Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Turbocharged CEO Myles Johnson | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 14

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

This Week on Coffeez for Closers: Myles JohnsonJoin us for an electrifying new episode of "Coffeez for Closers" where we welcome the remarkable Myles Johnson, CEO of Turbo Insurance. Myles is at the forefront of reshaping the insurance landscape, merging technology with traditional insurance to offer enhanced access, interaction, and purchasing experiences. Under his leadership, Turbo Insurance has become a beacon for revolutionizing insurance for American families, emphasizing proper coverage over cost and integrating insurance into overall family financial planning.🔹 About Myles Johnson:As the visionary behind Turbo Insurance, Myles Johnson has redefined the industry's standards by:🚀 Innovative Leader: Pioneering change within the insurance sector to better serve American families.💼 Insurance Revolutionary: Implementing technology to transform how insurance is accessed and understood.🏠 Advocate for Proper Coverage: Focused on educating families on the importance of adequate insurance over minimal costs.💡 Entrepreneurial Spirit: Guiding Turbo Insurance to offer competitive, personalized coverage solutions across the United States.🎙 What's on the Agenda:Exploring Myles' innovative approach to revolutionizing the insurance industry.Insights into how Turbo Insurance blends technology with traditional services for a superior customer experience.Strategies behind offering comprehensive yet affordable insurance packages that protect families' legacies.Gear up for a session filled with revolutionary ideas, strategies, and a deep dive into how insurance can be part of comprehensive family financial planning with Myles Johnson.👉 Hit Subscribe!Don't miss this insightful episode with Myles Johnson on "Coffeez for Closers." Subscribe now and join our community for more inspiring stories and strategies from leading entrepreneurs.#MylesJohnson #InsuranceInnovation #TurboInsurance #Entrepreneurship #FamilyFinancialPlanning #CoffeezForClosersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody. Welcome to Coffees for Closers, a show about visionaries, entrepreneurs, and of course, closers. Here we talk about their wins, their failures, and ultimately the story of their success. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. I'm sitting down right now with Miles Johnson, the founder and CEO of Turbo Insurance, one of the fastest growing insurance companies in the country. They were recently awarded a top award as the insurance company of the year with Travelers Insurance.

Miles Johnson runs a national insurance company. He's figuring out ways to really disrupt the insurance business. I'm very, very pleased to sit down with Mr. Miles Johnson. Thank you, Miles, for jumping on the show today. It's an honor, privilege. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So, you know, coffee's on tour.

We take this show on tour. We're here at the Masterminds. We're sitting down with some of the top talent. Fortunate enough to have you actually give a quick talk to the Masterminds group. And we've been working with you for a couple of years. So it's been a blessing. And you've really helped a lot of our agents. And we continue to innovate with you.

So it's a huge opportunity for many people to learn about what your turbo insurance is doing to kind of disrupt the entire industry. And moreover, like really support mortgage broker. brokers helped them cut costs, help them save deals. You've been a huge help for a lot of these guys. So thank you for getting on the show. More importantly, thank you for educating the folks here and those listening today. So we're going to dive right into it. A little off-topic stuff, but we're going to dive into your journey here. But what I want to start with is who you are. Like, how do you start your morning? Sure, sure. Again, it's my pleasure.

Thankful to be here. Thank you for having me. You know, the morning for me, I got a big family, you know. So how many kids? We have four kids now. And we just welcome. Thank you. Thank you. We just welcomed our fourth one on Sunday. Wow.

We got a baby boy, healthy, happy. Him and mama are doing well. Thank God. Awesome. But I love to be involved, right? So, you know, get the kids up, get the morning routine established, breakfast, dressed, off to school. Then after that is to the office. You know, I've found that I'm not great in the mornings.

I'm actually much more effective at night. So generally for me, you know, I may be at the office, you know, nine or between nine and 10 a.m., but I work very late. And for me, I've found that's where I find my piece. That's where I have my opportunity to really work through things as, you know, the kids are in bed, dinner's done, everyone else is asleep. Okay, now I can really sink. And so I have found that I'm not necessarily the early riser. I'm more of the night owl that can get its clarity at night. Nice, nice.

