Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Micro-Niche vs Generalist: My Epic Debate with Charles Specht

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyStrap in as we venture into the specialized realms of insurance agent branding: micro-niche vs generalist.✅ Free step-by-step video series for generating inbound revenue for your insurance business from YouTube: https://go.ryanhanley.com/youtube✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley✅ Subscribe to the audio podcast here: https://ryanhanley.com/podcast✅ Charles Specht's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesspecht/🌐 Charles Specht's Website: www.permissionsales.com** More about this episode **Have you ever felt like a small fish in the vast ocean of business? That's where the magic of micro-niching comes into play – a concept we dissect fervently in our latest episode. Together with a special guest from the insurance world, we lay out how pinpointing your ideal client not only sharpens your brand but also draws in the behemoths of your industry. From personal coaching tales to our guests' experiences, we uncover that aligning with your customer's mindset is as crucial as getting your branding on point.Property and casualty agents, this one’s for you: we examine how zeroing in on a specific segment, like pallet companies, can create a magnetic presence that pulls in tailored content and services like a gravitational force. But don't be fooled; it's not all about the industry lingo; we share the surprising truth that sometimes, a stellar marketing strategy and understanding your client's perspective can trump deep industry knowledge.Wrapping up, we take a peek behind the curtain of sales team structures and the mighty influence of incentives on marketing efforts.Our guest shares incredible insights from PermissionSales.com and dishes out success stories that prove why the right motivation can make or break your agency's growth. And we can't forget about the soul of business – our guest illustrates how intertwining faith with professional pursuits can elevate the bottom line and the spirit behind your brand.Join us for an episode that's brimming with strategies to help your agency not just survive but thrive.--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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I'm in a horse race. I don't want the prettiest horse. I want the fastest one. I don't care. I want the fastest horse. And if I've got access to a carrier right now, that's just really good at one or two things, I'm going to ride that horse.

And my micro-nitch might switch a year from now. That's okay. Most agents pivot. That's okay. We can pivot. But what are we riding right now? I want to win as many races as I can. And so I want the fastest horse after all of a sudden done.

Because like I said, micronitching a lot. I say the first part of it, barely superficial when it just comes of branding. but we have to figure out what we want to go after the size of the account is usually going to be a big issue in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home hello everyone and welcome back to the show today we have a tremendous episode for you the great debate micro niche versus generalist outbound versus inbound with the man charles speck charles is the producer of the millionaire insurance producer

podcast. He is the president and CEO of the Permission Network. And his coaching and consulting program is all about building micro niche production business. So helping producers through permission groups, you can go to permission group.com, helping producers learn how to build a micro niche or, as we discuss, multiple. And, you know, Charles is a great guy. I love having conversations with him. He is thoughtful and well thought out. He has an opinion. He has real production, real clients behind his thought process, which is who I love debating. I do not like people who just come at me with this like traditionalist opinion based on the fact that we've done it this way for this many years and you don't understand. This is how I add value. That's all

nonsense. What I want is someone who has done it, has done it a different way, who has, you know, success stories, case studies, et cetera. And Charles is that guy. And we go back and forth on LinkedIn every once in a while, all in good natured fun. But this is a really great conversation. You are going to get so much out of this. I know I did. I took two pages of notes during this conversation. Just kind of comparing, contrasting how Charles recommends and who he recommends his work to, et cetera versus, you know, my vantage point. And I think what we get to in the end is a really solid business model for how you put our two philosophies together in a way that could rapidly grow agencies.

And I loved it. Love this conversation and happy to share Charles with you guys. If you're not following him, I highly recommend that you do. When you listen to this, my friends, the Insurance Growth Masterclass will be live. It is live right now. Masterclass. Ensure. That's Masterclass.com. Today, you can learn more. You can join the program. Guys, this is my life's work in the insurance industry put into coursework,

monthly lectures, a community, all sorts of free resources and exclusive newsletter, etc. I want to help you build this inbound engine in your agency. If you're an individual producer and you want to add inbound to what you're doing, You can learn that too. But I'm telling you this, what we're, what I'm teaching in the master class is going to be innovative. It's going to be on the cutting edge. It's going to get you to think differently about your business. And in no way.

So, so everyone who's listening knows this. And I'll say this thousand times. I agree with everything Charles says what I'm advocating for, what I'm teaching, what I'm coaching, the growth that I want. want to help agencies make is in this is in the inbound side of the business is entirely untapped undeveloped undeveloped uncoached aspect of our industry and there is no one better positioned with more experience than myself to teach you i i hope you can tell from the tone of my voice and the pace at which i am talking right now how fired up i am i am to get this content in front of you i've dripped it out at you know 10 and 15 000 feet in youtube videos and

podcast and I will continue to do that. But if you want to come all the way to the ground, if you want to know how to get it done, if you want to be able to ask specific questions and get specific answers, the insurance growth masterclass is my resource, my gift back to this industry to do that. I hope you will join today. Go to masterclass. Dot. And sure, if you have questions, you can always email me at Ryan at finding peak.com. Guys, with that, let's get on to the great debate, micro niche versus generalists with the all-powerful. full all seen Charles Beck. Here we go. So what's going on, bud? I'm excited to have you on the show. I know why the impetus was a few conversations we had on LinkedIn and et cetera. And I want to get to

that stuff. But I'm interested like in what you have going on. I see posting a lot of stuff about your mastermind, et cetera. Like what's up? Like fill us in. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. You know, busy kind of doing the same thing, but really just, I think, trying to accelerate what have been doing. So, you know, getting a lot of people inside the mastermind where, you know, we're talking about how to 12X your book of business. So from the standpoint of bigger accounts, how to prospect those branding inside your micro niche, which is way better than being a generalist. I'm sure we'll probably talk about that a little bit.

