Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Live Recording of Bradley Flowers and Ryan Hanley Talking Insurance

Starting point is 00:00:00 Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Hey guys, before we get started, I just wanted to hit you with a quick message. I know you've probably heard at this point about a rogue being acquired by SAA. It means we're finally have the capital resources, expertise.

Starting point is 00:00:33 tools, the backing, the support to execute on the vision that Rogue was originally created for, this idea of a no-sealing insurance career. So if you see yourself as a misfit gangster renegade who just is not happy with their current situation but is ambitious, can work on their own but loves a team that's going to help them drive forward. If you want to be part of something special, if you want to grow your career, you don't have to be a producer. We're always looking for great account managers. We're looking for anyone who wants to be part of something special that's going to buy into what we're doing and wants to grow and just do the damn thing. If that sounds like you and you're listening to this show, go to join.orgask

Starting point is 00:01:21 com. That's join.orgask.com and apply today. We'll see what happens. All right, let's get on to the show. Crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Everyone welcome to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you. A live conversation between me and Bradley Flowers at the IBMO event in northern Iowa. Ohio, not Iowa, northern Ohio. We were in Cleveland. And we were asked by this organization, Bradley and I, to do a keynote together.

Starting point is 00:02:16 And we didn't just want to stand on stage and kind of talk at the audience. We wanted to kind of make. them part of the experience. And we wanted to do something that was a little different. What we did was we set the room up in a way where we sat in the very middle of the room at a roundtable facing each other like we would if we were kind of podcasting in a room by ourselves. And then I interviewed Bradley like it was a like it was a podcast episode, except we were surrounded by probably 150 people. It was a really cool experience. I think the audience, you know, was, we got tremendous feedback so I could tell they were engaged, but you don't get a lot of questions from them during

Starting point is 00:02:55 it. And, you know, the audio isn't as crisp or as clean as it would be if we were doing it like over Zoom in a normal or in a studio in a normal setup. So you'll have to bear with the audio quality. You can still hear what we say and it comes out really great, but it's just not as crisp and clean. There's a little bit of background stuff. You'll hear some bumps and, you know, kind of the standard stuff that comes from a live show. But in general, I think you're going to love this conversation. We talk a lot about culture, a lot about hiring, a lot about how do we get the most out of our people, as well as break down some of the marketing tactics and stuff that are working right now. Just a great episode, as always.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Bradley is an innovator. I enjoy speaking to him because I learn so much when I do. And I think you're just going to really like this episode. Before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor of the show, the people that make it possible. First and foremost, podium. podium changes the game when it comes to capturing leads on your website, how do you interact with them? Their live chat to text feature, which is the feature that we use the most at Rogue,

Starting point is 00:03:56 allows us to capture inbound conversations via chat and a web or mobile app. And then when we respond in the app, it actually responds as a text message to the person who sent it. So the response time is 95 plus percent. You know, if you're looking for a chat feature, you know, if you're feature, if you're looking to capture more tools and give your prospects and customers a new avenue to communicate with you, then Podium is absolutely a tool that I would check out. That's P-O-D-I-U-M dot com. I also want to give a couple quick shout-outs to a few technology vendors that I think are doing incredible work and just had a chance to spend some time with them. And that's Tarmica, T-R-M-I-K-A dot com, T-R-M-M-I-K-A. Guys, changing the game.

Starting point is 00:04:44 game and commercial rating. A lot of competitors out there, Tarmica is the best. T-A-R-M-I-K-A-com and Better Agency. Guys, I got a demo. You know, we obviously, we use HubSpot and we use NowSerts, so I'm not on Better Agency right now. It doesn't mean I won't be in the future, but it had a chance to get a demo from Will and Nick a couple weeks ago, and I was just blown away by the progress they're making. So I wanted to give a big shout out to them as well, because they just, I think they're pushing the game from an independent, uh, agency management system, CRM space, the integrations they make, the decisions they're making. I think that tool has come a tremendously long way.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Had Nick on the show a few weeks ago, if you want to go back and listen to that. And I just love what they're doing. Love when we see a tool that's coming out of our space that isn't kind of owned by one of the big guys, you know, who you know is just looking for ways to kind of lock you in and, you know, not necessarily innovating. Better agency is innovating. Love to see it. Love to see it coming out of people that I know to be good people and big fans of them.

Starting point is 00:05:48 So go to betteragency.io. That's betteragency.io. And with that, my friends, let's get on to Bradley Flowers. Ooh, I am so pumped for today. Guys, we are going to kick it off with two people who honestly have made an incredible impact on my own life. I'm honored that I get to introduce them today. there are two people who have pushed me into places that I didn't know

Starting point is 00:06:19 I was capable of and I know that they will not leave this stage until they do the same thing for you. I am so pumped to welcome. Bradley Flowers, the CEO of Portal Insurance and Ryan Hanley, the CEO of Rogue Risk.

Starting point is 00:06:35 Let's give him a warm welcome. Prude Laboratory in the basement of his home. There was no way I was going to be away from you guys. And Bradley and I kind of had to have. the idea of turning this into a conversation in a podcast. So we're going to do it from right here in the mix of you guys, which allows you to, so some of you have to turn around. People are running away.