So you stay working late, huh? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not uncommon for me to be trading emails with people two, three o'clock in the morning. Wow. Yeah. Friday in all night. Yeah, yeah. That's just, you know, it's not necessarily a pride thing of the grind. It's just where I found my pocket of time to be effective. So let me ask you this. When did you get started in insurance? Yeah, it's a great question. So I got my starting insurance in late 2010, early 2011. And I started in the captive channel. So Farmer's Insurance is where I actually got my start. Captive versus Independent, captive, you're only writing one carrier's products. Independent, like a broker, you represent multiple insurance companies. So my journey and insurance started at Farmers Insurance, was there for three years, and then made the leap into the independent channel. At Farmers, it was a great base knowledge, a great way to learn the business, the products,

some things to do. But myself and the folks that I worked with, we found out relatively quickly, big fish in a small pond. And once we started looking at the independent agency channel, we saw that there was a much larger world out there for us. And so took that leap of faith in early 2024 and never looked back, been independent since. Wait, 2024. 2014, sorry. So, you know, just 10 years ago.

Been in the industry 14 years total and independent for 10 of those. And then what year did you start turbo insurance? We started turbo January of 2022. So an insurance agency that exclusively serves the mortgage channel, not the greatest of times to launch that venture, but we've made it through a lot of industry headwinds over the last two years. And it's just going to position us to be that much better on the other side of things. Let's talk about those headwinds. You literally started your insurance company at the worst time in mortgage history.

So what are some of the obstacles you've been facing since you started? Yeah, I truly could not have chose a worst two-year stretch of time. to start this venture. But it's only going to make a stronger over time. So, you know, in 2022, we created a fully embedded experience for borrowers. What we found was that the traditional homeowner buying process was very archaic. It was frictionful. It wasn't fast. It wasn't smooth. It wasn't easy. And that impacted everyone. It impacted the mortgage broker channel, the LOs, the processors. It impacted the borrowers, right? Consumers hate how. having to go online, try to shop for home products that they don't really understand.

And so we thought that that entire process could really use a refresher. And that's what we've tried to disrupt. And so we created a technology piece that embeds so the borrower can look at, shop, purchase homeowners insurance as they're going through the mortgage process. So kind of keep them in one ecosystem, make things fast, smooth, simple for them. And then we allow everyone to openly communicate with each other. So the mortgage lender, the borrower, the insurance company, everyone is aligned and they have all of the documentation when they need it. So that's what we created and we launched in 2022 with a flagship partner being UWM.

And so what happened right after that, right? We went from a mortgage interest rate environment of the high twos, low threes to five, six, and ultimately eight percent. And so what we had anticipated in terms of, lead volume from originations went down by 80%. And so the company that we had ramped up and created to run fulfillment for all of those originations very quickly had to change in pivot. So we right-sized the company with the origination volume that we ended up receiving. And along the way, with those channels really being decompressed and distressed as much as they were, really what it did is it lent us to be a lot more creative and flexible in seeking

out other opportunities outside of residential mortgages. And that's what will ultimately be better for us in the long run is we were forced to diversify our company right away out of the gates. And while that was very, very challenging, it will ultimately make us better, stronger, and more sustainable in the long run. That's kind of 2022 in a nutshell, right? 2023, We took on another industry headwind, and that was our own industry. The mortgage industry really had, I'm not going to say got better, but it's stabilized in 23. You didn't see these massive rate hikes every month, every other month. But what ended up happening for us in our insurance business is all of the insurance carriers were unprofitable.

And so what ended up happening was you have carriers, State Farm, Geico, Allstate. Everyone saw the headlines. They're pulling out of California. No one wants to write business in Florida. And a lot of the states where the insurance company struggled the most were where all of the loans were being originated. So, you know, it was a very difficult relationship for us to write business in those states while every insurance company was trying to stop writing business in all of those states. And so we had to go through a lot of industry headwinds ourselves on moratoriums, the carriers not wanting a digital process to flow through. things of that nature were difficult for us.

And so we actually doubled our carrier panel. And so going into 2023, we only represented 23 different insurance companies. By the end of 23, we were at 57. And so we had to continue to be flexible and nimble and seek out new partners to get capacity to keep pace with the demand because we had the worst problem that you can ever have in sales, which is a demand greatly outpacing your supply. You know, the carriers, they don't want us to go out there and write thousands of policies. They wanted like 20.

And that's a big problem for a sales organization with agents that are trying to be a solution to people. And so we just had to continue to find new partners that had capacity that would allow us to write business. And so that was kind of the story of 23. And now marrying both of those together in 24, we're very hopeful. We're optimistic that 2024, while it won't be perfect, it won't be great. it will stabilize both of those headwinds. And so going into 25 and beyond, we're very bullish. We're very optimistic of what's to come.