But just kind of the whole idea of like really, like how do you accelerate yourself without having to have 300 clients? You know, still working with a number of agencies on retainer, doing some work with constructive risk and my sort of network of insurance consultants. Doing one-on-one coaching. Right before I got on with you, I was finishing up a podcast episode with one of my clients. He went from $700,000 book of business to $2.5 million now in just about five years. He'll probably be at $3 million end of this year, just going after the same type of business,

just making a switch in the size of the accounts that he's going after. So about a mindset, really understanding your ideal client, having that really defined. and I think what was kind of the overarching topic of that one is that you just really get clear on what you say yes to and what you say no to. And then you just don't, you don't cross. Just really kind of like having a defined approach on what it is that you do and what you don't do. So yeah, man, just kind of doing the same stuff. Well, I like that you, you know, I'm assuming at some point in your career you'll run for office because you started the conversation with a really good anchoring point around how. good micro branding is or micro niche are generalists does not so that's that's a good anchoring point

that I now need to work off of absolutely and it's micro niche by the way because that rhymes with rich so you know niche there's like kish and that's just weird yeah I don't know where that came from I can't stop it I've tried for years cast has made fun of me for almost a decade now and I seemingly can't figure out how to not flip-flop between niche and niche and I say both like that's what I actually found was I went back and I listened to the episode that I did when I so everyone knows that the episode of the show that kind of spurred us getting on here. Not that I ever don't want to talk to Charles, but like was independent agents are doing riches and the niches wrong.

It was the episode of the show was a solo episode. And the point that I was trying to make in that episode is really that while I think industry class and I want to talk about micro niches, et cetera, Well, I think that's all very important, and I'm not advocating against that in any way, shape, or form. I was trying to be additive to the conversation in a way to say, I think we also need to focus on mindset of customers. And that throughout my career, I think I've made tons of mistakes with, you know, niche or generalistic, et cetera. And I have different viewpoints on that that I want to get to. The thing that I think has defined where I've been successful and where I haven't is when I was really

focused on the mindset of the customer, the client that I was trying to to attract. And I think that probably goes to your idea of be clear on what you're going to say no and say yes to because when our niche is a or niche, whatever, is a mindset either in and of itself or as part of a niche or micro niche, I feel like it allows us to move even faster. And I think on the back end, and this is what I found specifically at Rogue, was that when we, when we marketed to and filtered out as qualified a certain mindset, our service requests went down and our retention went up because people believed in the way we were doing business versus someone who maybe was the right fit from an appetite perspective, but maybe didn't believe

in the business the same way. Now, some of that too is we had a different kind of model. So I think there's a lot of nuance in this. but where I'd like to start is what exactly is a micro niche and how is it different from a regular niche? Yeah. So micro niche, I don't know exactly when I started to sort of refer to it,

eight, nine, 10 years ago maybe is I sort of looked at it from the standpoint of when I began to realize where producers were writing a lot of business, I realized they were different than me because I started in the insurance business and I started at an agency, where most of the agents there wrote subcontractors, and they wrote subcontractors that were,

let's call it like $2,500 a commission, right? So just a, you know, $25, $3,500. And that's what we wrote. We just wrote a lot of contractors, fencing, HVAC, different stuff. Some people had some general contractors and so forth, but I was in construction. And then when I ended up at my second agency,

which was a large alphabet house, I had a really good year, and so I got invited to the president's club. And the president's club is like the annual celebration where they bring in all the producers from around the globe who like did more than $300,000 of new business. And so he brought him in and then the chairman of the agency went down the line. He brought in the top 10 who wrote the most business in that year. And I remember him holding the microphone just kind of like walking down. There's like 3,000 people in the room, right?

He's just kind of walking down. He goes, tell me what industry you're in. And then they say something. He goes the next one. Tell me what industry you're in. and it was so interesting. Again, I was like 24 years old at the time. I've only been in business for about two years.

And, you know, I was expecting them to say I'm an insurance agent. But no, what they were saying was, and I just remember a few of the examples. One would say, I am in the women's garment manufacturing industry. Another one said, I work with general contractors who build casinos. Another one that said, I do property insurance for. large franchise restaurants. And so I just began to realize that, wow, the people with bigger books of business who are having greater success are much more narrow in their focus.

And so I look at myself as I am niched inside construction, but maybe if I might grow niched, maybe if I went a little bit more narrow or deeper, however I wanted to look at it, I might have the ability to write more accounts, write larger accounts, maybe get more broker record letters and have, you know, a greater success. maybe because people will see me as the obvious choice. And so I think that that's sort of where it came from. So I have a couple questions there. One is, do you think that prospects actually see or care that you are a niche specialist?

Or do you actually think, or could it be that it is more of the confidence that you get as a producer in knowing, in knowing that industry so specifically that is, that is what the prospect is feeling. Does that make sense the question? Like, you think the prospect is like, oh, oh, you're the specialist in this. I have to work with you. Or do you think it's because I know this space,

I know pallet contractors so well that, man, when I present myself, I'm confident and they pick up on that. Yeah. I would say the answer is yes and yes, you know, if it's the individual person, but I would say a whole lot more yes on the second part.

Because frankly, when it comes down to it, I mean, really. micro-nitching comes down to branding. You know, it comes down to branding. And so we'll speak from a property and casualty standpoint, okay? Because I think we're both PNC guys. Yeah, we'll just sort of use Pallet as you brought that up. You know, if I'm going to go after pallet accounts,

then I'm going to have to figure out what carriers are writing it. And then let's say I find five carriers. I want to figure out what's the difference is there. I might create. 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.

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My branding around that. I might create my LinkedIn persona or my Instagram persona to be a guy who focuses on palettes. And I might start doing some reels or some videos on, you know, how CEOs from palette companies can, you know, find the right insurance agent or how CEO, at pallet companies can find three more productive hours in their week. Whatever it is, but I just really start branding myself in that area. Just a number of things happens. I start going to those association meetings. The associations want me to do webinars.

People are responding to my content that I'm putting out on YouTube or my email or things like that because it's resonating with them more. So I would say the first part of being a micro-nitch producer really comes down to branding. it's how you're sort of presenting yourself out there. Then really sort of next step is taking it to the point where you start developing services for them. Like I could put together a loss control program that's specific to pallet companies. And I might put together, for example, a 12 video safety program for, you know, companies

that are pallet companies for their guys who are picking up pallet companies so that they don't get, you know, slivers. I'm just thinking on top of my head, right? So I can start to create services for that. And what happens is that your reputation will get around. You will end up starting to write two accounts, three accounts, before you know you've got 16 pallet companies. Now you kind of have a big brag statement, right?

I've got 16 different pallet companies that represent, you know, $4.7 million. And I'm writing it because of this particular safety program that we have for pallet companies. It just starts to get momentum as you're going through it. Yeah. No, I mean, I see it. And I think that if that's what you want to do, I think part of my struggle with that is that bores the shit out of me personally. But I also have hardcore ADHD, right?