Starting point is 00:07:11 Yeah, sorry, not sorry. So we set this up, being that neither one of us had ever done a dual keynote before, and we said, well, hey, we're both podcasters, and we both like having conversations, and we're going to try to turn this into a podcast-style conversation about what's going on in the industry right now. and give you guys kind of an inside look at how we do this. Now, a couple of things here, you can shout out. You can be part of this. If you want the mic, we'll stand up and walk over.

Starting point is 00:07:40 But I feel like this is a little more intimate. We can all agree. We're right on top of each other. And this way, when we say something stupid, when you throw stuff at us, you'll actually hit us because there's about 40 feet up there. And I don't know that any of you have strong enough arm to hit us from back here. Unless you play for the Browns, you're not hitting us up there.

Starting point is 00:07:56 Yeah, I mean, if you had Josh Allen's arm, then maybe, yes. go bills. So, all right. All right. So to get this thing off, everyone's going to boo. They're America's team, though. I can't help it. So Bradley, I like to do something. Some people, you know, may like it. Some people don't. But I tend to toss ideas out into the ether. I use the podcast. I'll write articles, share posts, whatever.

Starting point is 00:08:23 Most of the ideas, when I start them, they're not fully fleshed out. And it's something that bothers people because they feel like everything we post online should be like 100% what we believe fully thought out concept. So the idea that I'm about to share with you, I want to be clear. I have not thought this all the way through. And we haven't talked. We haven't talked about it. I did not share anything of what we're going to talk about with Bradley. So he's coming fully off the cuff.

Starting point is 00:08:49 Which is great when you're sitting in the middle of this room. So the idea that hit me was listening to a podcast with the guy from Shopify. He has this concept with the people who buy Shopify stores and run them of arming rebels. That's what internally they talk about. They're arming rebels. Amazon is the big bad enemy and these little Shopify stores that pop up are entrepreneurs and they're the rebels of retail, I guess. And I was thinking about that concept and trying to apply it to insurance.

Starting point is 00:09:22 And I kind of came up with where are the opportunities insurance in terms of this kind of And here's the idea. I feel like, unlike any time in our past, being a rebel in our space today, pays the most dividends. That we have, unfortunately, out of necessity, become an industry of conformists. We relish the fact that we are severely slow adopters of technology, that we're laggards in every capacity. And it's a safety mechanism. We've all built our kingdoms. I know that if your agency looks and feels like mine and operates like mine and stays in their zone, that you're not going to mess with me and you're going to make your money and I'm going to make my money.

Starting point is 00:10:09 And that's all great, except you and I, when we're in our early 30s, trying to grow up in this industry, we can't do it the way everyone who's established today did it. We just can't. So we have to find different ways. So my question for you to start this off is, where is the low-hanging fruit? a rebel. What's the first thing you can start to do, start to think about to crack this code? Because, you know, when there were only a few thousand agencies in the country, it was easy to start in New York. You could have three on a corner because there was no technology, no digital, no way of

Starting point is 00:10:44 getting to the town next door. Now you can, you're in how many states do you write business in? I don't know. A lot. Yeah. Right? I'm in all 50. And we're based out of Albany, New York. I think we're in 30. Yeah. So, So where's that low-hanging fruit being a rebel? Where does the first thing you can start to do? How do you start to stand out? How do you start to crack into this world? So first of all, anytime I'm a podcast with Ryan,

Starting point is 00:11:11 I put my controversial hat on. And it's a lot harder to be controversial when you have 200 people sitting right beside you versus a podcast studio. I'm leaving after this, so it's okay with it. You know, I think, you know, my wife and I buy a little bit of commercial real estate and it's all, you know, it's about buying real estate at 75 cents on the dollar.

Starting point is 00:11:33 I think looking for opportunities not only within your agency, but outside of your agency. So in other words, maybe we can't, you know, we interviewed a lady recently, I say recent. It was like two years ago. That was, everybody here know the term VA? Virtual assistant. Virtual assistant. she was making $60,000 a year doing the exact same job that my VAs do for a lot less. You can't tell me I don't win that game in the long run, right?

Starting point is 00:12:11 So things like that, being a speedboat compared to the Titanic, being able to pivot, you know what I mean? I gave a keynote yesterday the PIA of Memphis or PIA of Arkansas in Memphis, and I gave the example of, you know, these three things are our niches, but I may walk in tomorrow and say, hey, now we're doing bakeries. Being able to pivot on a dime within your agency, I think using technology that makes you incredibly flexible allows you to do that, but I think also outside of your agencies looking for opportunities, whether it's joint ventures, whether it's, hey, I'm going to form this strategic partnership with this mortgage brokerage or whatever. You know, embedded insurance is like the next term that's going to be thrown around,

Starting point is 00:12:56 much like data and integration's been thrown around the last few years. Table embedded insurance, because that's one of the topics I want to talk about later. I think there's opportunities in that arena for agents. So I think just looking for ways to be, I know this is kind of a very big answer, but I think just looking for ways like, hey, how can we reduce expense, reduce friction? I'm a big proponent.

