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

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Today's guest is someone who I have known digitally for a very long time, got to meet in person at Innovation 2020 in San Diego, IAOA's event, and have seenom into an incredible content creator, addressing multiple channels, written text, videos, podcasts, and doing it in a very dynamic and systematic way, a very professional way, a very thought out way, pretty much the opposite of the way that I do things. His name's Eric Garcia, and I just wanted to find out why he decided to take on content now.
I was excited for him because he's doing a great job and I love the way that his mind works. I got a little taste of it and innovation and in this episode you really get to dive in.
You get to see, talk to him a lot about process, his process in his agency, how he, you know, went from being a captive to an independent, why, you know, he decided to move into PC because he's, his expertise is in financial planning and investments and financial advising and, you know, how his partnership works and what he sees his role is in the agency. And then we do eventually get to content, content marketing and all that kind of good stuff.
This is an incredible episode with a great agency owner and you're absolutely going to love it. Before we get there, guys, just, you know, my ask, if you want more great content episodes like this one, as well as, you know, little kind of one-off pieces of content that I think are incredible that I find throughout the industry.
Sign up. You got to get the emails.
The emails are where it's at. And then once we start speaking again, once we start getting in person, I'll share different events that I'm going to be at.
I got a whole list of events that I'm going to be doing once we can actually see each other in person again. And you only get that stuff if you're on the email list.
So go to ryanley.com you'll see right up on top you'll see a box you just pop your email and hit subscribe you're good to go and then you get all the cool stuff I also want to give a big shout out to advisor evolved I get a lot of questions about my website I think I have a very cool website I think I have have a very dynamic website. I'm constantly improving my website.
My website guru is Chris Langell. He's been my boy for almost a decade.
I've watched this dude move from hawking home and autos and growing an agency to the most dynamic, well-done, professional insurance websites. Insurance, you know, it's more than just a website.
It's a whole pack of tools. I don't know how to describe it properly.
You get so much more. You get quote vids, which has absolutely made me money.
I send quote vids to every account now, especially now with COVID. Like quote vids are just an absolute blessing.
And people, just the whole way they set up, you get notified when people watch them. You get notified when people kind of take that next step and notify you that they're accepting the proposal.
It allows you to really scale your operation, especially if you like to quote at night, which is what I do. So, you know, you're trying to do all the daytime stuff during the day.
And then at night, you're kind of working your raters and getting quotes. And then I just pound out a couple of quote vids, send those off at night.
And then

the next day I see when people accept them. That's all part of the advisory evolved experience.

Chris is always on the cutting edge of tech. His websites are beautiful.
They're fast. And the dude

just knows what he's doing. So next time you're thinking about a website, next time someone asks

you, who should you use? Use the gold standard insurance insurance websites. It's advisory evolved.
It's Chris Langell. Can't give the dude props enough.
He's helped me so many times and it's just such a pleasure that he's involved with this show. So with that, let's get on to Eric Garcia.
That's how nuanced carriers are down here. If I'm in this zip code, this company.

If I'm in that zip code, this company first.

If I'm in this zip code, this company. If I'm in that zip code, this company first.
If I'm in this zip code and the house is over 50 years old, this company. That's my world.
This is an ongoing conversation with Jason that he's been like, dude, you need to narrow it down to three companies. Okay, cool.
So I narrow it down to three companies. Hurricane hits.
And then all of a sudden they stopped writing that. Then where'd I go? Yeah.
Which happens down here. Okay.
So all of a sudden this company that's been gobbling up market share hits capacity and then raises their rates by 30% because they don't want any more business. Then where'd I go? I had a conversation with a rep today, one of our carrier reps.
We kind of got into some, we're doing really good with them this year, year to date. We're kind of in the bonus land with them, which will be nice.
And we talked about carriers like, man, I'd love to have one company. It'd be great.
It'd be great if I could write all my business to you. Can you guarantee me that you're not going to raise rates by more than 10% in any given year? Can you guarantee me that you're not going to stop writing when a hurricane hits? If you can, then can you guarantee me that you're going to write a hundred year old house? Or how about this one? I write your personal house, but then you own a rental property that's 75 years old in a part of town where property values are a little bit lower.
Maybe the houses are not as nice. It's got some issues with it.
It might have a window unit. Then where do I go? I need 10 companies.
I can't go to four. I lived in Utah.
I don't know what Utah's market is, or I don't know, maybe. Well, see, this is some of the, some of this BOR stuff, you know? So I was talking to, wow, there's, well, there's a lot of agents that talk, especially on commercial lines about BORs, right? BORs.
Cass had Michael Salison, Charles Speck, Carruthers talks about BORs. What's a BOR? Broker of record? Broker of record, right? So commercial line side, you know, a lot of, a lot of everyone talks about BORs, BORs.
And I'm not knocking that talk at all. But when you look at Texas, there's like five carriers that write a lot of stuff, right? Like Liberty writes a ton down there.
Hartford writes a ton down there. There's not, you come up to New York, just domestics, just single state mutuals.
There's like 30. Regional mutuals throw another like 50 carriers on there.
Now you want to talk about the nationals and the super regionals. There's like 500 carriers in New York.
So I, you know, I ran up against account the other day. It's a great account.
I know the guy, I got a great relationship with him. He owns this furniture store.
He's got like six locations. It's a great, nice little, it's like 50,000 in premium.
And I'm, I'm staring at, I'm staring at Chubb, Hanover, Cincinnati, Liberty, Hartford for in my pocket. Right? So I'm like, I got this guy.
Great relationship. I'm gonna do a good job for him.
I know that he's working with an agent that his mother used when he bought the business from her 10 years ago, who is a small agent. He has her with a company I've never even heard of before.
And I've been doing business in New York for 15 years. I never even heard of this mutual before the rate of every other carrier that I have half because I'm sure they banged into this thing and they went, bah, it's got good loss runs, whatever.
We don't, we're not trying to be some mega national. We don't care what our margin is on it.
We're making money, boom. So there's just nothing you can do.
And what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go get a wholesale relationship with someone to BOR, this tiny little mutual that I'll never write another piece of business with. It's really tough.
It's really tough. Yeah, we had a case.
This was years and years and years ago. We got this call out of the blue from a company in the bus business.
They were doing hop on hop off services. And they found us because we spoke Spanish and they were a Spanish company.
And the owner flew to New Orleans. This was a, this was a, you know, we introduced them to the Hispanic Chamber.