So like I look at that and I'm like, oh my God, if all I ever did was write the same line of business over and over and over again, I would want to shoot myself in the face. My other thing, so that's personal though. I 100% believe in what you're saying from the standpoint of building a brand. And I think that when I talk about this topic, I am never arguing against what you just positioned, right? Never. I think what you just said is wholly accurate 100%.

And if that is what you want to do and who you want to be, that I think you're right on point. And that makes complete and utter sense to me. I think the argument that I want to make to the industry and what I have found so intriguing in terms of pushback, and specifically I'd say from traditionalists. And I, and I, this is not, this is not include you in the way that you position your argument, but there have been many others who love to take a stance on this when I say like, you know,

I would rather personally do everything you just said but around a mindset, agnostic of industry. Because now I do think that at a certain size account, there are specializations in coverage that matter. but from my position, depending on what you consider big, most accounts, most, under 150,000 in premium. So I guess this would probably be smaller for you. You don't need to be a coverage specialist. They're all the same. I mean, honestly.

Yeah. I mean, if you would like just say to with standard carriers, right, that write the business. They kind of know not too many differences in the coverages overall. Yeah. And I think that this is a big, I think this is a big, I don't want to say. lie because that that insinuates people are doing things nefariously and I do not think that at all. I think it's a gosh, I don't know the proper word for what I'm trying to say. I think it's something that we logically all know to be false, but we continue the myth because it feels good and it's

what we've always been told, which is that a $100,000 premium warehouse is somehow different from a $100,000 premium law firm, which is somehow different from a hundred thousand premium you know, electrical contractor. And, you know, my experience has always been in like the smaller middle to small business mark. That's where my expertise is. And so, and when I look at that space, which is the space that the majority of agents write in, I think that I just don't think there's any difference in the coverage.

Nor do I think there is enough significant difference that being over-indexing on any individual niche or niche or niche plays any significant value at that size, right, at that size. I do not think that it does because if you have a $100,000 pallet contractor and you're the expert, but I'm better at marketing and maybe I'm, I've also marketed that person on mindset and not just my industry knowledge, I think I can beat you the majority of the time. Larger accounts, I do not think that's the case. think that things get squirrely. I think there are all kinds of nuance to the coverage. I think

services matter immensely. Like services don't matter on accounts that size. Like, you know, we offered early on at Rogue, we, I did a deal with a buddy of mine to offer nurse triage services for our workers' comp accounts. And I was all jacked up because to me, I've seen all the stats. Nobody cared. Yeah, nobody cares. Yeah. I mean, I've seen the stats. I've seen the stats. I know what it does for workers comp accounts. I believe in it. I have secret shopped them. They're great.

So I'm thinking I'm going to go to the market. And I'm like, I'm going to take this enterprise level service and bring it down market to like 10 to 30 employee accounts. And they could give two flying shits. Like honestly, it meant nothing to them. Like, and when you really did the math, it didn't help it. You know, there wasn't that significant, you know, of a discount. And even like, though, with that with that service, though. So I'm going to try to answer because you like, man, you hit like five or six like really.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm terrible. So that's good. But like even that work comp, you know, that's just insurance. That's not micro-nitch. Like everybody's got comp, right? I mean, like somebody might have a high X-mod. They might have a low X-Mod.

But at the end of the day, I mean, frankly, I would tell you even, you know, most insurance buyers don't understand it. Most insurance agents don't understand comp, you know, and X-Mod and so forth, right? But I agree with you. Smaller accounts, it's really hard to help them to see the significance of a service that you're offering. If it's just purely insurance-related. because the pain isn't really there. Right?

Like if there's 17 carriers that are right in this business, they usually don't have a lot of pain from a premium standpoint. So like having an additional work comp service, no big deal, right? No big deal. And I agree when you start getting bigger, the services matter. But it's also like on a case by case basis because there are definitely insurance buyers out there who want to work with somebody who knows them. It's kind of the old adage.

You know, people do business with those they know, like, and trust. And if they can see me as somebody in their industry who just happens to sell insurance policies for that industry, that's different than just saying, hey, I'm working with an insurance agent who can write business in that particular industry. It's just a completely different way of looking at it. Yeah. So let me ask you this. When you define, so say I want to come to you as a client and I'm all about what you're teaching. And I want to be, you know, again, we'll go back to Palekine. I don't know where Palekine judge is coming from.

But let's just say, I was like, you know, I'm, I'm in the Midwest. I know there's a couple really nice accounts. Actually, I got a buddy who works in one. So maybe I got to my first account, I potentially have a decent in. Charles helped me like where. And again, I know there's all kinds of triggers here. So just take this just as the framing of this size part. Like when you start to say, hey, if you're going to come be part of my program,

follow what I do, become a true micro niche producer. I want you focused on accounts that bring in. in X revenue or have X amount of a revenue in their top line, you know, how do you start to define for them where you believe this type of, you know, I think this mentality could work anywhere, but where do you see the turning point, the escape velocity and size account for this type of methodology? It all starts there, right? I kind of liken it to putting the cart before the horse and the horse before the cart.

Yep. Because if I've got an agent in North Dakota who says, Charles, I want to. to write, you know, a bunch of pallet companies. I'm like, yeah, good, you know, good luck to you because they're like four, right? So, like, what are you going to do? So you're either going to have to expand your geographic territory or you're going to have to go after some other business as well. So having one micro-nitch, I actually don't tell too many people to have one. I usually tell people to have two in two completely different industries that have nothing to do with one another. Because you can, you can spend half your day prospecting in one and half in another.

That also insulates you from problems in the future if something goes, hey, wire in one industry or, you know, new carrier comes in, they just flat out won't, you know, appoint you or something like that, right? I think three is doable, but man, that's hard. Also, from the standpoint of if it's an insurance agency, that's a different story. I think agencies can have multiple micro-witches, right? But one producer, it's different. You've got to kind of look at the size of the account you want to write.

You know, if I'm talking to somebody in Los Angeles about the size revenue that they need, that's different than if I'm talking to a guy in North Dakota. You're just completely different and from like the size of the geographic territory that they're going to go after. If they're only going to prospect, you know, in their county, it's just not going to work.

You're if like, and also like if you say, I'm only going to do walk-in visits. I want to see people face to face. That's my primary way of prospecting. Well, I don't know if micro-nitching is going to work. Yeah.

