RHS 126 - A Tremendous Conversation with Ricky Hayter

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you.
Conversation with Ricky Hader, the owner of A&R Insurance Group out in Oregon. Ricky's also highly involved in Killing Commercial, David Carothers community, been a huge part of the protege.
And Ricky's just an all around great agency owner, great guy, someone who I had the chance to be co-coaches with on The Protégé season one, helped get Ryan Keating into the finals of The Protégé. And it was just fun to catch up with Ricky.
He's one of the people, you know, sometimes you talk to people so much out in the digital world and I realize they just haven't been on the show yet. And I'm like, man, I can't believe you haven't been on.
I'm like, come on on and let's just wrap. And this is just a great all-around episode talking about business and insurance and the industry and owning an agency and sales.
And I just think you're absolutely going to love this episode. Before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsors that make this show possible.
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All right,

let's get on to Ricky Hader. Yo, what's up?

What up, dude? It's another day in the neighborhood, you know? What's going on? Yeah, man. Oh, looking forward to kind of a short week, you know? Yeah, I am and I'm not.
Like, I, you know, Thanksgiving's the best love Thanksgiving. You know, there's, you know, it's, it's the best at same time.
I am in this, I'm at this moment, which I'm sure you can relate to where I just feel like any moment that I'm not doing family time, which I'm trying to be very diligent about family time, I feel like I need to be doing work time. Oh, my God.
Well, I have so much work to do. That's part of why I'm looking forward to the short week because no one at my office cares about my attention this week.
So I could kind of like maybe move some stuff forward. Yeah.
Oh, dude, it's been. Yeah, it is.
This has been, I'd say, since probably about August to now, and it's still going. This has been one of the most.
Maybe outside of planning the two elevate conferences that I did, I'd say this has been the most hectic period of like my professional career, just in terms of how many things are happening, how many balls are up in the air, how many decisions need to be made each day. you know the the triage where you're just letting things fall to the ground because knowing that like there's just no other you can't get to them like you just you can't get to them no one on your

team can get to them and you're're just, you can't get to them. No one on your team can get to them.
And you're just like, I don't know what to do. I'm just going to let this fall on the ground.
Like, I don't know how to handle it. And you know, that it's, it's been that way since August, really.
It's been wild. Yeah.
I, I feel, yeah, we're, we're making the turn to start building niches and really getting after it and being intentional after the last year. And to take the mindset from surviving and transitioning and an acquired agency into that right now and keep everybody all positive is a really big thing to move.
Yeah. That's the, um, you know, and I'm, I'm just interested in your take on this too, because you know, that that's the hard part is, you know, our team, our team is growing, which is great.
You know, we're, it's all good. Um, you know, you, you bought or acquired an agency and took on that and everything that comes with that.
It is wild how it is easy to operate under the assumption that everything's all good. And it is wild how much that can not be true and you just don't realize.
Yeah. Well, yes.
It's when you feel good, it's easy to, you know, do the good stuff, right? It's during the hard times to keep that up. That is the hardest and our job as the leaders of the organizations, we can't buy into that and have to keep people staying focused and positive.
And that to my, in my mind is the hardest because like, okay, so right now we've all been all hands on deck for the last year. We've all just been trying to take this agency that was all paper, super old school, convert it digital, keep everything, get our hands around it, rebuild

the team, the whole thing. Now we want to go and grow and sell and implement everything that we like to do, right? But they, because our processes aren't totally dialed in and filled out, the only thing holding them back to go and do that is that they don't feel they can deliver on the promise that we make as good agents to new business.
So I've got like six weeks to make them feel good that our agency, we are good enough. It's just, we feel the inside chaos of the challenge of the transition, but we're still better than most.
So keeping them positive to make a jump like that. And listen, we can still deliver on this promise.
As soon as we hit X, we bring in the next person. We've already got that person waiting.
We've got, I mean, like it's coming. So sharing trans, trans, I would say taking your vision and having the team stay positive with it.
I mean, that's the biggest challenge I have right now. Yeah.
Yeah. Now are you primarily in person or you primarily virtual? What is the, what's the staff or a client with your staff? Yeah.
We're in person. Yeah.
We're all in person. We, uh, I just, I'm not afraid of being virtual i like the idea of that but because it's so fresh and young and kind of raw it's really kind of hard to define all of that when everyone's in different places yeah you know like i was just gone for two weeks in florida missed you at iowa by the way yeah i missed being there and uh and the reason that was possible is because my team is super strong and has my back to the point where it's like they know what i would do at this point or say or want to do enough that even if they kind of mess something up big deal they their intentions are right they do well enough and so like because we're here all day together they just know me now and we know and i know them and right and so i don't i maybe maybe i know others do it very well but the only way i know to really create that kind of atmosphere so I can leave or someone else can leave and we know how they would handle their clients and this and that is being in person together all day.
Yeah. And I have to have a place to go.
I'm not disciplined enough to work at home, man. Yeah.
I, uh, no, no, I don't know how you do it. Wow don't know that i'm a well the reason there's a reason that there's a bottle of whistle pig over my right shoulder and i went ahead to dry and i drove 45 minutes of the dispensary the other day you know so yeah but but you have your own room that you go to that's like an office dedicated in your house right yep yep so so i don't have that if i had that maybe it would be different so i have to like set my computer up in the living room or no that doesn't work nope yeah no you can't do it that way so i have this would be um i don't technically when we bought the house they called this a fourth bedroom but the closet is also where the water system is so i'm not sure putting you're putting like there putting like a coat in there or whatever so um you don't even need a rack you can hang your shirts on the pipes right yeah yeah yeah it worked out perfectly because it's just it's in the basement it's kind of in this section that my wife would never want to use this for anything we would never never put someone down here if they came to visit us.
You know what I mean? It's just not. So I've been able to turn this into like a really nice space for me.
And I will, if I'm being completely candid, the view that you get through the viewfinder, which no one else can see since I don't publish the video of this for people listening at home, but is not, looks a lot more buttoned up than necessarily all this stuff you can't see off camera. But my point in saying that is this has worked great.
I also lose my effing mind sitting at home all the time. Like it drives, there are days when I just like, cannot focus.
I'm just like, man, I would love to just be in an office interacting with other people, like doing office stuff. Because there are days when you need that, like you just mentally, you know, it's difficult to kind of lock in or, you know, something's going on and you just can't, you just can't, I don't know, you can't get dialed in.
Like right now there's guys working in my basement right over there and I can hear them. And they came down the stairs and just walked by.