Starting point is 00:13:17 Everybody thinks I'm this big tech guy. I'm like the least tech savvy person you've ever met in your entire life. I just surround myself with friends, many of whom you know, that are tech savvy. I'm like, hey, how do I do this thing? And then it always ends up like, hey, can I just pay you 500 bucks to build this for me? And so I think looking for less tech that does more. Yes. Like people tend to get shiny object syndrome and, oh yeah, we're adding this new tool,

Starting point is 00:13:43 but it doesn't integrate with anything that we're using. Therefore, it's going to solve one problem but create another one. Yeah, I heard you talking about the less tech that does more, concept and I have also I have also dealt with shiny object syndrome there's actually like a shiny object syndrome anonymous club now is a whole 12 step program you're the president yeah yeah well I'm I may be the vice president yeah I'm not just a member when I say that I've said that on a couple podcasts and I got messages from the non-tech people that are like hey we should be out of filing cabinets and everybody comes in the office and in wet signatures and I'm like that's not what I'm

Starting point is 00:14:19 saying like you think I'm supporting you by saying you think I'm supporting you by saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, like, we do need more tech, but we need it to be a less amount of tools. Maybe a higher utilization of the tech that we actually have versus what we do, which is have 17 things and only use 5% of them. Correct. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. It's one of the reasons that we recently switched to HubSpot. Now, it's a big tool. And to be honest, there are days when I wake up and I regret the decision to do it. So you're dreaming about the color orange. But when I see it working, right? And I'll give you an example of what I mean. And the reason I went there is it's one tool that we took by adding HubSpot and you have some headaches and

Starting point is 00:15:00 there's a build out and you got to think through it and I'm not saying that it's easy. We took 10 tools and made them four. So now my team only has to log into four things when six months ago they had to log into 10 different things to do the same function. And that to me, as much as I did deal with the bitching and the griping and oh it's another new system but now they're like they can send emails track emails texts it's all in one feed attachment everything that we want to do i'm not going to get into exactly how we do it but everything we want to do isn't one screen for them except for two other things guess which one one of them is agency management system and we won't get into that unless we want to we might um i didn't see one here so oh so we can we can i don't

Starting point is 00:15:44 see is there an agency management system here so we can Can you're amazing. These are amazing and I'm so glad that we have them. They're doing such a great job from an innovation perspective. So when I was thinking rebels, I was thinking one of the things that came to my mind was our people. Like the mindset of our people, right? Because I hear all the time, Ryan, recruiting is so hard. It's hard to find good people.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Well, it's hard to find good people if your strategy for finding people is cherry picking them out of other agencies. That's a hard way to find good people. It was one, if they were actually good, they wouldn't leave where they were. Or you're going to have to pay them three times what they're worth, and that's not saying people aren't worth things. And they're going to tell you the better way to do things. They're going to tell you the better way of thing. They're going to have technology issues because they're going to have trained in a different system. So one of the things that we started doing was targeting young moms.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Because there is nothing that old white guys hate more than a young mom at work. Because she's got to take her kids to the doctor, and she's got to pick them up from school and do all this stuff. and they don't want the kids to be on the Zoom call when they're talking as a team and I'm like, I don't give a shit about any of those things. I love it. So at any given time, I have four women who all have kids under five in my office

Starting point is 00:16:57 and any given time, all of their children will be like on the Zoom call with us during the middle of the day. And they're like, well, they're not being productive, Ryan. How can they be productive if their kids running around? Because I will take 30 minutes of an amazing, high-quality employees' time where she then has to go,

Starting point is 00:17:18 and it's all women. This isn't like a man-woman thing. Just they all happen to be women. Single dads or dads with kids, I'm fine with too. Or whatever. How are they gender-classified? So, you know, the... I'll take that 30 minutes of an awesome person's time.

Starting point is 00:17:35 And the other 30 minutes, I've got to go make peanut butter jelly sandwiches and change diapers and shit. I'll take that really good person's 30 time. then an hour of someone who could give two flying Fs about working at my agency and it's just another job and it's a paycheck. And that strategy, I have two in Florida, one in Michigan. I have another one in Albany. Like, they are rock stars and they felt completely tossed away by their old agencies.

Starting point is 00:17:57 And they are, their production levels like off the charts. And to me, when I start thinking about like rebel mentality, like this idea, and again, it's not fully big. Like, that's the type of stuff that we need to start thinking about is like, why are we tossing? 32-year-old moms with kids under five out into the woods because we don't want them on Zoom calls with their kids. That is a stupid thought process in my opinion. I'm like happy to take, to leverage it. Well, it's kind of like when COVID first happened, I had agency owners reaching out to me and on some of these Facebook groups saying stuff like, how do you know your people are working? Like what clock in, clock out system are they getting their job done?

Starting point is 00:18:37 As long as they can get their job done. Like we have, it's kind of, it's kind of, of cliche now, but we have an unlimited time off policy at the office. Because people have stuff. Like you got to go to doctor's appointments. You got to pick up your drag claim. Like, you know what I mean? And I'm like, are they getting your job done? That's the only metric we should. And are they a good person? That's the only metrics we should be going back. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. If you have the systems in place to track activity. So we salary every one of our employees. We don't go hourly for that reason. Yeah. So we salary everybody because what happens is I'd rather just not keep up with the hours. Yeah, yeah. The hourly thing is terrible, too.