We introduced them to other vendors.

They're a person on the ground.

We became good friends with them.

So this was a big, you know, they were here doing groundwork for six months.

Great relationship.

We send it out to get a price.

Great, what we thought was a good price.

They got the same carrier, same broker, which was a little frustrating. 20,000 less.
And there's sometimes where, where it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a relationship business to some degree, um, on the client side, but on the, on the carrier side, it's a relationship business as well. And that's the frustrating thing.
If you're trying to break into particular markets and you don't have contracts down here, um, it's not a, it's not always an easy thing to do. I can't just pick up the phone and call and get a contract.
Now it's a little bit easier because we, you know, we've been around for a little while. We've got some, some, um,, we got a track record, but like as a new producer and when I went independent, I was committed to not going through an aggregator.
I was committed to not going through, um, some of the, what I call

captive independence. Um, I wanted to own our own contracts.
I didn't want to give up anything to

anybody. And it took a little while.
Um, but, um, but it's tough, man. Yeah.
It's, it's interesting. That part of the game is, um, that part of the game is very interesting.
I have hemmed and hawed because, because I do this podcast and because you know, the different, the exposure that I've had to the industry in general, I get calls from marketing reps all the time. Hey, we'd love to be in your, they don't know that I don't write that much personal lines, or they don't know that I don't write, you know, trucking or whatever, but I get the phone calls.
And there's that part of you that's like, oh, another market, cool, more opportunity. And there's this other side of me that's like, every new piece of technology, every tool, every market, every coverage that I want to lead with,

you know, I think, you know, this is one of the big things I've been thinking about lately is just

that's brain cycles away from what you do best. And I think, you know, especially for young

agencies or agencies that are looking to grow, that's really feels like the key to me is keep your focus as narrow as you possibly can. Even if you're letting business pass you by, you know what I mean? Just get the rec state, tell them thanks for reaching out and then put them in your database and move on.
Because you know, I, you know, I don't, I'm probably telling the same stories to the audience, but like I quoted up this moving company, startup moving company, but the guy was super legit. Had been in business for a long time, was breaking out on his own.
He had trucks, you know, whatever. It was like a nice, you know, I shouldn't say nice, but again, solid account.
The guy was legit. You know, moving company in New York is, is, is E&SS go to RT specialty, boom, get a quote.
Everything's good. And I just said to my, I started looking at what it's going to take to write it premium finance it, put it into my agency management system, track it the time it takes.
If he ever needs a certificate, which he's going to need for every single building that he goes into, I was like, wow, I'm probably an idiot

