didn't hear it, it's Micah, M-I-C-A-H, Salas, S-A-L-A-S on LinkedIn.
I would go follow him today and just watch what he's doing. One, his message is completely on point.
And two, the way he's going about it is, would be considered a best practice. Yeah.
Very authentic. Yeah.
And look, what holds back a lot of folks in, from getting into this is, oh, I don't have all the right equipment. I think he's doing most of this on his cell phone.
Does it all on a cell phone in vertical form. He literally, he's told me before he just, I think he just props the phone up on his, on his dresser and does the videos.
Like, you know what I mean? He's in his, sometimes he's in a dining room, living room. It's not like he's in a professional studio.
I do wish that he, and I've told him this before that he took some of that stuff and put it up on YouTube because I think it's tremendous and it would give him more run, but like he, he's not doing anything overly complicated from a technical standpoint. He's just creating content.
Now it helps. He's a good looking fit dude.
He talks very well. That helps, but that just comes with practice.
And if you're not fit, start walking 30 minutes a day and you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll get fit fast. So, um, you know, it, uh, you know, I, I think that there's a lot of what's really cool about this time is that, you know, when I first started doing this, geez, I did an interview with Cassie the other day.
Um, and we were talking about when we first met and it was 2009. I did, I think 2010 was the first keynote that I ever did or first, I wasn't a keynote.
It was just a speaking gig, but I did it for the Young Agents, National Young Agents Conference in 2010. So I've been talking about this stuff for almost 12 years.
And back then it was a bunch of 20 something year old kids talking about shit. They really didn't understand the internet was a complete wild west it would take 30 minutes to upload a three megabyte video in non-hd you know what i mean like it was it was crazy and uh you know today you know fast forward 12 years i wish it hadn't taken so long but it did we have this diverse of people from all over the country, all different backgrounds, all different ages, all different agency sizes, creating all this really interesting content.
And that's, you know, that's one of the reasons why I think we're in this window. We're in this time where if you're willing to share your expertise, you know, Mike Crowley is another great example of a guy doing great work.
You know, we're in this window. And if we can, as a, as a group, the people who are willing to take this on like yourself, you know, and whatever and tell these stories and share expertise, man, there is benefits to be reaped right now.
It will probably change because if I work, you know, again, these big ships will probably never won't shift fast enough for it to really matter for, the early movers. But, you know, if any of these organizations that large and had real big time budgets were to take on this, which, you know, Rogue is obviously not one of those, you know, those organizations.
You know, you could do some real damage. Like, you know, just paying for SEM, you know, paying for search results, that's fine.
Except you can't turn a profit on that business. That's just market share grabbing.
This stuff that we're talking about is profitable business. It is, it is the cost of acquisition is extremely low versus paid channels and it's wide open still.
Well, you're only comparing online, you know, paid versus organic, but like, look at even traditional marketing, knocking on doors, delivering donuts, all the traditional things that we've always done, you know, that gets expensive as well. And, and the turnover, the ROI on that, I mean, unless you're really good at it is is mediocre and you can't do it at scale.
If you're a single producer, you can only do so much every day. Yeah.
What's interesting to me about that, too, is when people do that work, they don't count their own time as an expense. Right.
So they'll be like, oh, you know, I didn't pay any money, but I, you know, I drove around for two hours and stopped in businesses. That's great.
And I'm with you. That can be a very successful model.
But are you taking the fact that your time is probably worth three to five hundred dollars an hour if you're if you're a major producer in an agency and you just took two hours of time? So did you track, let's just say, what's called 250 an hour? Did you put $500 down plus the cost of gas for any donuts you got or whatever the hell you ate your coffee? Did you add that up as the cost of acquisition for any of those businesses that you stop in? Probably not. They just put down zero because they didn't pay for anything.
And what I'm saying is that if I can create nine videos in an hour, that's 200, let's say that's 250 bucks an hour, my time, so that's 250 bucks. Probably takes another 30 minutes for me to package them all up and export, maybe another hour, so it's 500 bucks.
So for $500, I can get nine videos out that will eventually have thousands of views that will produce, those nine videos will over time will produce hundreds of leads. The cost of acquisition is tiny.
It is tiny. And that I just, I have not seen another channel that you could convince me produces more because the argument, and this is the last thing I want to talk to you about, and I'm super interested in this from your perspective, is I think the days of the pushback being internet businesses crap are over.
If you are still saying internet businesses crap, understand that you're wrong because you are. But like- Unless they're buying leads through a lead wholesale type operation, where five other brokers are getting those leads as well.
Yeah. So set the stage properly.
Yeah. I would say if you're buying leads online, the only place that I've ever had success is commercialinsurance.net.
That's the only, that's the only online paid source that I've had. What I believed was consistent, positive success was commercial insurance.net.
Um, there may be others and that's not a knock on any others. That's just my personal experience.
And I tried quite a few, but that's the one that I've had some success with. Um, you know, we have a, like, I think a forties in the forties close ratio on the stuff that comes in from there, which is pretty darn good.
Which is not bad. So, you know, and being able to target the states and the types of business you want to go after.
Yeah, I thought that one was pretty good. I still don't think it beats inbound business personally.
You know, when you were talking about inbound business versus non-inbound business, think about the whole sales process and the closing ratios and the whole way you have to get business in the traditional sense. And I'm not throwing shade on the traditional way of doing business because I still do that.
It's more of a kind of layered or blended strategy, I think, to be successful. But if you have to convince somebody to buy your product,