Starting point is 00:19:13 And, like, you're thinking about how many, I only have so many brain cycles. So, like, I can't. I don't want to know if, like, Tammy worked 38 hours versus 40 hours. And if they worked a half an hour, they're going to tell you. Yeah, yeah. And, like, I don't even want that in the culture. So the culture that I want is, if you need to take two hours in the middle of day

Starting point is 00:19:27 to go to your kids recital or you need to go pick up your dad from the doctor because he can't drive or whatever, I don't even want to know that you're doing. Punch into slack. Hey, I'm going to be out for two hours. I'll be back. What happens is I watch when they log into the systems, they come back in at six, eight, whenever to get it done because they know ultimately all that matters is getting activity done. And what you get back is maybe everyone, everyone steals time, everyone in this room steals time all the time.

Starting point is 00:19:57 So to pretend like people don't steal time is crazy or to act like you're going to manage them out of stealing time or like, well, she or he that was on Facebook, who cares? Did they get their job done? are you getting positive feedback from your customers? Like, are they adding value? Are they helping with new ideas? Are they taking on tasks that maybe are overflow from another team member? Like doing the things that a good team member does,

Starting point is 00:20:22 if they want to steal a little time or listen to Joe Rogan's podcast in the background, as everyone should be, at least every good American, then I think that's a super positive thing. And it doesn't bother me. I feel like that's how we start to scoop up these employees that are just being dropped on the floor. I feel like there's a lot of really good employees on the floor right now, and there's an enormous opportunity for all of us to scoop them up. I gave a talk yesterday on culture, and we are not perfect at culture. That's like the first thing

Starting point is 00:20:51 out of my mouth, and it's not something you accomplish. It's a living, breathing thing that you're constantly working on, and if you ignore it, it's going to go to crap. And the biggest point of the talk was, is I'm a startup. Like, we're really small. We're two years on. old. I've been in the business 10 years with the agency's two years old. I can't pay people what some of these big agencies can pay them. Our competitive

Starting point is 00:21:20 advantage is culture. The people that I have working for me, I guarantee you most of them probably could get paid more somewhere else and probably shouldn't be working for me. Be honest with you. But it's the culture. And one of the things we're doing, this is kind of funny. Like, they told me to dress

Starting point is 00:21:38 rock and roll for this. Like, this is how I dress every single day. I'm not joking. I am wearing a rock and roll t-shirt, that's it. And that's, you know, we're, when you walk in our agency, we look like a tech company, not an insurance agency. And we, now we do have a rule dress for your day if we're meeting with a big client or something like that. We're going to do khaki Fridays, which is, I know that sounds dumb. It's 100% a recruiting move because these other people at these agencies who have to wear panty hose are going to see that and be like, damn, I want to wear jeans every day.

Starting point is 00:22:14 And people still wear pantyhose in Alabama? They do, yeah. Jesus. But I want to bring up, you're the one that brought up, you're the one that brought up Joe Rogan, not me. I just want to put that up. You're in New York. I haven't heard that word in like a decade. Yeah. We're first and football last and everything else.

Starting point is 00:22:32 I think, so to your point of, it's not about how much money people make, right? There's a fine line there, right? You have to be in the ball game. You can't be underpaying people. Yeah. But I do think that I think the tech industry in general has changed the mindset, specifically of maybe people under 45 around this particular topic.

Starting point is 00:22:51 A thousand percent. It's so much more about do I feel appreciated, right? Now, I believe in a strong hierarchical structure from the standpoint of so people know what the heck they need to get done. And if something breaks, who do I go to to talk to? I think the flat culture idea is good in theory. I think that it struggles in execution. That being said, that doesn't mean every system, every process,

Starting point is 00:23:17 and every conversation needs to have a strict hierarchical structure. It just means from a reporting and accountability standpoint, you need to have that. And I think that's where a lot of people miss. So by having from an accountability and reporting structure, a hierarchical, by hierarchical, everyone realizes like there's a boss and then there's a sub-boss, and then there's a sub-boss, and then there's an army setup or whatever.

Starting point is 00:23:39 But I think from an idea... Stormtroopers. Say it again now? Stormtroopers. Yeah, no. Well, I look to think that more like, what was that, Rogue One movie with those clandestine people and different camo gear, like blowing shit up. Or C3D. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:59 I'm sorry, I'm throwing you off on purpose. But I think, my point is, I think that's very important from an accountability reporting, get stuff done standpoint. But then as a leader, you have to, you can't keep that from an idea, from a culture, from a communication, from an understanding. from an appreciation standpoint, you can't be like, well, there are two levels below me so I could give two shits about what they do. I don't need to talk to her because she's just an entry-level CSR and I'm the agency owner,

Starting point is 00:24:23 and she should just be glad she's getting a paycheck. I had an agency owner tell me one time. I threw this concept out about three years ago of mixing flat culture with higher alcohol accountability. Someone's like, my employees should just be happy to get a paycheck. Now, I think he was being funny. He was trying to be funny, but there was enough seriousness in there that I was like,

Starting point is 00:24:44 I was like, what agency are you? I'm going to drop a pin in your backyard from my recruiting page. I mean, that was the thought process. Like, she's getting a paycheck. She should be happy that she's getting a paycheck. And therefore, just do everything that I say, the way I say to do it. That's going to create a person that clocks out at 5 o'clock every single day. And I, if you are operating that way, understand that every one of those employees would leave

Starting point is 00:25:09 tomorrow for a better situation. They just would. No one likes that structure. And I think that while that was acceptable in like the 80s and 90s, in 2020, that is not acceptable anymore. From an employee's standpoint, right? They're just not, they're not going to be happy in that environment. It just, and I see it.