for writing this account. Like this is not going to be profitable for years and years and years in my current setup.
You know, me five years from now, I got someone to help, you know, there's some process, completely different story, completely different story. But I think, you know, in growth mode it's you know that that narrow focus is the key.
Yeah, I don't know. I can't speak to that.
We've never really had a particular niche down here on the insurance side. In fact, pre-Katrina, New Orleans, I came into the business in 2001.
I was captive. And then in 2000, and I went independent.
I left insurance business completely in 2008. And went on the financial side and then launched the independent agency in 2010.
Because the captive carrier there I was with, my dad was with, and he was losing clients left and right just because they weren't writing anymore. So we launched the independent side.
But I remember probably back in the ass, I have these, I go through all the old emails. It's fun with old documents.
I'll go through marketing plans from like 10, 15 years ago. And it's really cool to see the evolution of thinking in the business.
And there was the state plan, Louisiana Fair plan that basically, you know, you'd write stuff that the captive didn't want. And it was complicated.
It was a different system, like one different system, right? It was another system. Oh my gosh.
We have two systems now and really, really didn't want to fool with it. And I almost made the decision cause my dad and I were operating as one agency.
I almost made the decision. Like we're going to not write with it anymore.
We're only going to focus on if we're not going to try on a client, do auto home and life insurance, we don't want it. Katrina hit.
Let me tell you, I'm glad that I did not. I'm glad that we didn't go through that plan.
Katrina disrupted it because after Katrina, I mean, so much business went to the fair plan. That's all we had really.
So, you know, we kind of wrote, you know, personal lines is kind of our thing. So we just started writing personal lines and premiums are so high down here.
It's probably a lot different than, you know, if you're writing a home for 700 bucks or 800 bucks. I mean, our average home policy is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 maybe.
Our auto insurance is our average auto policy is probably 1,500 every six months or if not more. Yeah.
So that's different than up here. Two cars in a home here is 22 to 2,500 bucks total.
We can do auto and home and a life policy and a flood policy and easily be at 10,000 for personal loans. Crazy.
That is crazy. It's a crazy market.
So for us, renewal is a big thing. Retention is a big thing.
What happened last year in May, one of our key employees left. She was our CSR.
I decided to play CSR for three months. This is going to go back to the original thing that we're talking about.
How do you build it? What's the best way to build idea of it being very personal, I decided, I decided to play CSR for probably about three months. I sat in that front desk, answered phone calls, did all the downloads because I wanted to understand how, how the companies communicated to us, how data got into our agency management system, why certain things were happening the way they were.
That's probably the most involved I've ever gotten in the agency. And from that day on, we have pretty much rewritten all of our processes.
That and working with Billy Williams, he kind of drove the importance of processes home. But I think that you can't, as an agency owner, I think it's very difficult for you to import someone else's processes into your agency.
I think that you have to go, this is, I know people who do it differently, right? Like the franchise model is this, this is like anti-franchise model. But if you're building something from scratch, I think you kind of have to, to, to work through your processes.
If you take someone else's process, you're going to have to make it your own because it is personal. It's the way you do business.
It's what's, what systems do you use? Um, you know, we're talking about, um, uh, agency zoom versus, versus better agency, right? It's all going to come down to what agency management system do you use? What phone system do you use? That's going to dictate some of the technology you use. And then the technology you use might dictate certain parts of your process.
So it's impossible to import someone else's process into your agency and expect it to work. Yeah.
You might have a staff person who's more tech savvy than someone else, who brings a different skill to the game, to the business. So you want to build up the process maybe slightly different.
Now elements, there's key components, right? There's like milestones or elements of processes that should all be the same. But how you execute it, the mechanics of it, man, it's why the good consultants in our industry get paid what they do because I wholeheartedly agree with you.
And you just look at the difference, the experience that people have carrier to carrier per state. There are people, like I had someone the other day, I was talking to, I think it was a podcast I did with Seth Zaremba.
I was talking about if I could become a captive agent with Cincinnati, I would. And the reason I said that was the way they quote, the way they handle changes, their customer care center fits exactly the way that I want to work.
I hate, hate with a passion going into carrier systems to quote commercial lines. I hate it because liberties looks nothing like Hanover's looks nothing like chubs looks nothing.
You're like, Oh my God. And then tools like Tarm tarmica you know which i'm a huge fan of are fixing that but you know they're you know they're still building carriers and there are classes that carriers just don't want you know like liberty will write excavators in new york state but they won't quote excavators on tarmica so i had an excavator come in and I knew Liberty right, wrote them, but I wanted to see if anyone else did.
Everything cancels out because they don't want to compare to rate it. So then you're going into this.
So, so I guess my point in saying that is someone reaches out to me and they go, what am I missing with Cincinnati? We have Cincinnati and we're struggling with them. We can't get anything done with them.
And it's like just that simple fact makes it incredibly difficult to take, like say if I were to take that agent who reached out to me, his processes down in Virginia or Ohio, wherever he was located versus mine in New York, there's no way to overlap those two because simply just how you deal with the carrier is different state to state and the reps and the underwriters and you know it's just um it's i think this thing when you're building a business okay or you're trying to build out a process or or forget the process for a second the first question you have to ask is what's the pain point the way i'm approaching this right now is what's my pain point yeah so like our pain point for the past few months has been phones. It's been miserable.

Like our phones just ring a hook and like our producers are constantly answering phones and it's, it's, they're getting pulled into things that they shouldn't get pulled into. Um, so I'm like, okay, that's our pain point.
We've got to figure this out. So we had someone who was answering the phones.
This was actually started, started last year. We had someone who was answering the phones during the busy times from three to five.
We had a kind of a remote person and then, um, uh, you

know, quarantine hit and, um, we have, we have three virtual assistants with us right now. And at the time we'll, we had two and they couldn't make it to their service center because of, of transportation.
Um, so a group of the VAs that worked for that company were quarantined in the service center so they assigned us a different VA they had all of our