and then you're going out to the market, and you're probably still bidding it, so price is a major determinant, the value equation is at a very low number, the price is a bigger determinant than the value. Look at all those factors that you've got to overcome to get a piece of business done.
Now, compare that to a referred lead to you. So networking still is a big piece of what I do.
We get a lot of business from referrals that, you know, so value is high. Price is not so high.
Inbound business, value, they've got a itch that needs to get scratched. There's a problem that you're going to fix.
Value is very high. Price is somewhat inconsequential.
So when you think about the whole, from a producer standpoint, I'm talking about, think about the productivity that you can deliver through inbound. I think that's really what's driving me to do this.
And the fact that they're already sold when they call you. Yeah, pretty much.
that to me, I used to, I used to, there was a keynote that I did for a few years. It never really worked exactly the way that I wanted it to.
So I kind of bagged it as a, as an overall theme, but I used to call it the title of it was already sold. It didn't really connect with people because at the time it didn't make sense to them.
But the whole concept was what we're doing is so that when you talk to somebody, it's not let's let let me build expertise with you. It's you, you're already convinced I know what I'm talking about.
And then I'm a valuable resource. Yes.
Now all I need to do is solve your problem for you and provide you with a solution. Right.
That concept I thought was really powerful. really clicked in a, in a keynote and maybe some of that was me, but, but that, that concept to me is, is, is really important that you're, you're picking up the phone and you're talking problems and solutions, not, Hey, I've been in the business for 20 years and you know, we have 20 carriers and you know, we write, we've written, we've written 10 businesses in your geographic region.
You're like, you don't have to do any of that crap because they already believe you. They already think that you have the answer.
They're just hoping you have a solution. And that's really powerful.
So dude, I wanna be respectful of your time, that of the audience. I'm so glad that we finally got this on tape and share.
And if people wanna connect with you, is LinkedIn the best place? Where's the best place to just connect with you and, and, you know, whatever. Sure.
LinkedIn, just look up Gordon Coyle. There's probably a couple of us out there.
I think there's actually a couple of Scottish guys named Gordon Coyle on LinkedIn. But LinkedIn, go to my YouTube channel.
If you go to my YouTube channel, make sure you like a couple of them.

Yep.

And subscribe.

And subscribe.

Get them, pump that rating up.

Let's go, buddies.

Yep.

Yeah.

Insurance agents subscribing to insurance agents.

That's how we break the algorithm. I'll take it, man.

I'll take it.

All right, Gordon.

I appreciate you so much, man.

I'm so glad we got to do this.

And look forward to the next time we get to chat. Thanks, Ryan.
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