We just had a two-year late delay start. You really, I mean, you've seen huge success. Given those huge obstacles, 2022 and 23, here you are, 2024. You just spoke at the masterminds. You got the top people all, and you have the most incredible relationship with the number one lender in the nation. and you have an exclusive agreement, pretty much. How did you get something like that established? Yeah, we're very grateful for UWM and everything that they've done for the organization, of course,

you know, giving us the credibility and then in turn going out into the broker channel, getting one step closer to the consumers. It's been a great journey. Nevertheless, even with all the headwinds against us, for sure. What led to the UWM relationship really was foresight and forethought on their part. I think that UWM internally does a phenomenal job of looking at their processes, trying to find inefficiencies and deficiencies. And in processing these loans, they found that insurance is a really big problem. A lot of their processors or the loan officers at the various brokerages, they have a very difficult time getting full documentation for the files.

Sometimes insurance maybe kills the DTI on a loan, various things that can come up throughout that home buying price. process or even refinance process. And so they themselves were seeking an opportunity or a solution to help with insurance so that their team could work more efficiently so that borrowers could experience a much smoother process. You know, UWM, they really pride themselves on their user experience. And as such, they want to ensure that they are partnered with the right people, that they give both brokers and borrowers access to all of the solutions and support that they need.

And Turbo just ended up being the selection, which again, we're very fortunate and grateful for. And so honestly, it was really them just continuing to iterate and evolve their own business, which then allowed Turbo to have access. What I notice is you're on the cusp of technology and insurance, an industry that really doesn't think about technology either. They're not leveraging technology. What's the reasoning behind being so innovative on the technology front? You hit it right on the head.

You know, there's a new buzzword out there, right? Insure tech. Insurance by nature is very archaic. A lot of these insurance companies, a lot of the ways that people buy insurance, it's from the 80s and the 90s, you know, even all the way to the captive insurance agency model, you know, the state farms, farmers, all states of the world, they had a wonderful model before the internet, right? Hang a shingle, serve that community, really ingrain yourself in that community.

and serve those people. And it worked splendidly for years and years and years. But with the rise of the Internet of Things and technology, that rose to the GICOs and the progressives of the world where people can just go online and purchase their own insurance. And that channel boomed. And really what has happened is that those two schools of thought haven't ever really joined in the middle.

And that's where we fancy ourselves. We don't consider ourselves an insure tech. We call ourselves a digital agency. So what we do is we utilize technology to gain access to consumers in a much broader network. And we utilize the technology to make buying insurance much simpler and easier for folks. What we found is that people still love that that small business feel like in touch. They want an agent. They want an account manager.

They want to feel important because they are important. But they also like technology. They like being able to self-service. They like being able to purchase products if they so chose on their own. And so we've really embraced both business models and tried to conjoined them in the middle into something unique. So for the folks that want to fully self-serve themselves, they can. For the folks that want the feel like in touch of an agent to take them through a licensed professional, giving you advice and guidance on what products you should buy, what coverage matters to you and your family, we have that as well.

And the big thing that we've really tried to disrupt an insurance is getting people back to caring about their insurance. Over the last 25 years with the rise of technology, the internet, the Geikos and Progressives of the world, every five minutes on your TV, you see an insurance commercial, right? It's one of the most highly advertised industries there are. And what I feel like is it's given a race to the bottom. So it's price, price, price. How can I get this product for as cheap as humanly possible? And that's really a poor way of thinking about your insurance.

People should really care about their coverage. They should care about the protections that they have. And so at Turbo, we've really tried to flip that on its head and have a real paradigm shift on the way that we approach people. You know, we tell people, hey, insurance isn't a transaction, right? It's not a product that you buy. It's a long-term service. It's a long-term good that can work for you if you know how to.

And so it's not just about buying something one time, but it's about what is that going to look like every year of renews? Do you have an advocate on your behalf when you have a claim situation? Do you have an advocate on your behalf to try to ensure that your rate is staying as low as humanly possible year after year after year? So just getting a different mindset out to the public of thinking about insurance in a different light. Nice, nice. Now let me ask you this. Out of all the businesses you could have went into, why did you pick insurance? It's not like something you dream about.