And I just have to kind of like, who saw that and go about the day, you know, there's no escape. So I guess I asked you that question because my team is a hundred percent virtual, you know, I got two guys in California, a guy in Michigan, a guy, uh, another woman in Florida.
I got the agency VA in the Philippines. I got two guys in California, a guy in Michigan, another woman in Florida.
I got the agency VA in the Philippines, Nat. I got, you know, and then Sarah, she lives locally, but we never see each other because we don't have an office.
So it's very interesting. The dynamics are very interesting, you know, building culture,

getting to know people, how do you do it? It's, you know, it's an interesting, it's very interesting dynamic. Yeah.
I, and, and, and again, I mean, I really like it. I just, I don't know how to bring the same energy and the same sort of like thing that makes me a good leader with my team being remote, right? Like I almost feel like for me to do it, you would, you would, not you, well, the employee, the team member, whatever, would have to start in the office for a few months and then go remote, right? Like now we know each other.
Now we know how to talk to each other. And I know that that's just a me thing and I need to get past that at some point.
And other people like yourself do it very, very well. I just haven't been able to get my mind there yet.
Yeah. I, yes, I completely get where you're to.
I mean, I would be lying if I said in a perfect world, everybody that I hired didn't, we didn't all just show up at the same office. I would love that.
I have found a couple of things, though. I found it's very difficult to acquire the talent that I need locally.
So I live in Albany, New York. If you're awesome at insurance, you're working for Gallagher or you're working for a P firm just a P firm just bought another one, you know, they're all big.
They pay tons of money. Like I had this one woman who was great.
She's great. She got an offer for 20,000 more than what I could pay her.
What am I supposed to do? I can't, you know, I, yeah, we're remote. Yeah.
We got this kind of more flexible culture and, you know, we use gifts on Slack and it's cool, but like, I don't know, I don't have a ESOP with a 401k with a healthcare plan with an FSA, you know, we, you know, it's just like, at the end of the day, they're probably paying $150,000 for this woman, which I'm not saying she's not worth that. I just can't even come, I can't even compete.

So I have to find people who are willing to make the value transfer of, hey, this company may not be able to pay me tippy top, top dollar, but what I get in exchanges, flexibility, some freedom.

Culturally, I think we're very uh um i don't know what the right word is to describe but i think we're very i don't know it's it's a i feel like we're very real i don't know i don't know authentic i I think you guys are pretty authentic. What I know about what you guys got going on over there.
I'm pretty transparent,

you know, try to be, I think,

I think that the biggest thing I've noticed with my team,

and this is whether you're in person or remote is creating safety for them,

a safe place. Like, right.
I mean,

they need to be able to know that they can come to me with a problem or that

Thank you. creating safety for them, a safe place.
Like, right. I mean, they need to be able to know that they can come to me with a problem or that something isn't working right in the office, whatever it is and come and talk to me.
And it's not, and it's going to be met with like me listening, understanding and helping solve the problem. Not this, this doubt.
Well, this is how we do it. This is what's proven to write, write get read the script or get out of here right and there's a lot of agents like that a lot of older old school agents like that um who's i guess i guess treating my team with mutual respect and like if i want to get a new piece of technology or i want to go and build a new niche or do this, I need to get their input first because it's impacting them day in, day out much more than myself.
You know, I think the other way is true, too, is people need to be able to bring their good ideas to you and that you're willing to listen. That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, like I think there's this, you know, I literally just said this and i don't mean this to come off in like braggy way we just said before this call i had a sales meeting and we just onboarded our third new producer in three weeks this morning so um look at you getting after it out there i'm just hiring cats all i do is i just facilitate awesomeness that's what we do we facilitate awesomeness um bro just wait till just wait till i launch what's coming from rogue you motherfuckers you guys don't even realize you've been sleeping on rogue for a long time you think i'm just a podcaster you sons of bitches oh i love it i love it um that all being said i said to him i was like his name is mike good dude coming from usi like you know very traditional very buttoned up culture very bureaucratic and i just was like you know and I kind of knew the answer to this because I had talked to him, obviously multiple times before we hired him, but I just was like, bro, what do you want to do? And he's like, man, I really like automotive stuff. Fuck it.
Let's do it. Yeah.
I said, give him my guy. Will, Will's going to help you build out a vertical like what? And I kind of knew this.
He wasn't, you know, it wasn't like, I would just, Hey, what do you feel like writing? Like, I knew that that was one of his niches that he was coming from and all this kind of stuff. But like, but like now this guy has the ability to own, you know, own this project of building and he'll write other stuff too, but to start to work towards building out this vertical and whether he actually chooses that vertical or not is another thing.
But I think that for too long, it's been like, what do you want? What does Ricky want? It's what Ricky wants, right? Whatever. If Ricky doesn't want it, it don't happen in the agency.
And if you didn't come up with the idea, that idea don't exist. And I just think there's a tremendous number of incredibly talented people in our industry out in this out there who just want to feel like they're building something.
You know, I don't necessarily think it's just about ownership. I don't think it's just about big, huge bonuses and salary.
Although I know all that stuff is great. I think people just want to feel like if I'm going to put 30 years into this company, like I didn't just do car changes for 30 years.
And then it was like, have a nice day. Well, it's, I think, I think, and I think that's part of the, one of the keys to it is afforded, not only being that transparent and having that safe place for your team to come to you with ideas, problems, issues, whatever the case may be, but also affording them the same freedom that you have, right? Hey, what do you like to do the best? What is your favorite thing to sell class of business what what you you do in your job.
How can we, how can I, as the leader of this, help you focus most of your time on that? Because that leads to them being happier. That leads to them being more productive.
That leads to them even succeeding better. Because think about it.
I mean, think about like, why should I go and say, Hey, you need to build a cyber niche and you need to be in charge of our restaurant niche.