processes group of the VAs that worked for that company were quarantined in the service center. So they assigned us a different VA.
They had all of our processes and she jumped in and like, we didn't miss a beat. It was amazing because we had all these processes written out because we worked through them.
Quarantine was coming. Can you hear me? Yep.
Yep. Okay.
I've changed. I'm changing microphones.
Is there going to gonna be too much feedback can you hear yourself to the microphone you're all right you're all right i gotta figure this out like i don't know wait let me say that one more time yeah we're good yep i'm not getting any feedback okay so uh i lost you at um the the new va uh your processes and and you didn't skip a beat. You didn't skip a beat.
We didn't skip a beat. And then when quarantine was done, we had to make a decision because our normal two VAs were coming back.
Well, we really liked this girl. Turns out she worked at a call center before.
So we took her to voice. She's been answering phones for us for three weeks.
And let me tell you, it's been like night and day. It's been huge.
It's been huge. Something simple as that.
What's the pain point? Let's solve the pain point. Yeah.
So right now our current pain point, the current process that we're trying to nail down is our new business process. So like once a producer sells it, I really don't want them having a full with the follow-up unless they have to get involved.
So we built out a pretty extensive auditing process. You know how limited our agency management system is.
We have to do a lot of workarounds. So we've created this pretty cool auditing process.
So whenever something is sold, it automatically populates into – and we're integrating it with Better Agency, QQ, and a Google Sheet. And we have all the things that are necessary to complete the audit.
One of our VAs picks it up once it's sold. So we're testing that.
It's about a week in, and it seems to be working. But, building processes it's hard work man like but this is the thing kind of again to go back to where we started is you have to get in there and and do the work if you import someone else's processes into your agency you're still gonna have problems yeah i think you can you can you know, um, obviously I think the world of Billy Williams, and I think he's one of the best resource in our entire industry.
You can take the high level of what he's telling you to do, but then you still have to imprint that on your own agency and, and on your own process. And, um, that is one of the, I think that's one of the lessons, you know, if I was, if I was thinking back to like back when I started the agency, my, my, one of the fundamental reasons why are one of the fundamental advantages that I thought I had coming into starting the agency was that I had had 10,000 conversations with agency owners like yourself, right? I've, I'd heard all the, all the,

all the wins, all the losses, all the gripes, all the frustrations, all the, you know, how all the

solutions to the problems. I've heard them all.
I've heard them all. I've, you know, there's

nothing that anyone could say that I'd be like, I've never heard that that's an issue before.

But, um, what I found incredibly interesting is that that being the case that I have this

Thank you. say that I'd be like, I've never heard that that's an issue before.
But what I found incredibly interesting is that that being the case that I have this Rolodex of problems and solutions, obstacles and advantages, I've run into them all myself, because just like you've said, these are all individual. I used to give agents a hard time because everyone acts like their agency is a unique, this unique snowflake and we all don't understand.
And what I found is, I think everyone understands each other's problems, but agency owners are right and correct that every agency is a unique snowflake because of personalities, locations, you know, the thing you have to deal with hurricanes. You know, what's something that I never have to deal with ever.
Ever. Cause I don't, you know, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen down here.
Snow. Exactly.
A hundred percent. Right.
So it's like, there's all these, you know, there's, there's simple things like, you know, well, yeah, that it's just a hundred percent. And then carrier differences and regulatory differences.
And there are certain policies up here, like New York state short term disability. You don't even have, you don't have a commercial line, short term disability policy that is mandated by the state per employee don't have that that's a new york thing and there's all these nuances location carrier mix personalities markets and i think to that point and i think to the point that we're trying to make here and then i kind of want to move on from this topic because and talk to you about some of the stuff that I brought you on the show to talk about not this is that um if we mimic if we mimic other

people's processes too much we're ultimately just going to run into the same problems again

that the high level stuff the high level ideas yes the core processes we have to figure out for

ourselves I just that's I think the truth so one of my best friends is a is a couples counselor

Thank you. the core processes we have to figure out for ourselves.
I just, that's, I think the truth. So one of my best friends is a, is a couples counselor.
And, um, I remember he said once, he goes, he goes, he goes, oftentimes the process of counseling is as important, if not more important than the actual counsel itself. So like I took down my God, it's my business, on the financial side, on the planning side, I've come to learn that, hey, the plan is important, but the process of walking someone through the planning process is as important to teach them how to make decisions, how to change behaviors, to think about the planning process, okay? Oftentimes, we make too much of a big deal about the plan, but it's the process that's important.
I always say the same thing for owners trying to build out their processes in

their business is we focus too much on the process and not on the process of building the process.

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

Yeah. There's a Bruce Lee quote.
I absolutely love it. I'm going to summarize it.