Starting point is 00:25:28 I see it. And we put out a, we're recruiting heavy for Rogue, because we're not broke anymore. And, and we put on a job post. for a select producer position. Now, we were pretty nationally. But? None in Alabama. Oh, I, I need someone with a southern accent.

Starting point is 00:25:50 What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In an exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe. share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, etc. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around

Starting point is 00:26:28 peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews, they check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do, creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.

Starting point is 00:27:09 we got day one hour for 37 applications right we have like a hundred plus applications now for people because the post wasn't you're gonna make 40 30 and you're gonna you know here's what we do and you're it was like come make shit happen like sell stuff be awesome like I don't care what you wear I don't have fun big old bushy Santa beard like it doesn't matter to me like if you're gonna help our clients work our process and be cool and the Slack channels, you can be part of this team. And what we've kind of developed is like a misfit culture. Like the replacements.

Starting point is 00:27:48 The replacements, the movie the replacement. So I actually thought about getting, because I was thinking about this in the day about us, I thought about getting the replacements movie poster and put in the office, but I didn't know if everybody that works for me would like like it, you know, so. Also, he has a pretty strong arm. I think he actually threw those passes.

Starting point is 00:28:07 Really? I mean, it looked like. Kim. Did Keanu throw those passes? Yes or no? Was anybody in the movie? Show of hands. The replacements, you all know this movie. You have TNT. So for those listening at

Starting point is 00:28:18 home right now, this audience is not engaging at all. So one thing, I have a buddy, his name is Cam Marston, and he is the name of his company is Generational Insights. And he works with

Starting point is 00:28:33 big corporations and basically tells them how to hire and manage different generations. And one of the things he talks about is how pre-millennial Gen X and baby boomers, the attitude generally was, hey, we're working for this company to build this company. And then when you get into the millennial and Gen Zs, it's we're working for us to build us. Combined with the average employee now stays at a job, I think, four years and eight months. The average millennial stays at a job three years, six months. The average Gen Z is like two years, eight months.

Starting point is 00:29:10 I think if you approach managing people with those few things in mind, it kind of changes the way that you manage. You know what I mean? It's like a different, if I understand that Sally's probably only going to be here for five years, it changes the way I manage her. You know what I mean? If I understand that she's working to build up her career. So kind of what we tell all of our new people and our current people is like, hey, my goal is

Starting point is 00:29:36 not to keep you here for 30 years. If you stay for 30 years, that would be phenomenal. But my goal is for when you leave portal to say this is the best jumping off point I've ever had. I want you to use our connections, our business to build yourself up and then go do something great. And I really mean that. Yeah, yeah. I think that's tremendous because I heard of this. Again, I'm not going to listen to too many podcasts, but I was listening to CEO of a company.

Starting point is 00:30:02 He kind of said something similar. He's like, when he looks at his success metrics, it's not. I mean, obviously he's trying to make money and runs a business. So kind of, but when he, like, goes like a step beyond that, what are his success messages? How many successful companies have been started by employees who learn about starting successful companies inside his agents? So he's like, it's like this alumni network.

Starting point is 00:30:24 And he's like, because we don't set expectations on them, because all the things you said, he's like, now they, some of them have become referral partners for us. Some of them have become, you know, vendors for us. And he's like, we have this whole alumni network. work of companies that have started out of our company. And he's like, that is one of the things that I'm most proud of, which I think is amazing. One of the coolest things that ever happened to me, like, things have been great at Portal. I mean, we started with no money, less than scratch, as Seth Sarimba would say.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Two days after I launched the agency, my accountant called me and said, hey, you owe $5,000 to IRS from last year, which is like 20% of the money I started with. And like, we built it up. and like now we're profitable and cashful. And it's amazing. There's been a lot of cool things that happened. But probably the singular coolest thing was that kind of prove the model was the first employee that I fired because she was not a culture fit called me a year later to ask for me to like consult with her

Starting point is 00:31:24 on her startup. She was launching. And I was like, okay, this is like, you know, and that's not to pat myself on the bag. It's like she did it. But it like it kind of proves some of the things we were doing from employees. And we have issues like everybody else. you know and the thing with like the culture thing like you have to pair that with accountability it's not just like fruit fruit let people run all over you you know like people get confused

Starting point is 00:31:46 about unlimited time off but we pair a limited time off with several accountability points are you getting your job done you can't be not getting your job done and take off a week to go to you know burning man or whatever are you leaving other team members hanging right if three other people are off that day, like, unless you're, like, throwing up sick or going to have COVID or your kids sick, like, no, you know what I mean? And you have to let us know a week in advance. So there's, there's accountability measures in place with that. I think that this is the hardest time to lead that it's maybe ever existed in business. And the reason for that is what you said, like, you have to be an active, engaged leader, not, you can't be the best producer in the agency and be a great leader.

Starting point is 00:32:32 You can't be the best marketer in the agency and a great leader. And this is something that I struggle with because all I want to do all day is generate leads and help my sales and sell me. That's that if in a perfect world I am left to go do that and I don't talk to anybody. I don't I just create content and generate lead and do the things that I know that I love and I'm good at but someone's got to run the business so you have to be a leader right and you have to come back and it is difficult to look at someone and say I know you want Friday off but you haven't hit your activity targets in two weeks so I can't give you that day off. That's a hard thing to do.