Why? Like, let, you know, I, so, so we're doing our planning for 22 and how we want to sell and

this and that. Right.
And I, when I was gone in Florida, I was gone for two weeks. That's a,

that's a long time to be gone. I haven't been gone that long in years.

And I tasked each of them for while I was gone, their homework due to me when I got back was their business plan for 2022. to.
It's here's how much you get in commission. Here's how much your base is.
Here's, you know, we want to go and sell. I want to know what you want to sell and how much you want to make next year.
I know you don't have the same experience and skill as me to go and make a whole marketing plan and long with it and how we're going to plug everything in together. I'll take it and run with that part.
But I want you to tell me how much do you want to make next year and how do you want to do it? And so they all came and picked what they want to sell. And we're just going to focus and stay in that lane.
And now I don't have to manage them into sales needs or production needs or revenue. They just gave it to me.
It's their plan. Yeah.
I love that idea. I love that.
I, yeah, I think that, I, well, you know, it's part of how I've built Rogue, but like, to me, the great travesty of, and I think there's, there's so many things that we've done right as an industry for a long time. I'm not a bang on the drum, you know, everything, the, the quote unquote old guard has done is wrong.
That's not my position in any regard. One thing I do think that has been missing is that sense of um the sense of buy-in from the team feel like the ownership usually has buy-in and but then the team is kind of just like ah this is what he tells me to do this is you know this is what he tells you know this is what and there's not that like sense that they can grab something and make it their own.
And not everybody wants that. I mean, that's not saying that every single person wants that from their career, but I think for a long time, we've been so top down heavy and, and have really missed the, and I'm not a flat culture guy either.
Don't, you know, I don't want to make that mistake. But there's a really good mix.
When you look at when I look at organizations that I envy, there's a mix between a hierarchical structure where someone is making decisions and getting shit done. And there's accountability for that.
mixed with the openness of the more kind of neo-flat culture type organization,

where you have a good mix of that. There's, there's, there's communication up and down the chain.
There's, there's input, there's buy-in at the same time, you're still giving people responsibility, which when I hear what you just did for your employees, it sounds like that. It sounds like you gave them accountability and responsibility, but at the same time, they got to give feedback on what they actually wanted, which to me seems like a winning strategy.