Thank you. not yeah there's a there's a bruce lee quote i absolutely love it it's i'm going to summarize it he goes before you learn the art of martial arts a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick as you're learning it a punch is no longer a punch and a kick is no longer a kick but once you learn it a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick and the idea is that as you're learning something it becomes more complicated simple when you don't understand it and you're starting to learn it, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.
And the idea is that as you're learning something, it becomes more complicated. It's simple when you don't understand it and you're starting to learn it.
It gets really complicated. But then once you learn it, you're able to simplify it again.
And I think that process of learning it, of it getting complicated, breaking it down is important for agency owners if you're building a process or financial, if you're building a financial plan or if you're in counseling, whatever it is, sometimes you have to get complicated to simplify it. Yeah.
I think that's a tremendous advice. I do.
I think that is, I think that's absolutely tremendous advice. And as ethereal as it might seem, I think taking that time and budgeting time to think about these things is, is very important because as I've started, you know, I, I, I put kind of a moratorium on prospecting for myself for the next two weeks.
And the reason I did that was, um, because signing right now, not that I'm not going to write a piece of business if it comes in the door, but like right now I, and I, and I think I said this before we started recording, but every new policy, every new account that I write today actually sets me back two steps because of all that, because I have no process and workflow for actually putting, actually doing the thing that we do, right? like processing, issuing, reporting, capturing. Like right now, I have no idea how much commission I've actually made as an agent.
I have an idea, but I don't actually know, no, right? Because I haven't taken the time to take all the commission splits for all the different products for every carrier that I have, and then run the actual reports on what's happening.'s happening so you know I can go like 14 percent of how much premium I've written but you know who the hell knows what that means is it all commissionable premium what percentage of that premium is not commissionable right yeah exactly these new taxes yeah so you know you met Giovanni right my business owner yeah so Gio's a Gio's a workhorse um and he has been the past our commercial producer left a couple months ago it was amicable um so geo took over all commercial business and he's

just like exploded he is writing business left and right and it's funny i noticed when he's when he's doing more service work because his production just stops so he texts me or slacks me yesterday that he just um um, he's BORing a pretty big, um, comp case and we're going to get the liability, maybe 50, $60,000 case. Um, and he goes, he goes, man, you know, I could focus more on production.
If I don't have to deal with this other stuff, I can do more of this. Um, and it's, it's just, it's funny that, you know, you're, you're, you're not prospecting for that very reason.
So this morning I'm like, man, Gio is just, I mean, I think he wrote like single-handedly in like a month or two, maybe 150,000 on his own. Um, and I'm just, I'm sitting here thinking like, man, he's like writing all this business, dude, he's driving revenue.
Like, what am I doing? I'm like, I don't write PNC. I can't even spell commercial yeah um i'm like dude i'm building a platform to let him to do this you know we're we're putting the processes in place you know typically the the way it works is i get an idea i'll float it by him to see if he thinks it'll work he thinks it'll work i'll try to build it out then i'll have my assistant kind of start working it through the system and then we'll teach it to one of our VAs and then we'll kind of roll it out to everybody I'm like dude I'm not selling it I didn't BOR anything but the fact that you know we have a voice virtual assistant now that we literally I think we broke out 27 possible phone call requests so we sat down and said what what do people call us for and And we literally, on a spreadsheet, the 27 possible

or 23 or 27, I don't know what number it was, but add a car, cancel something, an endorsement, need a COI, and then explicit instruction on what she needed to do. If she got those, who to send it to.
And then what are the things that we can teach her to do as she's more comfortable. And yeah, so operating the agency is as important as producing.
Those people who are pure producers who produce a lot of business really fast, they're going to have a lot of problems a year and two years and three years and all that business starts to renew it. Yeah, I agree.
So the reason that, you know, here we are 40 minutes into the show and I haven't even asked you about what I, like the initial reason that I reached out to you. Well, one, I just wanted to talk in general, cause this is like free time to talk to people I'm interested in and consulting and all that kind of stuff, you know, but, um, the other side is I, I, I've seen you really take on the content side of marketing, podcasts, video shows, like you've got some solid branding coming.
And, you know, I just I was really in one. It's really well done.
I like the time and you can tell that you've put thought into the topics. You can tell you've put thought into the,

to the copy and to the messaging.

And I'm just,

I was just super intrigued by like,

why now?

Why,

why have you taken on content?

Like,

what have you seen?

Like,

I just,

I feel I was having a conversation with a guy who's a old buddy of mine

from my content marketing days.

And this is a few episodes ago. And I just said, it feels like in general content, good content with a purpose.
We've kind of stopped talking about that. It's all lead gen or technology.
And, and to see you, you know, take this on and go after it. I've just, I've been impressed seeing it.
So I just wanted to learn more about what your thoughts were, how it's working, you know, all that kind of stuff. So remember when I said, I don't do anything fast.
I don't jump in. Yeah.
Um, a good friend of mine once told me, he goes, dude, anything you do, you're successful. I'm like, what are you talking about? He was like, yeah, whenever you like you have two businesses and they're successful.
And I'm like, yeah, but I like, I don't do just anything.

And before I do something, I'm pretty much, I'm gonna say methodical.

I don't know if I'm methodical, but I like, I, I, I think a lot.

Um, I'm like, my mind never stops thinking.

So years and years and years ago, um, I'm going to go back to a luncheon that I went

to when I heard Tony, she speak. Tony, she's the owner of Zappos.
Yep. CEO of Zappos.
And his culture that he was creating at Zappos just kind of turned everything around for me. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting.
And right around that same time, I got introduced to Simon Sinek. Right around that same time, I met Jason a conference he was he was speaking at one of our local um annual meetings um and I was really intrigued what he was doing on Facebook I never really did any Facebook marketing was really intrigued and we struck up a friendship and I remember he said oh dude you should um you should check out this guy um Hanley he's doing a video but seriously this is how it He's like, he's doing the video a day with your hundred videos.
Yeah. I kind of followed it.
And I'm like, I really liked that idea. And then I never really did anything with it.
And I was working with, with, with grow at the time, right. With the grow team.