Yeah, right? Certainly not the sexiest one. Certainly not the compensation income levels as others. But the great thing about insurance to me is the residual income. You can work really, really hard for a period of time and build a great business for yourself. And that's really what you've seen a lot of people do. If you've seen an operator that builds an agency, five, six, seven years, they build up a nice residual income for themselves. And it's a great lifestyle business.

And a lot of those businesses have become generational. And really what I've seen is that the brilliant minds that rush into a lot of other industries don't rush into insurance. And so as such, it kind of props up people that have higher aspirations and ambitions to build a really large business. And so the fact that our products are utilized unanimously, right, pretty universally by people, whether it's home auto, business, you name it, right? There is a massive addressable marketplace for what we do. And the residual income makes it very attractive to build a business where you can get great net incomes every year and then a really wonderful multiple on an exit. Insurance businesses trade all of the time. There's a lot of M&A, a lot of consolidation in our space.

And those exit multiples are very, very handsome. And so to try to build a business really big, really fast, with a nice multiple exit, it's pretty attractive. Nice. Okay. So once you understood kind of the dynamics of and the business, you're like, that's where I want to be. Yeah, yeah. Once you kind of peel back the onion, it's a lot more attractive than you may think on

surface. That's awesome. So, you know, you're a national insurance company. That's not the norm. Usually insurance companies are pretty geo-targeted, right? That is absolutely correct. most licensed insurance agents are only licensed in their resident state. So it is very, very atypical of an agency to be a true nationwide operator. You're in all 50 seats? And, you know,

a lot of people are licensed in all 50 states. They may write business in 25 or 30 of them. We are a true national operator. So we have to be a solution to our broker partners that are in Hawaii, that are in Alaska, that are in California, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, very difficult states to write property insurance in. We, by definition and by nature, to be a partner with the likes of the UWMs of the world, you have to have product capacity in those areas for those consumers or else they would find someone else. And so it's a very difficult task. But what I really think it lends itself to is our staff are our super agents. You know, our agents end up knowing how to write business coast to coast, top to bottom. So if you talk to someone that is familiar with California

and the California Fair Plan, our agents have to know that. Our agents have to be familiar with Florida and, you know, the citizens of the world, which is a state-run insurance pool. The state-run insurance pools in Texas, right, TWA or the Carolinas, a PIP state versus a non-PIP state for auto insurance. That all goes into fault of accidents. There are so many nuances with insurance and insurance is regulated state by state, not at the federal level. You guys are just as regulated as us. Yeah, so, so, you know, our agents have to know a whole lot about a diverse client profile. And as such, I think that they're the best in the industry.

Yeah, because they're working at a national level. There's not a lot of insurance agency you could talk to. This is going to do a policy for you in California and Louisiana. Exactly. Yeah, very, very rare. But that's, you know, we've created, groomed, molded our agents like that on purpose, very intentionally. You know, one thing I like to dive into is the mindset of an entrepreneur. Like, what inspired you to start your own company coming from like, you know,

work for farmers, having that stability? And then you just kind of, you know, you're like, I just want to do my own thing. Yeah, no, I had a good mentor, you know, a person that I looked up to a lot that was a risk taker. And I think that it got to a certain point where I kind of said, hey, you know, could I ever be on the cover of a magazine? Could I ever go after something really big? You know, being a part of an organization that's a good regional player, that's great.

You know, and a lot of people, that is their aspiration and ambition, and it's a wonderful achievement. But I still had enough in the tank to think, could I do something bigger? And insurance became very attractive in private equity and venture capital. There was a lot of fundraising going on and a lot of money being funneled into insurance. and, you know, looking at that and thinking about things, I just, you know, I said to myself, hey, do I have what it takes to operate at the highest level of this business? And you'll never know unless you take that chance. And that's really ultimately what has led my career journey to this point, starting insurance,

trying to go after big publicly traded companies as partners, trying to write thousands of policies a month and all the things that we're doing. It's just, do I have it in me? Do I have what it takes? Even if I fail, at least I tried. Right? It goes back to the man in the arena speech. You know, there's a lot of pride and things to be said about someone who, even if they

fail, they tried. And I'll never have that question hanger over my head, right? Of, you know, could I, right? You know, what if, if you will? And I think that insurance is very ripe for the disruption. I think that insurance is an industry that there really hasn't been someone that's come out that as a true innovator. There's a lot of really large agencies out there that leverage capital. They do a lot of consolidation. They grow that way. There hasn't ever been kind of a