Well, yeah, because I want to manage the least amount possible. Right.
I mean, okay. Managing people can be an absolute nightmare.
and but but we can't grow the way I know that you want to grow and I want to grow without people and, quite frankly, a lot of them. Yeah.
Right? So, like, when I interview people currently, I don't necessarily care about skill set, much of their resume. I'm looking for good people who can't, who want the freedom, who, who want the, um, who can manage them, self-manage, self-motivated type people that are reliable.
Like, Hey, so that, you know, well, what are your hours? Well, we get in around 830 and we try to be gone by five. What does that mean? Well, it means, you know, sometimes it's 845, sometimes it's 815, sometimes it's nine.
Depends on traffic and when I can get my kids out of the house. They're nine and four.
That doesn't always just happen right away. And, you know, we try to leave at five, but this is insurance.
You could have someone call at 450 and have their kitchen on fire in their restaurant. And we got to deal with help with the claim of that.
Or who the hell knows? Maybe you got this big prospect that can't talk to you until six o'clock, right? It all evens out. This is insurance.
It's to just say, oh, I'm done. It's five o'clock, but I have XXX to do.
That's not very reasonable. That's not being a good agent.
You know, or they ask how long is lunch? I mean, I guess in the handbook you get an hour, but you don't want an hour every day. Some days you're gonna just wanna eat and power through a whole bunch and get out of there.
Other days you might have an errand to run and you're gone for an hour and a half it's only a problem if we all wonder hey where the hell has ryan been all day yeah you know we're all adults and so the people that can buy into that and can manage not everybody can handle that kind of freedom you know i i have one girl here who came she came from state farm girl I should say lady sorry and um she I when she first started she's like hey man you know I'm really I'm talking to Heidi all the time and I hope you're not upset about that I I and I was like I don't care you guys sit next to each other all day you should get along apparently. Apparently her old state farm agent, Hey, you're talking too much.
Get on the phone. And I said, and she goes, you know, it might, it means, you know, we might have to take a little longer to get things done.
And I just told her, listen, we're task task-based here. You have work to do.
Here's what you need to do every day. And every week, you know what it it is if you're sitting there talking with Heidi for two hours and you end up being here until 6 30 that's not my problem I got my work done I'm going home you know get it done yeah and and now she thrives in that and it's awesome that um so what I heard you just describe is what i would call a performance based culture and what's interesting and so i was doing the reason i missed i away is i had uh a speaking gig at the big eye of arkansas which was actually in nashville but it was arkansas and i was actually makeup from 2020 so uh so i was excited i't, Arkansas has a good crew, a lot of good people there.
I was excited to go good audience. And I got this really interesting question around like from actually from a woman who teaches at one of the universities in the risk management program.
And she was asking about like leadership style and, you know, just traditionally it's been a very siloed structure and all this bureaucracy and whatever. And I just, I said to her, you know, you're going to find different leadership structures from everybody and different philosophies.
It depends a lot on how big an ego does your, does whoever's at the top of the pyramid have. Depends on, you know, how much liberal college they went to, right? Maybe they believe that unicorns fart rainbows and we all should get along.
You know, and in some way or in between there is every structure that exists. So I said, what we implement at Rogue is what I call performance based, which is really just what you just described is we have shit that has to get done.
I don't care, nor do I need to know if your kid is sick and puking at school, you need to go get your kid. You should not have to go, oh, shit, I need to ask my boss if I can leave and get my kid.
You need to stop what you're doing, send out a quick note that says, hey everybody, my kid's puking at school, I got to go get him. Mark yourself as a way and go get your kid because that's what's important to your life because you got to get that done.
Now, does that mean, like you said, that you may need to plow through a shorter lunch, pick up some stuff at night or in the morning and get it done? Yes. Because if we get to the end of the month and you've only done half your work, that's a problem.
But what I would like to believe is, again, your word, as adults, we should, over the aggregate, be able to get our work done and that that flexibility, if you're able, if you can give your people the respect of, you don't have to ask my permission to go get lunch. You don't have to ask my permission to take your kid to the doctors if they have to go to the doctors or whatever, right? These are things in life that keep our people from doing their job well.
When they're here, I want them thinking about this. That's what I want them thinking about.
Not, oh, no, what am I going to do? I have this doctor's appointment. And, you know, I had to take a day off on Monday because Shirley's school.
And now I got this doctor's appointment. I can't ask for that time off.
No, thank you. It evens out.
Yes. It evens out.
And the other thing i'll say to that is i make them take time off it's like hey how much pto do i get or my days off whatever anybody wants to call it and i say well i guess your first year you get 10 days on the handbook but like i don't know you need you need to go to the dentist you don't need to take a half day off just go and come back back. Yeah.
I don't even need to know. Just let us know.
The only thing is just don't leave us hanging. Yep.
Hey, I'm going to be gone for a couple hours. If this person calls, they just need to make a quick payment.
Is someone free to do that today? Yeah, I'll take care of that. If they call while you're gone, no problem.
Don't leave us hanging with some like disaster that all of a sudden we got to go clean up because, you know, and, and I'll say the, when I, once the thing that really made me realize about this, that it's working, that I have the right people when I was gone in Florida. So I had, I went to Tampa for innovation.
It ended on Saturday on Saturday night. my family flew into Orlando and I stayed with a friend of ours.
And in the morning, he took me up to meet them Sunday morning in Orlando to then go to Disney and Universal Studios for a week. On Sunday, that Sunday, I was in the hotel responding to a week of emails, forwarding stuff to my team.
And on Monday I got one response to, I mean, I probably sent 50, 60 emails and I got one response. Hey, with someone in my team copied the rest of the team.
Hey, we are on top of it. We got it.
Go enjoy Disneyland. And I didn't hear from them for the the rest of the week.
And everything was just done. It was awesome.
It's awesome. That dude, that is the way, you know, that, that type of flow is the way it should be.
Because what it says is, if you can be out for a week, then any member of your team can be out for a week and you guys can roll. And that's the example that I want to set.
Yeah. Right.
So like a book, I don't know if you've read that you would really like is the Netflix, no rules, rules about culture. And, and there, so it's like, Hey, they have unlimited time off and all these things that are kind of, you know, people argue back and forth and all the groups.
And the only way, and therefore the way they do this, and I believe in this too, the only way you can truly achieve a healthy, unlimited time off, this freedom culture is you have to start it from the beginning and you have to do it with the right kind of people who can handle that. What's up guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show.
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All right, I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode. Well, this is my point to this philosophy is flat organizations and strictly hierarchical organizations, in my opinion, are facilitation mechanisms for lazy leadership.
When I hear someone say we have a flat org, what I hear is you don't want to, you as a leader, don't want to take responsibility for making a decision and having to stick to it.

You want to outsource all the responsibility to your people and distribute that responsibility out over them and the accountability instead of taking it on yourself.

And when I hear highly hierarchical, like strict hierarchical structures, what I think is you do not want to allow anyone else to have an idea so that you can take everything yourself and be in control of everything. And that's a control mechanism.
So this hybrid model that you're describing, I'm describing all the versions that are around it, it takes active management and leadership. Like you have to be a better version of a leader in this method because you have to hire well.
And think about these things when you hire. If you have someone who needs to have a 15 minute of your, of, of a leader in this method, because you have to hire well,

and think about these things when you hire, if you have someone who needs to have a 15 minute break in the morning and an hour in the middle of the day and another 15 in the afternoon,

and if there's, and they won't work past five and they won't step in the building before eight 30

and they need this, that's probably not a good fit for us, right? That's not someone who's going

to work. And we have to be willing to, to, to walk through the process with them and say, Hey, look,