Because, you know, there's only so many in your pond. And so I would, I typically work with agents when they're trying to figure out. we actually do a bunch of brainstorming. We kind of put lists together. These could work. These couldn't work, right?

I have them talk to underwriters and sales reps at the carriers they want to write the business with. I want to find out which ones, you know, which industries are you really competitive at? Do you want to write a lot of this business? I liken it to the example of I'm in a horse race. If I'm in a horse race, I don't want the prettiest horse. I don't care. I want the fastest horse. And if I've got access to a carrier right now, that's just really good at one or two things,

I'm going to ride that horse. and my micro-nitch might switch a year from now. That's okay. Most agents pivot. That's okay. We can pivot. But what are we riding right now? I want to win as many races as I can.

And that's why I want the fastest horse after all of a sudden done. Because like I said, micro-nitching a lot. I say the first part of it, fairly superficial when it just comes to branding. But we have to figure out what we want to go after. The size of the account is usually going to be a big issue. If I'm trying to write accounts that are $20,000 of commission, but if you just don't have enough of them, it's not going to be a fit. I say, sorry, scratch it. Take it off the list. You can like it, but it's not going to be a good fit. Someone might say, well, I really like,

you know, I like boating companies. Do you have any carriers that represent boating companies? No, cross it off. I don't know what else to tell you. Either you're going to get appointed with the carriers that are going to be really competitive or are going to find something else. So I guess, like, the conversation is absolutely different, Ryan, for every single agent that I speak to because every agency is different. If I'm talking to, you know, it's kind of a smaller agency. Like when Rogue started out, you probably didn't have access to too many carriers at the beginning. And so you were trying to write with whatever those carriers were going to write.

That's where everybody's at. Yeah. But, I mean, think about it from this standpoint. Everybody is micro-nitched. It's just how micro-nitched are you? Okay, so I'll put it to you this way. You decided to be a property and casualty agent instead of a life insurance agent. You micro-nitched yourself. You also decided not to be an EB agent or do Medicare.

You micro-nitch yourself in there. You also probably focus on accounts that are like likely general liability and workers' comp, but not really D&O. Maybe not even like major cyber liability types of coverage. You were going to go after stuff that was going to be sort of your kind of main, you know, general liability work comp, but not really like D&O. You're just sort of micro-nitch. You're also micro-nitch from the standpoint that you're writing stuff in your pond. You're not even going outside. My micro-nitch is these types of accounts.

geographic territory that are of this size. Even carriers micro-nitch. They say, we write this stuff, we don't write all these things. Everybody is micronnitch in the insurance business. It's just how far down are you micronish? Because you can micronich yourself down to the point where you don't have any fish in the pond. Like I can say, I'm going to write pallet companies that are working with, you know,

$30 million size accounts, you know, here in North Dakota. Nope, they're done. It doesn't work. So you've got to find something that actually works. and depending upon the agent, the size of the agency, what markets you have available, all this different criteria, we can usually find about two to maybe three that are going to be a really good start going forward. Because that first part is just picking what you're going to go after.

And I would say, like, I also tell agents, if an account comes in that says, hey, I want to do business with you or they're referred to you, if it's a good account, write it. I'm not going to say no to good business. Absolutely not. It's just that I know that I only have so many hours in the day. in which to prospect. So I might as well prospect on accounts that are much more likely to see some value in me that resonates with my marketing. They say, you know what? Yeah, let's find out. Maybe this guy's got something. And so I maybe make more appointments. That's the first superficial

layer of branding inside your micro niche. And you just set more appointments that way. You just literally do. Taking it to the next step, that is where really, I think, the expertise in the maturity of the producer and the agency and the agency leadership, frankly, come into play where we're taking that to the next step where we're really like setting up our services. We're getting involved in the associations. We're doing webinars, different things like that, where we take it to the next step. That's where, you know, insurance agents, I think, start building a million, $2 million book of business. Because I don't see too many agents, you know, that have a very large book of business that are very much generalists anymore. You can get, I mean, anybody can write a two, three, four hundred

thousand dollar book of business by being a quasi-generalist. Absolutely. But being sort of micro-nitch, again, you will write fewer accounts, but they'll be significantly higher after all of a sudden done. I think one, so there's a bunch in there too, and that was great. I like that you recommend multiple micro niches because one of the things that, so one of the things that I've always taught is that diversity creates sustainability. Right. So I never wanted to overend, because I don't trust carriers.

I don't trust politicians. I don't trust the economy. I don't trust the weather. I don't trust any of them. Right. So all that being said, you know, I've had, you know, just in the four years that roguerous exists,

I had carriers come into my office. This is not a knock on carriers. This is the way the business is, but it's a reality, right? Come in and go, we want this. Okay, let's go. You just walked into one of the, you know, one of the few guys in the industry

who can put a marketing campaign on a dime and go get it, right? Let's go. Then I go. do it two months later, oh, we don't want that anymore. And you're like, that literally in a four year, that happened twice in a four year period where, where literally within, one was within two months and the other one was in four months, all of a sudden they didn't want anymore. So it's like, I just put all this effort, time, energy into building this, getting flow,

starting to place business only to have you change your mind. Now, that is not a knock on carriers. That's the business. And they made their decision. So it's just simply, I don't think carriers should trust agents. I had this, who's I have in this conversation? I had this conversation with someone in LinkedIn where they were like, you know,

hammering me about our responsibility to carriers. And my thing was carriers only have a responsibility to pay me commissions for the business I place. And I only have a responsibility to place business that I believe is accurately underrated with them. Outside of that, there is no responsibility between us. I don't have it.

You're not my partner. I'm not your partner. I'm your distribution. You're my supplier. We can have a tremendous relationship. But I, and this is a little tangential here. It's just, this is going to get to the sustainability thing. I believe we have this.