Hall of Fame brokerage that's come out of nowhere writing a lot of organic growth, a lot of new business doing it their own way, building that factory themselves. And that's really what we're trying to seek out and do. Man, you're disrupting. You're disrupting at record pace. Yeah, yeah, for sure, one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing, organic new business writers in the nation. That's incredible. So let me ask you this. You're really, really resilient. You went through some crazy years. You still managed to grow during those years. What really inspires that work ethic for you? You know, I think that it's twofold. And I'll say it's really just bringing the past and the future together. For me, it's all about legacy. You know, I was fortunate enough to have,

a great mother who sacrificed a lot for me and I lost her young at age. And so, you know, I try to bring it every single day to honor the sacrifices that she made and that the generations before me made to prop me up and to give me an opportunity to really flourish and thrive. And so, you know, I bring a lot of that to the table every single day. I think it's given me a different perspective on time and how time really is. very fleeting and you don't always have tomorrow and next year and the year after that. And so you really have to squeeze every single minute out of every single day. I do think that, you know, the loss of my mother, who was by far my biggest supporter, really changed things for me and gave

me a refreshed perspective on do everything you can every single day because you don't know what tomorrow brings. And then I bring that into the future, you know, I have an amazing better half, you know, and she is phenomenal. She is. supportive of me and my ambitions and the things that it does to me. Without her, I certainly couldn't be here, right? And so I think about serving, you know, her and our children, you know, and what the next generation is going to bring and our future, right? And building a legacy for them to learn and look back onto,

not necessarily them getting into the insurance industry, but looking at someone who is determined, who is committed, and through discipline, what can be achieved, right? And so kind of lay in that foundational work for them to then carry on, right? You know, I heard it from someone a long time ago that every parent's duty is to let their kids stand on their shoulders. And so, you know, I'm trying to honor those before me and then help pave the way for those to come. And this is something I like to ask, especially with the father of four, because there's not a lot of us out there. No, there's not.

How are you instilling your sort of work ethic in your kids? I think it's just really leading by example. You know, they see me, right? You know, they see me staying up late. They see me having to take phone calls, right? They've seen me and my commitment and what it takes. You know, being an entrepreneur is not as glamorous as a lot of people out there think, right? I think that, you know, some certain things, social media, things of that nature have really led to people believing that the definition of success is to be the president or the CEO or the founder of something.

And that's really not the case. You know, that's not everyone's calling and everyone doesn't want my life and the things that go into it, right? And so what I've tried to instill in my children is, hey, you know, if you believe in yourself, if you want something, no one's going to give it to you, you got to go out and get it for yourself. And just displaying that attitude and work ethic day and day out for a sustained period of time, anything's possible.

And for me, you know, I see a lot at the end of the tunnel, right? I want to condense my work and work very, very hard for a period of time to where then I can win back a lot of freedom, which insurance affords, right? If you work very, very hard, five, six, seven year period of time, you can establish a phenomenal business that then you can yield fruit from for the rest of your life. And you can win back a lot of the time that you may have lost while you were grinding and in that building phase. Let me ask you this. You know, you're here at the masterminds. You just had a baby. You run a national insurance company.

And, you know, you're obviously a great dad. How are you balancing all of this? You know. I'm asking for a friend. Yeah, right. Sometimes better than others. I certainly don't have it figured out. So whoever out there does have that solution, by all means, drop me an email.

I'd love to know. I mean, I go back to something that I heard about juggling glass balls. And everyone's juggling balls. You just have to figure out which ones are glass and which ones are rubber. And that's really how I think about my priorities every single day. What's urgent and what's important? And what are things that I'm never going to get back, right? And if it means missing a game or a performance or not being there for a child,

you know, that's probably an urgent one that I'm not going to want to do, right? And what I found is that I can kind of displace when I get my work done, right? So I have time in the office with our staff. That time is really for them, right? It's not for me to do administrative work or different things. I know that I can get those tasks done at nighttime when everyone's asleep and I can just be by myself. So prioritizing my work throughout the day and then ensuring that I am that presence for my

children, right? You know, I want them to know that, hey, my dad didn't just love me. He liked me. He liked being with me. He took time to play with me. And so it's difficult. It's challenging. certainly am not an expert, not perfect, but I have the will there, right?