Thank you. probably not a good fit for us, right? That's not someone who's going to work.
And we have to be willing to walk through the process with them and say, hey, look, you might not work if that's the type of person you are and vice versa. If someone isn't working, you have to be willing to document records.
You have to do performance reviews. You have to get them out of the building if they're not working.
Well, but your culture also your safeguard to that right now i have the base now with this team and i am human and someone could give me all the right answers and be super attracted and they're just not honest with themselves that they can't handle that kind of freedom and culture i don't have to be the one to grab the handbook and start managing themselves out they're gonna know because the whole team knows because the whole thing knows this person just doesn't fit. It doesn't.
Yeah. Oh, I agree with that.
I just think that I just think that this model, you have to be you have to be intentional. You have to be active.
You have to be very cognizant of what's going on and be willing to have hard conversations with people. And I think a lot of times what happens is, you know, we, a lot of leaders just don't want to have hard conversations.
They don't want to have to sit someone down and say, you are not hitting your goals. What is going on? Right.
And then listen. And a lot of times what you get is sometimes you get the truth.
Sometimes you get bullshit. You have to be able to weed that out.
And then when you hit a point where it's not working, you have to be willing to tell that person you're going in a different direction. And that is an incredibly hard and difficult thing.
I don't mean fire fast. That's not what I'm saying.
That's not the culture that we want to have here but if someone's not a fit you got to get them out and i think that's the part of this that a lot of people don't want to deal with is they want to say we're a performance-based culture but then when someone doesn't perform they don't take the actions necessary that come along with underperformance i i had a producer here about two months ago. You know how long he lasted? Four days.
And I didn't even get a chance to know if he could or couldn't produce, but it was known to everybody. He didn't fit in.
He was never going to fit in with that kind of freedom and culture. And when I look at how did he slip through me, he was a producer ready to work and I got lazy going through my process.
Yep. It was all on me.
I didn't, I didn't vet him enough and get enough into, can he handle the responsibility? Because I guess in my mind, producers just naturally do that because they have to because they need to go out and produce so it's kind of you're free to do that and i'm wrong it was i was wrong um but right it's all it's all on me and the thing that i protect more than anything in this building is that culture yeah you're You're not going to, no, I don't care. You could be the best producer.
If you're going to screw up my culture and you're a toxic person, you just can't be here. Yeah, I agree with that.
I agree. You, that, you know, and the other thing too, and, you know, I've had to have this talk already was, you know, I had to remind a producer who is, you know, that, you know, like our, my client service people are way more important to me than my producers.
Like, you don't fuck with my client success people. Like, they're the ones that pay the bills, not you.
You bring in new business. Like that's a skill.
Don't get me wrong. But like the people who our clients love, the ones that they stay for, the ones that help them through their problems are not you.
It's our client success people. So don't fuck with them.
You know what I mean? Absolutely. Absolutely.
That's, that's, you can train. It's like, you know, what stresses me out is if i have to hire a csr a good csr a good account manager hiring producers doesn't stress me out at all i can teach anyone who's willing to put in the work to go and how to sell insurance yeah that's not i don't care if you're outgoing enough and you like people enough i can teach you how to sell insurance insurance.
I mean, shit, you, you could just ask, can I quote your insurance enough time? And eventually someone's going to give you a chance. Yep.
It, you know, we, all the killing commercial stuff, all the high level stuff. I mean, get there once, you know, sales is your thing and absolutely.
Then you can start honing, learning your craft from the experts that are there. But in the beginning you,, oh, you want to, you want to sell insurance and make some money.
Great. Just do these activities, talk like similar.
Let me listen to how you talk and dial it in a little bit and you'll sell enough insurance to at least know it's for you or not. Do you let anyone else from your team talk to someone before you hire them? Or is it just you? Oh, no way.
Before it's always, I do the first interview. Someone or two from my team does the second.
And then I listen to what they say. And we go.
Yeah, I do the reverse. I have my operations manager.
Her name is Sarah. She's been with me since, we're coming up on a year.
I think it was February. Uh, I, she talks to everybody first, so you got to make it through her.
And if she feels, and she is a strong defender of cult of our culture. So it's like, I know if the person gets past her culturally, they will be, you know, they, they will be a good fit and everything.
And then, and then I, I'll, you know, then I come in after. So I, I talked to the second because, because there's people that she'll talk to.
So that guard your time, that guard your time pretty well. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what it is.
I want to talk to the people that I know are serious. And if they get through her, then I know they're serious and that she's serious about them.
Cause she won't pass anybody to me. If she has question marks, she just won't pass them to me.
So what the way that I have had success with it, I do the interviewing first, although I think I might on my next round try with what you're doing. I like this.
I haven't heard of it this way before, but then what I would do is have, and I haven't for these for these ones because again i had to just build this team this year with a new agency um but moving forward i want them to take the can one or two of them to go to lunch and get them out of the office and get them in a setting that is more relaxed and free yep and really talk to them out there and hang out instead of in an,

where they're here and have to be on guard in an interview setting.

Yep.

Yeah. I, I like it.

I like it this way because

one, I don't want to talk to all these people.