There was a time when I do believe carriers and agents is eased were true partners in this business. I do not believe that is the case. Yeah, different age. Yeah, it's a different age. And that's not a knock. That's not to say carriers are wrong, agents are wrong or whatever. It's just a different time in our, in our evolution. and I think we both from the carrier perspective down to agents and from the agent perspective

with the carriers, we need to realign our value proposition, which is carriers are suppliers, agents or distribution. We need to hold up our end of the bargain to the contract that we sign between us. Okay. So to that extent, carriers are always and should always do what is in their best interest. agencies should always do what is in their best interest. So that being said, I think that diversity is enormously important to sustainability at the agency level, at the agency level. I think the bifurcation that needs to be made, and I think this is really where I think what you're saying and what I saying layer on top of each other really well is that at the producer level, the individual producer level, the individual producer,

producer level. One, possibly three, one, two, possibly three, micro niches, becoming an expert, becoming the guy, the gal for that thing, in that space, et cetera, absolutely is a great way to go. But I think as agency principals, owners, et cetera, we need to remove our producer hat and put on a business owner hat and say, hey, look, I'm going to have, I'm going to have a small battalion of these external hunter-killer producers that are going to go out and fight in these niches where we have good relationships with either the associations or they have industry knowledge, et cetera.

And I think, and this is where, this is what I'm trying to push in our space is that I don't think that can be the only way we bring business into agencies anymore. I think there has to be an inbound flow. That inbound flow is traditionally going to be smaller business. Now, I will say a few of my coaching clients, I don't talk about them specifically.

I will only reference them in generalities that I've worked with on the side over the years have done substantial high-ticket inbound prospecting and get leads every single week in their niche and do real legitimate business. And what happened, what you see is, and this is kind of how I think about it, and again, I'm just interested in take,

I'm explaining this to you, and I want your take on it, is that if we just work off of our, producers outbound production. What we get is yes, you know, we're building up that retention base, but new business production is this spiky line that, you know, we have a couple of big accounts and then nothing this month and then bam and this spiky line. What I'm saying is I want the big hits from my hunter killers to be the gravy that gets my spouse the seven series. Okay. Not the monthly production that comes in. And if we can have an inbound team of

closers, that's what I call. That's the key right there. That's the key. Like everything you're just saying, that has to be the key. Yes. You have to have a separate team of the inbound closers. It's a separate team.

You asked me this question, and I didn't realize it didn't respond to it. I responded to it in my head. It's right, Slack. I knew we were going to talk about it, so I'm hitting you here. Let's go. Yeah, yeah.

You asked me this question on LinkedIn, and then in my head I responded to it. I didn't hit Publish so I did officially. But to answer your question, I think it has to be two separate teams. You put a hunter killer on inbound leads. They will look. look like they have no idea what they're doing.

Vice versa, you take someone who has a closers mentality and you put them out on the phones and you're going to be like, this person's a loser. And the case is that I think there are three production positions in our business. I think there are account manager, account executive, whatever you want to call them, retention, relationship, cross sell, et cetera. You have your hunter killers, right, your producers. And those are the two traditional spots.

And I think what we've kind of quasi-pineered at Rogue and I think really perfected over my career, and this is what I'm teaching, is that there is this third position called a closer who isn't going to be great outbound, but is two sales-oriented for an account manager, they sit in the middle and just close inbound business. And now what you get, dude, and this is what I saw, this is what I saw, Rogan, I've seen at some of my coaching clients, is you get, and if you're listening at home, you can't see this really awesome graphic that I'm doing with my hand. But like you get this consistent blow of business that just kind of slowly creeps up as you create content and you get, you know, you get more integrated into different referral sources,

et cetera. And this baseline of production that you can count on, right, like taxes, you know, you get this baseline growth, nice and steady, you know, whatever. And then on then all of a sudden, those big hits from your producers are like, whoa. You know what I mean? We had a huge month this month, you know? And that's kind of what I've been trying to advocate is that the stuff you're teaching is fucking gold. But we're missing this foundational piece.

And that's what I'm trying to teach people. Well, I, man, when you say we're missing this foundation piece, I don't know, what is it? 0.001 agencies have people like that. Like here's what I normally see, Ryan. I'll have like an agency that says, man, you know, we want our producers going out. after bigger accounts. I'm like, okay, so we create what's called a small business unit because we just say, okay, we're going to, now we're going to have our producers only get paid on these

accounts going forward. And so we're going to then put all these accounts in the small business unit. Well, great. Who's going to, like, close those? Who's going to do that? Oh, we're just going to have the CSR. Really? Then just say goodbye to about 70% of that business over the next couple of years because, like,

your account manager is an account manager. They are not a closer. They can't close renewals like a producer could. So I just feel like what you're saying in regards to that, small business, if you will, I'll just call it that small business, closer inbound marketing, yes. Like it can be an absolute gold mine to an agency. And most agencies don't have it. That's why I said like 0.001.

Yeah. So I think there's some. So I think, yeah, I agree with you. That percentage is probably who actually classify and have the right person in that seat today. However, I do think there are a lot of these people out here. And what you hear is, Charles, I got this guy. Man, he sounded great in his interview. And he just won't pick up the phone, man.

He just won't pick up the phone. And then you talk to him and you're like, you know, and first impression is probably the same. Jesus guy seems dynamic and he seems smart and he knows the business. What's the issue? And now we get into this psychology if he won't, blah, blah, blah. And come to find out, Monster, just for whatever reason, has the outbound hiccups, right? The outbound, whatever it is.

that just terrifies some people. And how I know this is, today, I'll make an outbound call. But I'm 18 years into my career. And now I'm past 40, so I don't give a fuck what people think anymore. Right? You hit 40, you don't give a crap. So, like, I've hit that age, so I'm good. But like, at 25, 20, well, how old was I when I started?

26. Dude, it would, it would, literally, I would have a physical reaction in my arm to picking up the phone to I'd be like, my hand would literally be like shaking when I would go to pick up the phone. It's like, I could close. all day long, but outbound, man, I was terrible. So like, I think that, I think two things. I think one, we have some producers who we think aren't good producers, but actually would make amazing closers.

And I think, and the other thing, and this is what we really started to do towards the end, was every new producer, regardless of I thought, now, if they were coming over to the big book of business, different. But let's, but anybody who wasn't coming over with a book of business, even if we thought they were a gangster killer. They started in the closer position. And we watched how they handled things, how they got used to the system, how they, you know, whatever.

And then we would either rapidly promote them or, you know, then we would, you know, figure everything out. And it creates like a proving ground to a certain extent. You got to put people in their skill set at the end of the day, right? Yeah. Because here's the thing, like, and I think I was just sort of fortuitous, that the two agencies that I went to work with, I never input. an app in the system ever in my life. Like, I've never processed a cert. I couldn't do it a cord app inside

the system. I never had a password. You know what? And I'm grateful because if I did, I probably would acquit that thing. And I was something else because I am not that kind of guy. So that's not my skill set. Yeah, yeah. You know, like you're finding these people like, yeah, there's people that work at a clothing store who can close somebody, a customer who walks in. But they're not going to go out and find customers to come in and buy some jeans. Like different, completely different skill set. So yes, Like I just feel that there's whatever you might call a small agency. Let's just say it's like a million bucks of revenue or less. We'll just define it that way.