And they were doing some blogging for me and they actually created a podcast

intro track.

This was probably like four years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um,

it was called the Lang gap show.

So down in new Orleans,

we say Lang gap.

It's French for like something,

a little something extra.

Yeah.

Right.

It's usually free.

So it's like plan wisely,

the Lang gap show,

something extra.

Never did anything with it.

Um,

I started doing a lot of collaboration with this couples council that i mentioned you know he started sending some clients to me we talked a lot about the the intersection of money and relationships and how money issues can can uh yeah be fuel in the fire of relationship issues so he he we started doing some. We did some speaking together at some conferences.
And I remember having a conversation with Joey Gingola at one of the Mastermind brain shares. And I had this idea of doing this podcast with a couples counselor to talk about money and marriage and that kind of thing.
He was like, dude, you should do it. And there was compliance issues.
I'm like, I don't want to deal with the compliance issues. And so I started doing some videos here and there.
Got a nice camera. Started having fun with it, but never did anything consistent with it.
And then last year on the investment side, on the financial side, I had some extra money that had to go towards marketing stuff. And a buddy of mine called me up and he's like, hey, there's this company.
They work with financial advisors in the digital space. They're running this deal on podcasting.
You should do so like i had like literally 12 hours to make the decision i'm like it's not my money i've been wanting a podcast so um i hired them i said if anything you know i got to pay for six months if anything i'll get six podcasts out of it's cool we started podcasting and we started the plan wisely show um we were doing about an episode a month at about 10 or 11 episodes out there it turned into more of an interview show people that i found interesting in trying to find the intersection of money and something else i didn't want to be another and the reason it took me so long to do podcasting i didn't want to do more noise man there's enough noise out there there's so much financial noise and i don't want to add to it. So I said, I want to bring in other people and hear their perspective.
So we interviewed the owner of my gym and talked about money and fitness and how close they are in terms of goal setting and CPA, couples counselor. We did a couple of shows with him, a child therapist, teaching your kids about money.
One of my latest interviews is with Sarah Falau. Sarah Falau, her dad wrote The Millionaire Next Door.
Millionaire Next Door. She wrote The Follow-Up, The Next Millionaire Next Door.
It's a pretty good show. And that was all fun, but I still had this idea of the content with the couples counselor.
Like, dude, we've got to launch this. So we finally launched it.
We're about four haven't all they haven't all dropped yet um yeah and it's just it's it's fun it's a unique space it's a space where there's i don't think there's a lot of noise there right yeah and it would be another another voice another you know gorgeous cacophony of noise in the financial space or so much of that already but it's just it's it's fun it's fun you seen any impact? Have you seen people reaching out? Have you had any, have you had people sniffing around, asking questions, stuff like that? Like prospects? Anything, you know, I mean, I, so I do a local business podcast called the Capital Region Business Podcast. And some of it's just people reaching out wanting to be on the show, but they're new contacts to me.
They're people I didn't know before. So here's what it's doing, especially the new show.
It's only been live for about two, three weeks now. And that show already in two or three weeks has about 25% of the downloads that my other show that's been running 10 months has already in two weeks.
So I think this is going to be, I think this show's going to be, what it's done, what the podcasting has done, it's made more people aware of the fact that I do financial planning more than investing. So we have had a small increase in financial planning clients.
Yeah. And really my purpose is I'm building out a budgeting course, if you will, to roll out to clients and also to have like a standalone offering.
So a big part of the podcasting for me is I want to build a list to be able to do some of these other projects that are not necessarily directed to investment management. They're not necessarily directed to direct financial planning, but there are other pieces in the space that are important that people will do without necessarily engaging me directly.
Yeah. But it's fun too.
It's fun. So I have seen an increase in website traffic, just an increase in those types of things.
Can I directly tie it to X amount of revenue? I can't. Everything I've learned about podcasting, it takes a while to happen.
Content in general, man. I mean, it's a serendipity play.
That's always been the hardest thing about it. And I've been talking about content marketing in general for a decade.
Right. I mean, we talked about that artwork of your book from the content worker, never quite understood that, that we can.
Yeah, we can. We don't have to.
No, I know we can. I, um, so, so the guy that did it, um, the guy that did it, I love his artwork.
His name's Mars Doreen. He's a German guy.
And he just has this very odd, very, um, I don't know how you described his style. I'm not an art guy.
Well, it's cool. It's odd.
What I will tell you is my vision for what I see his work and what actually came out in terms of what the, it didn't translate the way I want. Yeah.
I'm dogging. I'm dogging your book on your podcast.
That's messed up. That's okay.
I'm, Hey, I'm good. I'm, uh, I'm, I will say that.
So two, there's two things there. That book is about 80% where I think it could have been.
I lost focus because five months before that book published, I joined trustedchoice.com. And I started flying to Minneapolis three times a month.
I had work to do there, and the deal was, you know, they did not want me promoting it because it wasn't in the ecosystem. So, and my point is- Because you were captive, man.
Yeah, yeah, yes. You know, one of the lessons that I've learned in life is you can't work for anyone else unless you're into that, which I, I have learned many times now that my personality does not mix well with authority.
So, uh, long story short, I, there were, there were concessions that I made in producing that book that if I were, if I had given it my full attention, I would not. And eventually with the cover in particular, because the book itself, the words in the book, I feel are 95%.
You know, you can always find a few things, but like they're there. The stories, the lessons, everything about it.
The cover though, it's one of the worst covers in a business book all time. Maybe, I mean know what here's the thing though here's the thing for the longest time i produced a lot of content that i had never published i've never put out there it's pointless yeah other than maybe you're kind of like refining your art or or i don't know yeah taking ideas out but you put it out there.
And I think it's a big thing with content is, um, some of it's going to suck. Yes.
Right. I have zero qualms with hitting publish.
I have no, I'm, I'm unconscious when it comes to hitting publish. I do.
I mean, obviously I have a, my skills have increased, but they've only increased because I produce stuff. I there are posts that I've written if you went back and look at the archive I mean you'd look at it and go what the hell is that doesn't make sense the grammar is terrible punctuation the you know the whole structure of the article and I think the point is like you know I learned so many lessons producing that book in particular, cause that was, that was a big endeavor.
I mean, I had to, I crowdfunded it once the crowdfunding was done, you know, then I had to produce it. I had to publish it.
I had to edit it. I had to hire all these people.
Cause I didn't have a, you know, no, this wasn't like a New York, you know, it wasn't like a Simon and Schuster weren't, weren't pushing this one out the door. I mean this was Hanley Media Publishing at its finest and I could have used someone that told me that's not a good cover and it ultimately came down to that he gave me seven different variations and I could not get my vision of what I had for the cover to him in a way that he could produce it.
And I think that that's one of those things that I wish I had just given to someone else and said, here, make a good cover for this book and give it back to me because I was too involved in that process. Yeah.
So we, I've got an ebook out there. It's, whatever, I can never remember the name, Five Pillars of Financial Security, a Guide to Managing Your Money Wisely.
It's kind of one of those things. It's kind of like this is the stake in the ground.
This is my philosophy on money. This is what I believe.
If you work with me, if you want to know what I think about money, this is what I think about it. It's out there.
It's on my website. I do a terrible job of promoting it.
I'm a terrible promoter, terrible promoter. But it's fun.
It's fun creating the content. It is, you know, I found and then we'll be respectful of your time and we'll wrap this up.
But I have at times found myself to be a terrible promoter as well. And then I realized that there's just one key to promotion.