I'm trying my best to be present and be all things to all people. It's impossible to get it right all the time, but I think if you know the four or five things that you have to nail every single day, you can get that done. If you take that priority up to the 10 or 11 things that I have to get right every day, it's too many and you need to revisit. I like how you frame that juggling glass balls, and it really kind of puts things in perspective. You mentioned your mom and, you know, and I, and I just want to know, like, who to you has been your greatest mentor? That's a, that's a good question, you know. I think that my mother

was a phenomenal example for me. She was just a kind, sweet woman. She taught middle school for almost 40 years, poured herself into her students. Her students loved her. So, you know, She set a great example for me in how your job, whatever your job may be, can truly impact people. And I think that that's another thing that's been lost in society is, you know, people think that the value that they give is tied to income. And that's not true. You know, some of the most important jobs that we have in this country are not highly compensated. And the people that generally do those jobs have a love and a passion for it. they're not doing it for money.

But those people need to be celebrated and rewarded and known that, you know, hey, what you're doing matters, you know, school teachers, they're shaping the future of this nation, right? They should be highly compensated people. We should care about them. And so I think that she gave me a great perspective on no matter what your job is, it's important, do it well. Another thing that kind of shaped me in probably not a direct intentional way, but my father was self-employed his whole life.

And he tried very, very hard to make me go get a vanilla corporate job. He didn't want me to be an entrepreneur. And he told me when I was young, hey, like, I want you to go be a lawyer or an architect. Just have stability in your life. Because I saw what he went through. There were good years and there were bad years and you do everything you can. And sometimes things are out of your control. And the fact that he fought so hard against me being an entrepreneur and I still turned out the way that I did,

I think it says something about what's just in your DNA. And so I saw him get up every single day, four o'clock in the morning, work very, very hard for the family. He wasn't around a lot. His job took him away for four or five, six months at a time. And I think it was not quite understood when I was younger, but as I got older, I have a profound respect for what both of my parents did and setting an example for me.

That's awesome. Now, let me ask you, you know, for people who are interested in entering the insurance space, because they hear this message and they're like, maybe that's my route. Like, is there any specific skills or mindset that you think is imperative for someone to have if they want to enter the insurance space? Absolutely, yeah. So, you know, beyond the things that you're going to hear from anyone, right, work ethic, intelligence, things of that nature, the people that I've seen that do the best in insurance

truly care. They have that nurturing heart and soul for people. And I think that when you know your personality, your profile type, where you find joy and fulfillment, there are a lot of different verticals to get you that joy and fulfillment, right? So, you know, if you have that nurturing, caring spirit and heart, maybe you're going to be a nurse. Maybe you're going to be a school teacher. But insurance is also an outlet to get that same fulfillment, right? You are truly taking care of people. And I tell our staff, hey, you're not just selling something that doesn't matter.

You know, the products that we provide to people, they need to use them sometimes. And generally, when they have to use our products, they're not having a good day. And so you better make sure that you sold them what they intended to buy. And so you really do have to care about what you're selling to people and really, you know, be a solution to people. You know, feel good, feel an emotional rise out of, you know, doing something well for someone else. I think that by and large over other things really separates people that have the staying power in this industry. So you've already disrupted the insurance business at a national level. What do you think the future of turbo insurance looks like and the insurance industry as a whole?

Yeah, you know, I mean, there's hot topic items out there like artificial intelligence and what you can do with a lot of that computing power. Insurance is really ripe for disruption with technology. You know, as I said, there's a lot of old school methodology and thought at the carrier levels. There's so much further to go in terms of utilizing, you know, large language models for efficiencies, what you can do for data and analytics and things that you can look into and dive deeper. The better the carriers can get at their appetites and profiling consumers, the better off everyone's going to be. Everyone will end up having their appetite, their box, what they're looking for, and the clear that the insurance companies can make that to the brokers, the brokers can then in turn make it

that much clear to the consumers. So everyone will win from a lot of the technology advancement that's happening there. And then at the agency level, you know, the retailers who are actually pushing the products in distributing them out to the general public, they have to embrace technology as well. I think that the average age of an insurance agency owner is like 56 years old. Wow. And the average age of an insurance agency staff member is like 45 years old. And so there's going to be a tremendous amount of turnover and churn within the insurance industry as a whole.