Starting point is 00:33:06 Or what can I do to help you hit those goals? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then it always comes back to I didn't hold her accountable for two weeks. She didn't even realize she wasn't hitting her targets, right? This is the first time she's ever heard about it. And then I'm looking at it and going, shit, well, I'm going to give you the day off, but now we need to have meetings all time.

Starting point is 00:33:21 I think it is a very, very difficult time to be a leader for these reasons. And I think the pushback that we get or that, you know, I tend to get when I talk about these topics is more like people aren't just going to be. what you say they're going to do because you want them to do it. And it's hard. I said on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and Scott actually brought it back up this week, it's harder now than when I started. And everybody thinks, like, scratch,

Starting point is 00:33:48 and there definitely were some things that were hard when we were scratched that are not hard now, but there are some things that were easy when we started that are hard now. And that's what I was talking about. We recently lost our first employee that quit, the first person that never quit. And what exactly happened was

Starting point is 00:34:03 exactly happened is I, you know, like I said, we're not perfect. I did not have some difficult conversations along the way. Like, hey man, don't do this again, that sort of thing. I did not have those difficult conversations along the way. And then we had to have a really difficult conversation. And he didn't know how to take it. Bounced. Versus, if I would have been being a manager instead of a buddy. It would been like, okay, my bad. You know what I mean? I did.

Starting point is 00:34:35 I made the same exact mistake with our first producer we ever hired. I look at him and what he could have done in our today culture, today's system, which is also not perfect by any stretch. But I think he could have been successful. And I just kept going, well, you're going to make your calls, right?

Starting point is 00:34:51 Or, you know, whatever. And I just, I left him on an island. And eventually, it's almost a similar scenario just because I didn't want to do my job. I think one of the worst and best things that can happen to you is you hire that producer that's like a self-motivator that just writes insurance and, like, you don't need to manage them, because then you think you can treat other people that way. You know, that happened to us, but one of the first people we hired was from another agency, came over for the culture, and it's just a freaking rock star. Former social worker, by the way, if anybody ever can hire a social worker, like, I have to help this person with their insurance.

Starting point is 00:35:28 Like it's like obsessive. So then I started trying to treat other producers that way. And it just doesn't work for some people. And I want to pivot to talk about culture lines. We need to go to the second question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just realized half hour on the first question. I don't even know how much time we have.

Starting point is 00:35:46 But so the reason I wanted to spend time on that particular topic was just, I do think that there is a huge opportunity and talent in the market. and that while VAs are amazing, and I'm not knocking VAs in any way, I would take a well-outfitted, cultural fit, hard-working U.S.-based licensed American over a team of VAs any day of the week. So when we first started using VAs,

Starting point is 00:36:17 a buddy of mine who was kind of being a little bit of critical of it, and I said, man, they're not taking a job from my U.S. people. they're taking all the crap my US people don't want to do, and therefore they are less stressed. Yes. I guess, let me, just to put a pin in that point, I feel like we're running to VA's because it's another shiny object. It's a thing. I just caution people. VAs don't solve people problems.

Starting point is 00:36:45 Right. VAs help you take your people to a whole other level that they couldn't do on their own by removing day-to-day, non-insensical tasks that don't have value. Like our VA's, you are quoting, or personalize. Our VA's, produce every COI. Like we tell every commercial client, we're 95% commercial, we'll have, we can turn around a COI that can have any language. Language issues in 20 minutes or less. That's a guarantee that we make, right? That's a selling point for us. It doesn't get us every deal, but it's a nice validation thing.

Starting point is 00:37:15 We do that because we have a team of VA's that pumps those out, right? So those are the kind of things that I think VAs do really well. My point is don't, you can't backfill bad culture or bad people with VAs, the thing that's going to fit. fix your people problem. It's not. You're going to lose them too. You're going to lose them too. Because they're going to think that you're trying to replace them. If you're not a good manager to U.S. people, you're never going to talk. You're going to basically expect the VA to work and you're never going to talk to them.

Starting point is 00:37:40 It's like Wesley Anderson said, he's a friend of both of ours. It's like, could you imagine if you put an employee in a cubicle and you never talk to me again? Like that's kind of how, and then they end up leaving. We do, we do like a weekly call with all of our VA's like it's a one-on-one. And we don't talk about work. It's like what's going to your life. We add them to our team meet, I mean, our VA, we talk, our VAs are just human beings. Yeah, right, right.

Starting point is 00:38:02 We live in the Philippines or live in wherever the heck they live. And we treat them like team members like anyone else. Just, the cost of living is lower where they are based on the US dollar and you don't have to pay them as much. But otherwise, you treat them the exact same way because they have all the same issues that any of your regular team members have. Their tax rate is inside. So, there, I can't help myself. So, all right, I want to get in something tactile for everyone and use this last period.

Starting point is 00:38:32 John, how much time we got? Ten. You got ten. We got ten minutes? Okay, so let's use the last ten minutes and be a little more tactical. We're going to do 20. You guys have been so amazingly engaged in this presentation so far that I can just, the energy is flowing through me, and I'm just, it's awesome. So if you have particular topics, please yell them out.

Starting point is 00:38:53 It's early. But I want to get into some tactical stuff, some fun stuff, right? We're all here. Marketing and sales is sexy, cultural, culture is fun, but kind of annoying when you've done it for 35 minutes. So yeah, I'm sure everyone's going to give us like a 3.5 on the star rating for this one. So let's get into the fun stuff. Sales and marketing. Make sure if you do that, you do it on Ryan's Show.