One key,

just say it over and over and over.

Because I think what happens is particularly to maybe someone who it

doesn't come naturally to do that too,

or like in my case,

I'm always creating something new.

And a guy who's kind of a lot of the insurance industry has become accustomed to is Marcus Sheridan.

He's the one who really taught me because I used to create each presentation that I would do for like a big eye association or a carrier or whatever.

I would create something relatively new.

And he called me one day and he said, what's going on?

We're talking.

And I told him and he's like, what are you doing? He's like, you create one presentation and you just do that presentation over and over and over and over and over again until he goes, you give the same presentation. He goes, I've given the same presentation three years in a row to the same group and they just keep hiring.
He's like, because different people hear it. The second time you hear something, you learn more than the first time you hear something.
He's like, and you just, he's like, you think everyone's heard your message. That's not even close.
He's like, people have to hear your message. You know, what is it? Seven times before they even remember it.
That's the thing for me. It's like, I feel like, I feel like, man, I don't want to keep, I don't be so pushy i'm a terrible i'm a terrible salesperson i'm a terrible so that's why i'm glad geo's out selling and i'm in here building processes and doing that i'm a terrible salesperson to me it's like i don't want to be too pushy and like keep putting the same thing in front of people but you're right you have to people have attention spans that are this big and um um you got to be front of them and i'm terrible you know i'm inspired i'm inspired right yeah that's the key man you just keep saying it over and i mean it's this show i say the same stuff over and over and over again i've been pushing content for 10 years you know i mean people are just starting to get on the bandwagon i think that you know look at all has said, look at all the things that, that, that, that, that are said over and over and over.
And it just takes, and then finally, it's almost like, you know, the person's right. It's not that you don't believe them.
You just finally get sick of them saying, you're like, screw it. I'll just do this thing that I should have been doing two years ago.
Just so you'll stop telling me. And, and they're happy about it, right? They're happy about it.
I mean, how many people that do business with you, maybe you had to ask three, four or five times or, you know, you know, talk to them a little bit. And finally they say yes.
And then they'll be like, geez, I'm glad you stayed on me, you know, because I knew I needed to do this, but I just, you know, other things get in the way. And it's almost, you know, I started particularly with sales telling myself like, I'm doing, if you believe in what you're doing, which obviously you do.
And so many people are listening to the show, believe what they're doing. If you believe in what you're doing, if you don't continue to reach out to them, you're doing them a disservice, right? You're doing it because, you know, they see a message from you.
They're like, oh, I got to reach out to Eric. And then their kid texts them because it's time for you, them to come pick, you know, you got to go pick them up from school.
And then they forget and they never reach out. The information that I have, the information that I have is going to change your life.
Literally. If you listen to me, I'm going to change your life financially.
Yep. I mean, there's no way around it.