A million bucks or less. What you're saying, if I didn't have any producers who are outbound, you could create a mammoth pot of gold into an agency if we could set up an inbound marketing system and get these people to close business. Yeah. Because it can be done in a number of different ways. But having that is a skill set. I do think, dude, they need, they also.

need very much, I think every agency needs at least two purgers. Take that with a broad stroke, right? We're best practicing and, you know, whatever. Just just take that comment with a broad stroke, everyone that's listening before I get bombarded with, we can't afford, you know, whatever. Yeah. I think in a best case scenario, every agency, say over 500,000 in revenue, because under that, you probably just need one or whatever, but should have one outbound and one inbound because in the outbound has a minimum threshold similar to what you're talking about, right? So they're doing the things you're talking about. They're building that micro niche. Hopefully it's associated with what the agency likes and rights, et cetera.

Because here's what happens with the inbound guys is that you call me and you're that talent contractor and you're 250,000 in premium, right? And you're going to have some vehicles and all the stuff. If I as the inbound closer try to take that account, it's going to bog the entire system down. That closer position is a problem solver. And people misconstrue what I'm saying

because they get into monoline and whatever. And there's a whole system for making sure that they don't renew monoline because I completely agree. The numbers are unavoidable. But they have to know what you're teaching. I firmly agree because that, That big account comes in, that closer needs to kick that to the guy that you're training

or woman that you're training because like they're the ones who know, I know the questions to ask. I know how to work with supplementals. I have the space in my schedule. And they'll go out and see them, right? Different world. Yes. Now you're on the road. You might not even be in the office ever, right?

You could say, hey, dude, where are you? I'm in, you know, wherever. Hey, 20 minutes from you. I just got an inbound call. I told the guy you can stop in. Now they're going over. Different world, yeah. Yeah, and that given tape.

And if I can take it this step further, then let's slip the coin. Because I'm going to talk to one of my clients in about an hour and a half from now. And I already know the conversation and it's going to frustrate me to death because he's at an agency that has a few producers, but he has to also handle stuff that comes in inbound. Yeah. frustrates me to no end because we have his entire process set up and he's focusing. He's like, well, Charles, I got to do like these quotes for these, you know, this small little restaurant and like, man, I just want to put the own agency owner in a headlock

and just like, you know, punch him in the nose a few times because it's like he's just killing his own agency on how he's setting it up. So from that standpoint, that's why the agency needs a small business unit of closers so that the producer who's going out and writing the bigger accounts does not have to waste his or her time doing that because one, they don't even know all the markets, which is another issue, right? I mean, you get all these accounts that are coming in. You don't know the market, so you really have to spend some time, which wastes time for being able to do your outbound prospecting. So it is

a catch-22 that, frankly, is a plague to insurance agencies. And I feel like that's why it is, like, one of the things that needs to get figured out, because as soon as agencies can figure out how to get a team of closers to do that. On the inbound, man, skyrocket hockey stick

profitability to the agency. I completely agree. But I also would tell you, like, just kind of going back maybe to the Micronage for a moment, is that. Yeah, yeah. you know, there's ways that a producer can do this, but also agencies, because I would say, you know, you only have so much time in the data prospect. And so that means like making phone calls or whatever it's going to be doing a walk-in visit, driving somewhere. That just takes time.

So I usually have my producers work on three different types of buckets. I do an alpha bucket, a beta bucket, and omega bucket. Like your alpha bucket is your primary types of accounts you're going to go after. That's your main micro-nitch. Whatever your goal is, 100 grand of new business, 150, like we're going to hit that in the alpha. The beta bucket, though, is another micronitch of stuff we're going to go after. And I'm not going to probably waste my time making phone calls on it. I'm just going to be doing email marketing.

I'm only doing email marketing to that particular beta group with my micro niche brochures and branding and different things like that. And then when I get somebody to that is interested, then when they reply, I say, I want to know some more. Great. I'll set it up. But I don't spend my time doing my main prospecting part for that. That's kind of my beta bucket.

And then the Omega bucket is usually like the really big account. that might not even be in any of my prospect list. They're just local. They're really huge accounts local where I can actually go and walk into those accounts. I just feel like that is a smart way in which to do business. Having an agency that has, like what you're talking about, doing the inbound, is a completely different agency, a completely different structure, a completely different set of skills for the people. It's a different comp. It has to be.

Yeah. You can't comp to people exactly. You have to comp them differently, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I love the three buckets, dude. And I think I'm really glad that in your process, because, you know, I think other people who are producer coaches tend to shy away from digital prospecting. Not that they're against it, but it's not they don't necessarily advocate for it. And that's not a knock.

It's just a difference of opinion. I love your beta bucket too because, like, some days, when I did cold call, it's very taxing, even if you're good at it. Like, even if you're used to it, it's taxing. And sometimes- You only do it for so long, right? How long are you to make cold calls before, like, you're dead? Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's a pure drain out of your body.

Now, granted, if someone picks up the phone and they're like, hey, you know, I've got a $100,000 account you. You want me to be a BOR it over to you? You know, yeah, maybe get some energy there. But, you know, most days, it's very taxing. And, you know, one of the things that we did at Rogue as well was we used loom and we did outbound cold call like one to one hold email prospecting using loom videos and and a flyer and we found that to be now again email delivery you know whatever there's all the

nuances um but i found that let's say a producer could make let's say they can make 30 cold calls in a day and they were drained right if you go over 30 they could do 30 and let's just say for whatever reason, maybe it's 50, maybe it's whatever. But let's just say they could do 30 in their drain on that. What they could still do and have the energy for was maybe then send out 10, 15, 20 loom videos because it doesn't seem to drain the energy as much from the individual, which now all a sudden you're getting an extra 15, 20 touches that you didn't, you wouldn't normally get, right?

And I love that. And the reluctance isn't there because you're not seeing people, people, aren't actually rejecting you like they would if you were doing a walk-in visit or a cold call. Yeah, yeah. So it rejects you. All they do is just delete it and you don't even know, right? So it's just, I think, a completely different way in which to prospect. Yeah.