And to get the young, vibrant talent to look at insurance, to see the more attractive sides of what it means to work in insurance, to embrace technology, to leverage technology. A lot of that is going to have to happen over the next 10 years. And if there aren't a lot of people that rush into it, the few of us that are here, we're just going to benefit that much more. You're going to eat their lunch. So you've been smacked over the last couple of years, boom, boom, boom, like bad markets and then trying to scale in a tough market. And then the insurance carriers stopped doing business.

How do you, like, what's your, how do you navigate all of these? issues? I think you just have to stay the course. You know, you have to understand that, hey, things are going to happen. You know, you look at a SWAT analysis, right? Internal, external factors against your business. And you just do your best. You know, I think that you have to bring it every single day with a positive mentality and attitude. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You know, I think that it was Arnold Schwarzenegger that said, I'll never get upset with someone that made some mistake, but I will get upset if they're afraid to make a decision. vision. Same thing as a business owner or an executive, anyone that's kind of blazing a trail.

You know, be decisive, you know, be measured and calculated, but be decisive. And if you make mistakes, that's okay. You know, you can make pivots as a business. I don't think that making pivots as a business are ever a bad thing. You know, Elon Musk is an expert at doing things of that nature, right? And so there's never an amount of time that you can reinvent yourself as long as you're evolving with an ever-changing dynamic. And what do they say? You know, the one constant to life is change. And insurance is certainly changing.

There's some people that are embracing that, that are others that are not. But I think in order to be equipped and positioned to do well in this next, you know, era or generation, if you will, of insurance, you just have to embrace the change. The change in consumer behaviors, the change in technology and what technology can do for us. and then in turn the insurance companies have to embrace the same things to ensure that they have the correct products that they're bringing to the marketplace. Man, you've been awesome. I'd like to close out every podcast with this question. It's a three-prong question.

Okay. What's a personal goal that you have this year, a business goal that you have for Turbo and a family goal that you have? I love it. I love it. So a personal goal for myself this year is a refocus on health. You know, I don't think that people think about it or talk about it enough. You know, when you're talking about working 70, 100 hours a week, and there are only so many hours in the day, what gets sacrificed, right? Especially for founders, for entrepreneurs, for people that are really pushing it day in and day out.

For me, that would be health, you know, just getting into a better stable routine, right? That doesn't mean a weight loss goal or putting on weight or anything like that. Just, you know, getting sleep, right? Just making sure that you're properly taking care of yourself. a great mentor and friend of mine, you know, he says, you're a Ferrari. It's okay to be a high performance vehicle. That's what you are. But even a Ferrari needs fuel, right?

And so making sure that you're giving yourself the proper correct fuel, eating the ripe food, getting sleep, doing that routine maintenance, making sure that you have positive outlets and hobbies, you know, for yourself, right? Those things are very important. So that would be a personal one for me is just to get myself re-geared and retooled. For business, you know, for us, our main number one goal this year is to get to profitability. You know, any new business or any startup that takes on capital, that's a huge milestone. And we'll hit that this year.

Whether it's late Q2 or early Q3, we will hit it this year. And so that's a moment that we'll clap, we'll celebrate, and then we'll keep moving, you know, on to the next one. But that will be a big milestone marker for us. Most startup insurance agencies that are venture-backed, it takes between 36 and 3,000, 40 months for them to hit profitability. We'll beat that. We'll beat that by six to eight months. And so that's great for all the people that have believed in us from day one. So that's personal, that's business, and then family. We just welcomed our fourth child four days ago. So, you know, I think for myself, it's the new normal, right? You know, we have three of our kids in school and a baby

at home. So making sure that I am supportive of that new dynamic, right? You know, I want to continue to be supportive of everything that she needs, that she's having everything that she needs, that our baby needs, and then, you know, being intentional and being present with the other three, you know, we have three boys and one girl. Our girl most certainly runs the house. No question about that. And they all are very different. And so making sure, you know, they feel important that their interests are nurtured and just being present there with them. You know, when I'm with them, be with them, right. Don't just physically be with them, but mentally be all the way in with them and creating some of those healthier boundaries for myself.

Man, you know, I'm going to honestly say this meeting really taught me so much. And I hope to the audience listening today that it taught them a lot. You've been, you're an inspiration of many. You continue to win. And I wish you the absolute best in your successful venture at Turbo Insurance. Keep crushing it. Keep winning for the community. God bless you.

God bless your new baby boy. Thank you so much for coming. Flattering. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. All right. Thanks, everybody.