Starting point is 00:39:14 Yeah, that's fine. fine. You get one thing to do right now, sales and market, one thing, right? Like, you just, here's my, if I get to get one tactic, one tool, one strategy, one sales or marketing thing that's growing your business right now, what's that thing? I'm heavily, heavily, heavily focused on cross-selling right now. We have a massive opportunity in our agency. If I could do, and we probably, we actually suck at cross-selling, to be completely honest. Everybody sucks at cross-selling. We really suck at it. Because when you're a startup, you're like,

Starting point is 00:39:54 we'll write whatever. You don't want to move the auto, that's fine. You don't want to leave your workers' comp. That's fine. We could legitimately triple our book of business if we got really good at cross-selling. So if I could have one thing right now, it would be that. So you are just having someone in mind your database

Starting point is 00:40:12 for a single policy. Are you tracking when the business comes in? Like, OK, we're writing the com. And we're no. that they have GL and Auto, but we're not writing that today, we're destroying the comp, so you know to go back We don't do that now, but yeah, back in the day, yeah, yeah, and we have automation set up that reaches reach out to them that sort of thing Yeah, certain dates, but so that would be so automations would be 30 days after Signing that comp. They get an email that says hey Johnny, you know, I know we wrote your comp. We're so happy to have you

Starting point is 00:40:44 We would this is now probably a great time now that we're past your need to bring over the other stuff and we can we reach out out or are you just cold calling out or calling out? Some of everything. Email, text, phone call. I've got two new producers in my agency. We're having them reach out. And that's kind of their little, while they build up their referral base, they're working our cross sales.

Starting point is 00:41:07 And then they're splitting that commission with the producer that originally wrote the account. That way nobody gets, like, busy about it. And it's been pretty good for us. to get hyper-tactical, we've been doing something similar, and we've been using Vidyard videos to do it. So is everyone familiar with Loom or Vidyard or video? You can put an email in a video in an email. You're familiar with that? Thank you, Kat. So basically what we do is we take, when we see, we have a need, and we do a lot of comp as a

Starting point is 00:41:49 And our, one of our, comp is 57% of our book right now. So we lead with comp and then do almost the exact same thing. We circle back around. We have a team member who's dedicated to that and that's her job. She does that thing. Okay. So we've been using, when we send out through Vidgard, basically what we do is break down video.

Starting point is 00:42:10 So we do like, she'll be waving, you know, and she's got a smile on her face. So when the person opens the video, literally, they're getting like this image, this kind a moving image in their email of this person waving and they click on it 80 plus percent of the time it doesn't mean they watch the whole thing but we can see how much they watch and what's interesting and this is I have low numbers so this is less than a hundred emails for this but just to give you a video if someone watches more than 50% in the video they mostly bring all their other stuff over so the video is basically hey you know this is so-and-so from Roe Griske we're so

Starting point is 00:42:44 happy to have you as a customer you wrote your comp you know, it looks like that process went well. Obviously, she's going to check the notes and make sure the process didn't go well. And this person does actually hate us even though they're doing business with us, which we all have those clients, right? So then, you know, we do a full spectrum. That way, you only have to make one call, but we have this whole script that she reads and sends it out. And we've seen that if someone opens the email and watches more than 50%, they're bringing the whole thing over like this. There's not even, we don't even have to have a phone call half the time.

Starting point is 00:43:14 And this is where I think things like automation. and process really start to save time. Normally, we'd have to have a call and can give you your policy numbers and talk through it and what it's going to be different about. We don't have to do any of that. We just, in less than two minutes, we try to keep those videos less than two minutes.

Starting point is 00:43:32 We've explained the whole situation. And Sid just said we got 10 more minutes. So we now don't have to have that second call. And that person is often just emailing back. Because in the video, we're saying, And here's all you need to do. Just send us copies of current policies. We'll send you back what you need to sign.

Starting point is 00:43:50 You know, most of the time we do a BOR first, and then we look to rewrite on renewings, kind of how we do it. And there's no extra cover. And that, that time, one, now she doesn't have to be on the phone, which no one loves being on the phone. Two, she's getting two, three of these sometimes a day. And not going to be a day, but, you know,

Starting point is 00:44:09 and she can just do her job and work through them and get them back to people. And that, she's happier. The client's happy. They don't have to pick up the phone. They're on the job or whatever they're doing. I mean, we assume our clients want to talk to us on the phone. I think that's a pretty heavy assumption.

Starting point is 00:44:22 And it just, that's one little feature, one little tool that I think pays enormous dividends because it makes it so personal even though it's a digital world. One thing that I'm a huge proponent of, does anybody here onboard their clients? Onboard clients. On board. On board every single client through agency Zoom the exact same way. Every single client goes through the exact same onboarding process. It's done through automated emails and texts.

Starting point is 00:44:55 And in my opinion, at the end result of that, because we kind of know who our target client is, right? We're not writing everybody under the sun anymore. And so we're getting the same type of folks. We're onboarding every single one of them the exact same way. The text and emails are written. They're very personal. Unless you're super keen on automation and things like that,

Starting point is 00:45:17 you have no idea that it's automated. We actually have the producer help write the text. So I want you to write this as if you were writing it to like a friend. We include the LOLs and those sort of things. It's super personal. And when you onboard people the same way, not only can you get them to do things along the way like Google reviews and download our app and hey, what about your auto and that sort of thing, but you get similar results. You know what I'm saying? When you onboard people the same way, you kind of get people to collectively, like, you can point out, pick out problems like we know this person's going to have this because they deviated from what most people said.