Two, I have a propensity to sell rogue to everyone, right? It's my baby. So I want everyone to know how amazing it is and I can't help it.
You know what I mean? Like I just immediately start selling how awesome we are. Yeah.
And then, so I would point out it's flaws and you get all pissed off, but then you can go and talk about as far as because it's your baby right yeah yes it's like it's like sarah sarah goes first she weeds out all the people who aren't serious or aren't really a good fit or have wanky cult i mean oh my god i'm sure everyone has crazy stories but i had this guy interviewed for a producer spot once and he called me while he was in the drive-thru line at mc for his first first phone interview he goes hey hold on man get out of here are you serious yeah so he I pick up the phone I call him he picks up he goes hey uh I'm sixth in line okay I didn't really know what that meant I don't know why it just didn't register me what he was saying I said okay so we started talking like two or three minutes in. I mean, McDonald's must've been working this day.
Cause like two or three minutes later, he goes, he didn't even mute the phone. He doesn't even tell me to stop talking.
He just goes, I just hear him go, Hey, uh, I'll have a number one with fries, uh, big size, uh, diet Coke. And I said, Oh, what are you at? Wendy's? Cause I'm thinking biggie size.
Isn't that what they call it? And he goes, no mcdonald's and i said oh great then he goes hey can i have a six-piece nugget with that too he didn't ryan i'm gonna bring it to you yeah he didn't make it to the to the time he went to pay i just said well hey man it sounds like you're busy i'm gonna go he goes no no i'm good i go no i think you're busy all right have a good day bye-bye yeah i mean you blew it bro yeah sorry could you i mean one here's what i i mean and so i don't want to knock so one thing i i don't eat fast food so i'm a little biased against that i know a lot of people do i don't eat fast food i don't particularly care for it and uh i have my own viewpoints on fast food so that's that but that's a judgment and i'm not gonna follow up with you offline on that because i feel like we may share those i think i mean it's freaking poison it's toxic i mean if you're if you're if you're eating mcdonald's you're essentially saying i'm willing to put like sludge in my body and expect to perform at a high level. Like, yeah, it's just

not happening. So whatever.
So I, but I'm, everyone knows I'm judgy. So, um, so, but that's beside the point.
That's my personal view. I'm not going to put that I'm on him.
That's, you know, I can't yell at liberals for this if I'm then going to do it to other people. So whatever.
Um, You're so woke, Ryan.

So,

so, so whatever um i just so woke ryan so uh so i um god i hope no one just took you seriously so um so i uh i i whatever not a judgment it was more that here's how you handle that situation. Hey, Hey Ryan, I'm really sorry, man, but I only get 45 minutes for lunch.
I didn't want to do this at the office. So I'm actually in line to get lunch.
But when it's, when I got to pay, I'm just gonna put you on mute real quick. Is that cool? I would have went no problem.
No problem. And then when it was his turn to make his order, he could have just gone, Hey man, like I said, can I just put you on hold for two seconds.
Yeah. No problem.
Or he could have said, Hey Ryan, I'm just grabbing my lunch. Can I call you back in 10 minutes? And I also went, no problem.
Like the fact that he just thought it was completely okay to go through this line to order talking over the top of me. Like I was in the middle of a sentence and he just goes hey i'll have my big mac well well he he just he just basically told you that you aren't important to him yeah or the job or whatever and your time and your time doesn't matter yeah and that was the thing was like i in my post-mortem of what happened because obviously all my instincts were like yeah this guy's not gonna fit which which you know so whatever but then I started thinking like about all these things because I because you know I think about this stuff after I do it I mean I'd make jokes but like I do dissect like what happened yeah and it was like if he was willing to do that with my time and I would be the one literally signing his checks, then what the hell would he do with our clients time? Right.
I mean, think about that. You bet.
Absolutely. No, I mean that goes, yeah, no, I'm glad that you ended that early and didn't, I mean, as hard as it is to find people these days, you don't need, you still don't, don't, don't take somebody because you're in a hurry.
Don't, don't just take somebody. And I don't mean, and I think the drive-through thing is a fairly egregious, obvious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good, it's just a good story now.
That's awesome. But still, I mean, I think guarding that culture and making sure that you do have the right person is so critical to the success of anything.
Because I'm not good at customer service. I'm not good at that because I don't like doing it.
I can get people just hyped and super stoked that they want to be in my agency and my client and in our team. But when it comes and get them, yes, I'm with it.
I love it. Here's a five-star review.
I had an excellent experience working with you. But then when it comes time to do anything else, mid-cycle, change a car, do this, it to me is just a nightmare.
I personally hate doing that work. I can pick up the phone and call strangers all day and get them to let me quote them insurance or get them to talk about their risk program, whatever it is.
And I love doing that, where cringe at doing that kind of work. Right.
So I am very, I, what I look for are super skilled customer service people, because I know I have to fill that gap from myself. So that way, when I get people that stoked to come and be insured and protected by me and my team, I know that I have the best behind me doing the work that I don't like to do.
Yeah. And I don't mean that like it's not important.
It's critically important. Yeah.
Like we just talked about our CSRs are like the most important people. I just know that I'm not the person to do it for you.
Yeah. Or I'm not the person you want doing it.
Yeah. I think that, you know, I think one of the things that we're circling around a lot is, you know, as a leader or just leading our own career or whatever, all the way up to being the owner of a business, that self-awareness, is one of the biggest things.
And I know at different times in my own career, it has not been, you know, I think, I think it's something you kind of mature into a lot of times is a general self-awareness. I think a lot of people just don't ever, but, um, being able to sit back and say, like, I'll give you another example, accounting.
I F and hate accounting. Oh effing hate accounting.
I hate it. Start me.
I hate it. I, you would rather me print your certificate to do your customer service accounting to my place.
I know I now like commission reconciliation is now a thing. The idea, I can be honest with you, the idea of stopping, of slowing down

and looking and reconciling commissions. I mean, I would rather just overpay

producers and not get paid. I would rather just do that.

Do you just not even do chargebacks?

Oh, I just don't do anything.

Yeah.

I just pay them what feels like the right amount and hope they don't get mad at me. How much do I owe you? How much do I owe you this month? It's more like a drug dealer setup than it is.
Now I have to fix that. And I am, I'm going to outsource it.
But like, that's another thing where like, so I guess, you know, what I've learned about myself is I am a lean forward guy.