Yeah. I always equated it to like putting little landmines out there where, you know, you're just putting these things out there, putting them in their LinkedIn, you're putting them in their email. You know, they're very personalized. And then all of a sudden, you know, and I'd say, guys, this is going to happen. Just be ready for this. Like, you're going to all of a sudden, it might go, they might go two weeks without open. in your email. Then all of a sudden you're going to get that notification from Loom. Hey, so-and-so just watched

your video. Hey, so-and-so just watched your video three times. Hey, so-and-so just watch your video three times and forwarded it to someone else in their organization. Pick up the phone. And that shit starts happening. Which is, man, that's the beauty of email, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, because like a cold call, they're going to delete that thing for the most part. It's rare they're ever going to go back and listen to it. But I know myself, like I have emails that are close to a year old. maybe like a year and a half, I'm eventually going to get to it. I just,

it's not yet, right? So send that email, your prospect will leave it there until they come up for renewal in six months. I just know that that happens all the time. Yeah. Dude, I'm hearing 26 emails right now.

Cold calls gone. A walk-in visit's gone. But the email will sit there. Yeah. I'm carrying 26 emails right now that just, you know, there are things I want to get to eventually. It's like a to-do list.

It stays there, man. It stays there. I know all the efficiency and organization nerds who's listening are like having a panic attack hearing that we're carrying over emails, or using our emails to do list. But no, I love it, dude. I think that I think this marriage, this flow of outbound, I think you need these people. You know, I think, you know, you have strong-willed, energetic, hungry, gals and guys who want to go out, who want to write business. You have to have them. they are very energizing to an agency too,

especially if you create a culture where they are not, you know, holier than thou, they're very energizing to an agency, especially when you bring in a whale account. I found that a lot, and I'm sure your people do too. Like, like when one of our,

when one of our outbound people would bring in like a big account into rogue, even the people who had nothing to do with client service, you could just see everybody would be, oh, so and so, we're 250,000, like, oh, yeah. Everyone was like, you know, their heads bobbing, they're getting jacked up because, you know, it feels good to have a nice win. And, you know, and then the same thing, but on an account number basis for the inbound people, right?

They'd be like, oh, you know, you know, so-and-so wrote 27 accounts this month or 40, you know, I think our biggest month by an individual producer was 63 individual accounts that one producer wrote. And like- In a month? In a month. Yeah, yeah. Dude, that's crazy. That's a lot. Yeah, 270,000. All commercial?

All commercial accounts? Yeah, commercial. Yeah, we only wrote commercial I wrote. Yeah, it was, you know, and he just worked the process. Like he was the true believer. And everyone was funny. That month changed the game for us because when, because he worked the process. And when he hit those numbers and everyone won what, how did he do it?

And I was like, surprisingly, he's working the process. I've been teaching you guys. Follow the rules. Yeah, then everyone started to work in the process. And we started seeing things as well. But, you know, and then you have your account. you just said, like I just had a conversation with somebody who said his largest client is now 600,000 of commission. It started out like it was around five grand, which is still a decent size account,

right? But like those accounts that you're writing in that small business, you never know. Like they just might take off. Dude, small accounts become big accounts. They do. Yeah, they absolutely do. On my, on my grave, you know, maybe on the back, it'll say, you know, small accounts become big accounts like Ryan advocating for small business insurance for 20 years. Everyone has been telling me it's I'll tell you when I when I first started that agency, I had this chip on my shoulder around the ID. So I, you know, I've been to, I can't even tell you how many conferences I've been to.

I've spoke. I counted the other day. I'm north of 300 speaking engagements in the industry now. I don't, it's somewhere like between 305 and 315. I can't figure out. I went back as far as I could in my email and tried to figure it out. It doesn't matter. I've heard so many times, I can't even wrap my head around how many times I've heard

small business insurance isn't profitable. Can't make a margin on small business insurance. And I was like, you know what? I don't believe that to be true. I just feel like we haven't been doing it probably. And that's for the whole human optimist. Long compensation structure, right? Can't pay somebody 50% and make it, make it profitable.

Can't be doing that. Or you have to, and I'll tell you what we decided to do, what ultimately worked. And I'm not going to give the percentages because I don't want to give away. whatever for people. But what we ended up doing was over indexing on new business commission and then just giving a trickle on renewals, which forced our math to, we really had to focus on retention,

which we did. And I tell you, for the volume that we were doing, our retention was, it was slightly above industry averages, but well above other digital competitors. That doesn't matter today. But my point is that's how we got there was we said,

look, I'm going to feed you. I have a machine. It's me and so-and-so in our process, and we're going to feed you stuff. So you just close, close, close, close, close, close. You're going to get paid, you know, a base that keeps you alive, this really nice new business. And over time, you're going to build up this little growing asset.

And that's where I started talking about incentives dictate action. Like when we don't understand, I feel like, and I'm super interested in your take and how you, and just around compensation and thinking through this. But like, it took me a long time to understand how misaligned incentives, misaligned action to the agency. So if you wanted people to write new business, you have to incentivize new business. If you want people to be bought into this, you have to incentivize them around that thing. I don't always mean straight monetary compensation.

But if your people oftentimes are not taking the actions you would like them to take, the first place I would start is in how are you incentivizing them? Like what are the incentives that you're putting in front of them? They might be doing an amazing job just to a set of incentives that you didn't necessarily understand, that you were incentivizing and to do these things you didn't want them to do. That's my point there.

So I love your thought. You know, a gal comes to you. She's like, Charles, this is what I want to do, blah, blah,

I'm negotiating or this is what they're, like how do you talk them through if you're going to do this and under the assumption you're a hard worker and you're going to be successful, how should agency, let's frame it from the standpoint

of agency principles, ownership, how should they be thinking about bringing in and compensating a producer that would work with you doing your system. How should they think about that? Okay. Well, I'll try and answer a few different ways, okay?