Yeah.

And it's funny.

And sometimes I say that and then sometimes it's like,

really?

Like,

do you really like,

come on,

are you that?

Like,

no,

seriously.

Like,

like that's what we have to believe.

Like what I have is so important that it's going to,

and sometimes I feel like insurance is like,

man,

I'm breaking up a 10 year relationship.

You're with that company.

I'm bringing you over here.

Am I really putting you in a better spot? Maybe, maybe not. We'll, we'll serve you better.
Like on the financial side, it's like, no, like you're not doing this. And if you do this now, what I'm telling you, like your life is going to be, like I am going to add that much value to your life.
I remember I had a conversation with a neighbor just over, over beer and budgeting came up and I said, Hey, this is, this is what I do what I do this is how I budget money this is kind of how this budgeting idea came up and I said this is this is what I do this is how I manage my my money from a spending standpoint I know that's cool six months later he's like dude like life-changing like you talking about because my wife and I started doing that and like the way we manage our money now the way we budget with our bank accounts and this and that like totally changed our our our day-to-day finances i'm like really like yeah i'm like dude oh my gosh yeah it's just huge so now i'm in the process of how do i codify this how do i formalize this to make it more scalable to give it to more people yeah also also more um i say not just scalable but um but cost effective yeah you know it's you gotta hit them from every angle social digital physical ebooks webinar you hit them from every angle and then because everyone reacts to stuff differently you know what i mean you catch me on the right day on Instagram, I don't care what you're selling me. I'm gonna click on that button.
Another day, I never will. It all depends on my mood, how drunk I am.
You know, I mean, that's what's important. So I think the I think, you know, it's just hitting them over and over and over again, and every channel that you can and and being very.
And I love, I mean, that passion that you just had, I was ready to buy something from you. You pitched me some, you pitched me some mutual Omaha something or whatever.
I would have been, I would have bought it. I would have put my credit card right in front of the screen like this.
Here you go, man. Got some, um, got some stocks for me over there.
What do you got? I'm buying something. Got a big bank? Yeah.
I'm a big fan of money. Money is so digital, right? It's so like intangible.
So like with kids, like I love the idea, like telling people, like get a piggy bank. Even if it's like immaterial, the amount of money, at least they start to connect yeah with stuff that's tangible

yeah they can actually physically see it grow yeah we do um so we have we have this big bureau

it's like a dining room bureau thing with wine and there's two drawers side by side we have two kids

one drawer is for money for one kid and one drawers so when they get you know a couple bucks

from grandpa or someone sends them some money in the mail for a birthday or something they go they

I'll see you next time. One drawer is for money for one kid and one drawer is.
So when they get, you know, a couple bucks from grandpa or someone sends them some money in the mail for a birthday or something, they go, they open their drawer, put the money in the drawer. Now when they open the drawer, you know, they got these little stacks of cash in there.
And it's like a fun thing for them. You know what I mean? I mean, who knows what they're doing? Because they're probably just going in and using it like toys.
But who cares, you know?'s their money i thought i put the down payment check this out on my wife's engagement ring with a bunch of like coin that i've been collecting for like years and years and years i'll take it to the bank dude that's amazing what are you what are you buying with all this with all this with all these coins an engagement ring. I'm proposing.
Yeah.

You need to get a job sir before you starting and we live in a love i don't need money i got love true story like 640 something dollars of like coins yeah that is amazing well dude hey i appreciate you i know we've been all over the place, but I just thought this was a great conversation. And I just, you know, I'm glad that we had a chance to connect really.
And it was awesome to meet you in person down in San Diego this year and chat for a little bit. And, you know, I just, I wish you nothing but the best, man.
I love the work you're doing. I love the way you do it.
And I got to spend some time with your business partner at Billy Williams' thing. And so, dude, I think you have a great shop.
I'm always, you know, when I see your stuff come through my feet, I'm very impressed with it. And I would encourage anybody who likes to kind of voyeur what agents are doing really well, take a look at what Eric's doing.
Because this stuff is good stuff, man stuff man i'm impressed yeah yeah i gotta check out the new show building us we're on apple spotify awesome picture whoever we'll have it linked up in the show notes but just google it you'll be able to find it right yep good show it's good stuff we have um the one the show that just dropped last week is on, is school out forever. It's, and I have a conversation with two family therapists about this idea of our kids is going to be in class learning.
Are they going to be distance learning and the impact that has on family finances and family relationships? So it's a good conversation. and then tomorrow drop in well this is not published by the time people watch this

listen to this

but giving as a financial principle Yeah. And then tomorrow, drop in, well, this is not cool.
It won't be published by the time people watch this.

Yeah.

Listen to this.

But giving is a financial principle.

So it's an entire show on just the idea of giving.

Oh, that's a solid financial principle.

I love it.

I love it.

Good stuff.

Cool, bro.

Take care, dude.

Be good.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Take care. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the next episode.
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