If I, anything that makes me feel like I need to lean back or slow down or like apply the breaks, like accounting, like commission reconciliation, like document management, like fucking trying to figure out now certs and, Oh, I just, all this stuff. I'm just like, this is like you said, critically important.
I mean, vitally critically important to the success of the agency. And I, and I'm not discounting that in any regard, but oh my God, the idea of me doing it, I would much rather just run headfirst into a brick wall.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, I exactly.
And again, that's why I think hiring people around your weaknesses make you better. Because it's just like I want them to give me their plan and the type of business they write.
So like my commercial person, she had a really hard time with this. And she said, well, I'm good at contractors.
And I said, I know you are. But what kind of contractors do we want to go after? Well, I can do anything.
I know you can, but what kind do we want to target that is our specialty?

Well, I don't want to go after? Well, I can do anything. I know you can't, but what kind do we want to target that is our specialty? Well, I don't want to get pigeonholed as a one-trick pony.
No one says that you are, but listen, who are your favorite clients that can give you 50 to a hundred grand in premium a month? Oh, well, there are general contractors who this, this, and this. Yes.
Thank you. That's what I'm looking for.
That's what we're going to go and target. And anything else that comes in, if you have time and it's kind of easy and the risk works, yeah, take it because you aren't a one trick pony, but if it gets in your way of doing that, your favorite thing, we're just not going to do it.
We'll pass it on. It's okay.
And that's going to make you happier and make you more money. And then it's finally started to click, but like, it's hard to get people to think that way.
Yeah. Yes.
Because it's a scarcity versus abundance mindset. And what? And ego.
Yeah. I, you know, I think, I think a lot of times, well, I think the, I don't want to be a run trick pony thing is, is more scarcity mindset is like, I'm worried that if I only focus on general contractors, I won't hit my numbers.
Right. Like, or I, because, because this electrician came in and man, I can, I can, I can, man, that, that 20 grand in premium.
I know it's not exactly what Ricky wants, but geez, you know, that would be good. Why would I toss that away? Right.
Or, you know, that, that kind of stuff. And I think it's just the sense that the, the lack of belief in the process that if I just really do the general contractor thing, that eventually I'll have so many general contractors coming in, I'll know them so well that I'll just be able to dominate them and write them and there'll be no problem.
And I think that it takes a lot of support from leadership. I think it takes some training, you know, and just a general cultural sense of like, we're going to get there to open, to get someone to transition from thinking, I just need to take everything I can get so I don't go broke to if I focus on this thing, the endless opportunities are going to present themselves and everything will be fine.
That's a very tough thing. I think that's a very, I mean, I'm not going to say that I'm great at it either.
I think it's a very tough thing to do. It is hard.
It is hard to do. I mean, I remember when I first changed and became independent, I wanted as many carriers, every carrier I could get.
And I would bend over backwards to find a home for anyone because I'm independent. No one should be able to slip out of my agency because I can have a home for everything.
holy shit that was not the right way to do it. The, I mean, if I got to bend over backwards to find a place for somebody to fit here, they are, it's going to be harder to handle them later.
They're not the kind of client that I want to work with. And it is all around just a poor experience for them and for me.
Once I finally started saying no, if you don't fit in on personal lines, if you don't fit in Traveler, Safeco or Progressive, sorry, I don't have a home for you. All these side one-off little carriers, weird thing that non-standard this regional this.
No, no, no. Here are the three, here are the three that pay the best.
Here are the three that give me the biggest bonuses here. Like we're just going to go deep on them.
The easiest to use the better with the claims easiest on the customer to use. Like we're just going to focus there and move right on.
It's made my life so much better. Yeah.
You know, it has made my life so much better. Fewer carriers, I think can be valuable.
And I don't mean that for everybody. Everybody runs different places, but for me, I'm just not the kind of person that likes to, I'm kind of stubborn and I kind of like what I like, right? Like, I think, I think you're a lot of the same of that.
And so it's like, you know, I'm free as an independent agent to work with the customers I want and the carriers that I want and the type of risks that I want. So why am I wasting my time with others just because I'm independent and have the ability to, that doesn't mean that I should.
Yeah. So I, my mentality is exactly the opposite.
Um, and that's the brilliance of the independent agency and my stubbornness is, so I see, so your stubbornness is the opportunity that I want to take advantage of. Not because I think what you're doing is wrong,

but because there's going to be a roofing contractor that you don't place because it's not one of the things that you write.

And that's fine.

And I'll write them all day.

And my stubbornness is I'm going to find a way,

both technologically, process, and market-driven,

that allows me to write 90-plus percent of the opportunities that come through our pipeline

because no customer left behind and i like what you're doing with that it's hard as shit don't

get me wrong and all my carrier reps hate me because i have all this distributed premium out

over that they look at my total numbers and they look at how much they got and they're like well

how about i didn't get more and i'm like it's because you i also have this guy and i also have