If I'm talking to a producer, you know, and if they're my client, right, I'm going to try and tell them, you know, bigger splits, right, after all of a sudden done. But if we're looking at from the agency ownership perspective, here's the kind of commission split that I like. If I was going to start an agency today, what I would likely do is I would probably pay producers 65% up front, 10 to 15% in renewal. I feel like a four to five times that on the front end, it's going to keep them focused on

new business. Yes. The problem that I see is like, you know, agencies that have like a 30-30 split. I don't have any incentive. They're like, go out and write new business then. I'm just, I'll get my book where I'm happy. I'm good. You know, but if I have a really high commission split up front, this is good for a couple

of different reasons. One, most agents don't stick in an agency very long. more. Okay. So I want them to put as much business on the book as possible so that when they leave, great, I've already got it on the books. So now I'm keeping 100% of it now that they're gone, right? So I'm looking at it from that perspective. If they stick around, great. I want them to stick around if they're going to be writing a lot of business. But at the end of the day, worst case scenario, they write some business. Then they leave. I've got it on the books. I just feel like that is a pretty good model for anything that you're kind of talking about, sort of that sort of inside closer. We're going to

bring some accounts. Larger accounts, I might have a different commission split on anything that was a certain commission above, just because I know that it's going to take that person's time more. Like, I've had accounts where I wrote them, I never saw the shirt, never. Like, I just, I have an example of when that was 55,000 of commission. I literally never saw them. It's just, it was always by email, probably the most, you know, profitable thing I ever had, never had to touch. It's just like done. But then there are others where just high touch. So, I like the fact of having a very high commission split up front, certainly for what I would feel are non-tested agents. They're just not tested yet.

They're going to make a small, as you talked about, a salary to begin with, but I'm going to give them the incentive to go out and write the business that I want. And then they're going to have like a small little book that they're making over the course of time. But if I'm a producer knowing what I know today, that would never work for me. if I'm looking at trying to build a book of business. Now, at the same time, if I had a producer who was, you know, writing $200,000 a year in new business commission, making 60% on the front end, maybe making 10 or 15% on the back end,

they're still going to make a whole lot of money doing that. So it just kind of depends upon the person. So I feel like it's one of those things where it depends upon the individual agency and what their goals are going forward. Yeah, I think, yeah, this is, and I think that's the perfect way to conclude it is that we all have, maybe like our preferred scenarios, but those preferred scenarios always come with the caveat of and this is how I would set up service and this is what I would expect, you know, them.

So, you know, and I agree with you. I think that if you over index on renewal commission on small business or personal lines accounts, you disincentivize new business growth, hardcore, hardcore. And the flip side of that, when I look at say, say a producer comes in and they and they write that $55,000 account revenue account, I want you touching that account, right? Like, I want you, I want you incentivized to make sure that I'm getting that 55K every year. So in order to do that, you know, we have a higher retention. And maybe you say, look, I'm good, Charles, with you having 25 accounts.

If those 25 accounts bring in $2 million in revenue, you know, I'm just making them a number, right? Rock and roll. You can sit. I mean, this is the other thing I don't understand. People get upset. I've heard people, I shouldn't say, I've heard principles, and this is sometimes in larger regional or super regional agencies, they get upset with a lack of new business production from

producers who have these multi-million dollar revenue books. I don't understand that. I was waiting for you because I wanted to like say that. You just hit it. Ryan, this is it. You know what I hear all the time? We've got 10 producers, but four of them are basically semi-retired. They're not writing any new business anymore.

immediately what I know is that they have a bad compensation model. That's what I know. If they had a good compensation model, that wouldn't be happening any longer. It's that they've got people who've got very comfortable because now they've got a really big sort of renewal split. I mean, granted, look, if I'm a producer and that's all I am, I want a really high renewal split. So what?

I just want it because that's where I'm at. But if I'm an agency owner and I do that, then I'm basically handcuffing my agency in the future. That's what you're doing. Or you just have to say, I'm going to have to build a bigger team, right? So let's say, let's say you make that mistake because I have seen this. I saw, I was not, I wasn't being asked my, I was being asked my opinion, but it wasn't in a consulting role. I was speaking and that the president of this regional agency came over and said, hey, blah, blah, blah.

And he had three producers all with seven figure revenue books who had 50, 50 splits. And none of them were producing new business. And I said, I said, well, why would they produce new business? all of them are making between 500 and 750K every year for keeping their buddy. Now they're buddies, you know, they're going golfing and they're taking them on trips and they're doing all these things together. Only in America, man, only in America. Yeah.

And I'm like, that, you know, why would they? And he's like, I know, what do I do? And I said, dude, just hire more people. Do you, like, is the other 50% profitable for you? Yes. Okay. So what you just told me is you have this amount of revenue locked in. you're not going to get anymore.

I would actually say, don't screw with that, right? Yeah, grandfathered that in and switch it for the next. Absolutely. It's what it is. Yep. Now hire three more guys or gal, you know, whatever. Hopefully people at home know I don't do the woke thing and I mean everybody, not just guys. And just give them a revenue split that incentivize what you want, which is growth.

And it was funny. And I'm not knocking this opinion. He was frustrated, not just at the producers. He was frustrated the situation. and I was just like, dude, don't mess with it. We're going to change. You have three guys with seven figure revenue books and you're going to, with their commission splits. No, you don't change it.

That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I was like, count that, count that is good, solid, foundational revenue that you're going to have that you can build on and then just go hire some more people. Yep, 100%. Got to do it. I love it. Dude, this has been an awesome conversation. It always is when you come on the show. I'm so glad we could hash this out.

I'm going to try to come up with a super close. like aggressive title that will get people to click and then listen to this wonderful conversation that we had. I appreciate the work you do. I love your perspective, man. I also love, and I'll just, I'll say this. I know it's not relevant to the insurance side, but I love how much and how vocal you are with your faith and how much you share it.

I think that that is tremendous. I think our world needs more people who are vocal and up front about their faith in a way that, you know, I've never found you to be pushy. it's just here's who I am and what I believe I love that. I'm so happy that you do that, happy for you. And I hope more people who have faith will continue to share it and follow your example. So with all that being said, how do people get a hold of you? If they're interested in your program, how do they join, how do they learn more?

Where do they go? Yeah, well, definitely check me out on LinkedIn. Charles Speck, that's where I spend the vault of my time for business. But go to permission sales.com. That's where you're going to see everything. The Mastermind Digital Course, one-on-one coaching. I'm serving as a chief sales officer for a lot of agencies. I'll be able to help you with the outbound.

And who knows, maybe Ryan and I can collab. He'll do the inbound and I'll do the outbound. And we'll get you guys to be a million dollar more agency real quick. But yeah, LinkedIn or permission sales.com. Super fun, dude. Appreciate the hell out of you. Cool. Thanks, man.

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