Starting point is 00:45:56 You know what I mean? I never thought about that. And it's built out. We're 365 days out. Yeah. Now, we're not sending them a text every day. But, and I think, like Mike Strom says, like, 500 days out or something like that, but it allows us to get consistent, like, feedback from our clients.

Starting point is 00:46:09 You see, if people don't work the process as you have it laid out, if they don't go through it, click on the things or respond. We know immediately this, because like you have to be pretty text-a-vy to do business to us. Like, our door is locked. If somebody comes in our office, we think we're getting robbed. Like, you know, and so, like, that's the main thing we can point out. It's like two days in and they're like, I'm like, oh, this isn't going to work out. And we'll literally say to people, hey, look, I'm going to be honestly like, I don't know that we're a great fit.

Starting point is 00:46:36 Here's another agency that's old and boring. You probably need to go to them. So, like, if they won't down the glove box or any other different things that you use. Yeah. Correct. That's really interesting because now you can almost post select them out and start to say, hey, you know, you should probably go to the state farm agent down the street because they would love to lose money. I happen to be married to it. So what happens, my wife is a state farm agent, so what happens, what we're doing with that onboarding and it's majority text, we're subliminally telling people if you need something, you can text me.

Starting point is 00:47:11 And other agents will come into my office, and this is not me bragging, this is true. Other agents will come into my office, and they'll be like, why aren't your phones ringing? Because it's all right there. We have a VA that she owns that inbox. She watches the text that come in, and she pings people, hey, you handle this, hey, you handle this, hey you handle this. And it's reduced our call volume. We get, on average, 25 in-mail calls a day, which is extremely low, I think, for the size agency we have. And the majority of those are people calling people back from, like, sales situations.

Starting point is 00:47:52 You know what I mean? Like, it's not customers calling in. They're texting us. They're going on the app, that sort of thing. We've significantly, by doing that, made ourselves way more nimble than if I have to pay Sally $20 an hour to sit there and answer the phone. So we have two minutes left here. I just want to. Karaoke?

Starting point is 00:48:09 I thought about it. Yeah. I think the most important takeaway from what you just said is, I think some people would hear that and go, Bradley, but you're not talking to them. Where's the relationship? Where's the connection? And what I hear you saying is based on the customers that you're targeting and the process that you're putting them through, they feel that they have the same connection to you.

Starting point is 00:48:34 As someone who comes in and sits down and sweats in the same room, like that, that, you that connection for them, via text or email or whoever, is exactly the same. The connection is exactly the same as if you were sharing time. For those customers that you're targeting that you want in your agency. Yeah. Everybody texts. We're not in a world where the majority of people don't text anymore. I have a photo of my 65-year-old mother-in-law downloading TikTok.

Starting point is 00:49:00 I was like, I've got to take a picture of this. People are using older people. We had an 85-year-old guy who, called us a couple weeks ago because his glove box he was having issues he's like oh I love it I use it you know what I mean like yeah you're gonna find people that don't want to do that but that's how the majority of people nowadays want to how many people get pissed off when they get a phone call I see a bunch of liars the people that are leaving their hands down because like everybody's annoyed

Starting point is 00:49:30 when they get a phone call right so I can just tech like we have a significant amount of customers that will leave us and come back and we all always ask why did you come back? And it's almost always, I can just text you guys and you'll take care of it. The other thing that happens is when, and I'm sorry, I'll shut up, the other thing that happens when somebody calls you and says, hey, I want to get an ID card or whatever, they expect you to stay on the phone until you send them that ID card. But if they text it, it's almost like a different, like, it's just like, hey, he'll just handle it. You know what I mean? It's like, I have this on record, it's here. It's on the blockchain. I'm kidding. It's, it's, it's,

Starting point is 00:50:09 It's here, right? They'll get to it. You know what I mean? So it also allows us to prioritize tasks. Because if 10 techs come in with 10 different things we need to do, we can kind of prioritize those in order of importance. Dude, I selfishly, I wanted to interview you because I always learn every time I talk to you, the stuff that you do is, I think, amazing.

Starting point is 00:50:33 I think you're one of the people that think about this industry in the exact right way for where we're going. It doesn't mean everyone's going to do stuff the same way. I love how you push the ground injuries. I always learn when I talk to you and I just appreciate the time, man. This has been awesome. Likewise, this was fun. Yeah, thank you guys. Go post.

Starting point is 00:50:53 Oh, I want to say one more thing. So I hadn't seen Sid speak in like, probably three years. Your dramatic pause game has drastically improved. There were some serious draft. What he doesn't know is I forgot what I was going to say during those moments. So. It was twice as many deals by this time next time next. week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the one call closed system, you'll stop chasing leads

Starting point is 00:51:34 and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle tested, the one-call closed system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes, more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroftheclose.com. That's masterof theclose.com. Do it today. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.

Starting point is 00:52:24 Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone. Happy Holiday.

Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Live Recording of Bradley Flowers and Ryan Hanley Talking Insurance

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