this guy and i also have this guy and you weren't the best on that one they were and you know what i mean and like so they all hate me but i also don't care because i think they're all liars so you know i mean that's when i take on a new appointment they're not looking after you anyway with those questions they're they're i mean yeah that's my thing that's a whole different that's a whole different Yeah, but You know, I've said it before on the show. Like I, I try to treat all of my carrier partners with a tremendous amount of respect.
And I really, absolutely. Yes.
But I think that just like, I'm a liar. So are they like, they're going to say, Hey, can you give us a hundred thousand? And I'm going to say yes.
And they're going to tell me they can write all this shit they can't write. And I'm probably not sending them a hundred thousand because I got 20 other carriers to feed.
So, so like, you know, I kind of just upfront with them, go, look, I'm going to lie to you about how much I'm going to send you. You're going to lie to me about your appetite and pricing.
And somewhere in the middle over the next two years, we're going to figure out where the truth is. And, you know, and then kind of the reason that I've liked this path, although it's happened by accident, I won't say that I like planned this, is the carriers that deserve the business get the business.
Hartford, incredibly easy, incredibly easy for a traditional carrier, their digital quote bind issue, the breadth of markets, the ease of their system, the ability to add coverages and package up PL and, you know, employee practice, all these other things onto the, onto an account. They're winning the lion's share of my commercial lines business right now, because they're the easiest to deal with.
They have good pricing and they write a broad spectrum of appetites. I like Chubb.
They're just not as easy to deal with. So it's, it's so funny.
I like Chubb. I like the idea of their marketplace and their rep.
So, so, so I use Tarmaca right now and their rep was all makes this big point to me all the time. Well, you know, we have 10,000 classes and Tarmaca that, that system only has a few.
So make sure you're including the marketplace. And I'm like, okay.
So every once in a while when I when i'm like okay i'll go try the marketplace on this one guess what they don't write everything that i'm submitting they always there's always something and it's like man you tell me you got thousands of all of these but i i can't find something that really fits well in there dude and i uh i with what i do anyway yeah so i So I had this with Amtrust. So I got Amtrust because I had a really, not a really big, I had a nice size Amtrust BOR and you know, all the workers comp stuff that we do, we still, you know, since day one workers comp has been a focus.
It still is today. We still write a ton of workers comp.
And I was like, it makes sense to get a direct with Amtras. So I wrote this BOR, I got the direct,

and they're telling me, we do this, we do this, awesome.

And then the first nine accounts I sent them, they declined.

And I'm like, guys, I mean, you know,

nine for nine declines?

Like, I'm not an idiot.

Like, I know these, well, this one doesn't have two years of experience,

and this one doesn't have this,

and we can't get the premium to where we want to be here.

And I'm just like,

Thank you. Like, I'm not an idiot.
Like I know these, well, this one doesn't have two years of experience. And this one doesn't have this.
And we can't get the premium to where we want to be here. And I'm just like, oh, come on.
Like I, I'm trying, like I'm sending, you know, like you have to say yes once in a while. And it's not just them.
I don't want to put them on place. And I do like writing interests and I've had a good experience with them on other accounts.
So it's not a knock on them. Sure.
And write more and we are, we're starting to grow more with them. And, um, but it's just in a general sense, this is why I lie to every marketing rep and just tell them whatever, what's your number.
You want a million in first year premium. Yup.
Sure. We can do that.
Yeah. No problem.
We'll do it by June. Yeah.
Cause I also know that you're going to tell me you have 10,000 class codes and you write about 20. And, you know, and that's the game.
And it's like, okay, we can either be honest with each other and I'll tell you I can probably get you 50 or and you tell me you really only want like 30 class codes or we can both lie to each other. And either way, let's just do business and figure out what happens.
Well, but look how much, okay.

We can tie this right back

into the whole conversation of team and culture.

I could lie to my team and tell them

we're going to do all of this or do whatever,

or it's going to be this kind of experience

when you want to work here

as far as new hire prospects, right?

But at the end of the day, I mean,

I got to do what I say I'm gonna do that's it yeah and that just goes so far they they buy in because i tell them what we do and i also tell them what we can't do and why like if marketing reps if these marketing reps would just tell us more of what they can't do and this is exactly what did, how much – why do this dance for two years and figure each other out? I agree with that completely. You know, I don't – and that's really my point.
I mean, I'm being a little facetious. I do tell them whatever they want to hear.
At the same time, I make it clear that I can't actually do some of these numbers. You know, I don't want to act like I'm being disingenuous.
It's more funny when tell the story oh i i i know i think yeah it's just but at the same time i do tell them right up front and i'm 100 honest about this i know you're lying to me or or or i know you don't know what the appetite actually is because you know i can tell you this experience i had with amtrust i had the same experience with pie and we write we write a lot with Pi. I like Pi.
I think they're a good company and I'm a fan of what they're trying to do. I really am.
They're taking on class codes that other carriers have completely cut out of the market and they're giving them standard options in states where normally these people would have to go to a state fund. I think that's a great thing.
But they also do underwrite in a more classic sense than you would think an insure tech would. And I literally had to call my rep and go, you need to say yes to something.
I don't care what it is. Pick one of these 15 declines and just say yes to one of them so I can go sell it.
I just need, you know what I mean? Like, or charge double, like give me a number, like just a a decline is freaking crazy. Man, I was listening to, was it you and Ciara talking about how you got this carrier and you were the new rep.
So they kept turning it down just because you were the new guy. Yes.
Was that you? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. How that right there, like you appointed me, that should be enough for you to trust the work that I am submitting to you for an underwriter to review, to just bust my balls because I'm new and make it harder, more hoops for me to jump through.
Why did you appoint me in the first place? What a waste of time for all of us. It makes no sense.
It makes no sense. Dude, this has been been we could talk for another three hours this is absolutely tremendous uh i appreciate you i appreciate this conversation um we legitimately had no game plan it was just go and roll and this has been awesome um dude i okay so i just talked with james jenkins on friday and i feel like we talked we were typical rabbit hole all over the place i i can't and that's what i expected for you and i today just because i know you and that's what we do but this was on focus for an hour could you i mean like i can't believe it i must be something.
I'm feeling good today or something.

It's not Monday morning, man.

Yeah, that Monday morning juice.

I got a little lifting this morning.

Yeah.

All right, man.

Hey, I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Love you, bro. Out.
Later. Later.
Cheers. Who's...
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