Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Rogue Risk 2021

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyThe New Year is always filled with possibilities and opportunities. In this episode of The Show we breakdown 2020 and share Rogue Risk's plans for world domination in 2021. Get more: https://ryanhanley.com/--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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It is December 21st, 7.45 a.m. December 21st. And while most of the episodes that are released for this show are long-tail episodes, meaning, like the last episode that I did with Peplajah, where we talked about branding and brand strategy and the importance of creating discerning emotions in your potential clients in order to attract them to your brand and why moving forward our brand is becoming more and more valuable if not as valuable as the service that we actually provide and I know for some of you that may seem like a foreign concept but if you go back and listen to that episode you get a better feel that episode is a long tail episode

meaning you listen to that episode of the show and it'll be just as relevant as a year from now or two years from now as it was today for the most part. Many of the tactics and strategies will apply. That's not what we're going to do today. Today I want to kind of take this moment in time

and talk a little bit about, you know, just recapping a little 2020, but moving into 2021 where I'm going with Rogue Green. risk. And, you know, I share these things with you guys because just from feedback, I know a lot of you have similar questions, concerns. I know we all, as agency owners, as insurance professionals, struggle with a lot of the same concepts, with a lot of the same, you know, just the same things that we all deal with every day. And I share where I'm at right now at this moment and what

20, 21 is going to look like for rogue risk, only to try to help give you context. And maybe if you can find some things in there that you can use in your own agency or just ways that maybe ideas that you hadn't thought about or whatever, maybe resources you hadn't considered, I think, you know, that's why I like to put these episodes out there, just to maybe let you know that you're not alone. And it also does help me frame my own thoughts too. So maybe it is self-serving to a certain extent. So I have a few things that I want to go through.

But basically the point of this episode is to kind of share with you what I want Rogue Risk 2021 to look like that is different from Rogue Risk 2020. Now, I've done a lot of, you probably realize that recently I haven't published as many episodes of this show. That has been tactical. I've been doing a lot of planning. I've been doing a lot of, you know, kind of brainstorming, workshopping, whiteboarding, whatever you want to call it, to really refocus what I want this agency to be. And, you know, the COVID and everything has impacted people so much. And obviously starting my agency seven days before the zombie apocalypse.

You know, we officially launched March 9th of 2020 on March 16th of 2020. on March 16th of 2020, the state of New York was shut down with many other places. So I know all of us are hidden and I'm not unique in that way, but it definitely threw my strategy of going after commercial lines business, particularly focused on workers' comp, it just flipped it right on its head. And, you know, I think I may have overreacted in many ways. And I actually have an episode of the show, if you go back a few where I talked about some of the things that, you know, some of the mistakes that I made,

chasing technology, losing focus on what I wanted the core of Rogue to be. I think I moved into personal lines a little too quickly. Not to Personal Lines isn't important to the company. It certainly is. But I always, you know, Rogue was built to be a commercial focused agency. And when COVID hit, I stepped away from that because a lot of businesses were, you know, business in general, you know, especially small, the medium size, business was flipped on its head. No one had any idea what was going on. And cold calling into

businesses during COVID, you know, the hardcore teeth of COVID didn't really seem like an appropriate maneuver or super, super good way to introduce myself to potential clients. So I positioned and transitioned, pivoted whatever you want to call it to personal lines. And that was good, except I don't, you know, I kind of, one of the things about roguerous that's interesting, and you've probably heard me say this before, but it's worth noting again, was I drastically underestimated the double scratch nature of my startup. And what I mean by that is when most people start scratch, the first thing they do is call all their friends and family

and the people that went to high school with and the people went to college with and the people that played golf with. and they get them to do their insurance with them. And it's a nice jump-off point, right? It gives you a solid base, people you know, people that'll put up with some of the hiccups of being a new scratch agency. And then you grow from there, right? Referrals and referral partners and whatever.

Well, my wife and the Murray Group writes all of my friends and family. They write all my golf buddies. They write all my buddies from college. They write all my buddies from high school. because up until a year ago, so 14 years of my insurance career, I would just refer everyone to the Murray Group. Even when I wasn't working there, I'd just be like, call my wife. She's the best. And my wife is the best. So, you know, it made sense. But when I went to start Rogue, I drastically underestimated the impact of that. Every client I have, except for a few exceptions, is someone I didn't know before March 9th.

Part of that makes me proud that, you know, I've done what we've been able to do all things considered. But there's this other side of me that's like, whof, that has been a challenge. So, you know, starting, we'll call it double scratch and then having COVID hit, pivoting into personal lines too early. So I really didn't have anyone to write in personal lines. I mean, so much of personal lines either comes from COIs, which I hadn't had time. to develop yet or people you know which are already with the Murray Group so I kind of made this pivot into personal lines that's where I'm trying to go with this story I made this pivot into personal lines only to find that there was like nothing there it was like a barren sea and while I've

scratched and scraped and and dug up and bought leads and different stuff like that is a way to get in front of people you know it is personal lines has been a struggle and ultimately it's always been commercial lines that I've been most interested in and where I see what I'm trying to build with rogue where I see the most value is in commercial lines. So that all being said, the first big, I don't want to say pivot, but realignment for rogue risk in 2021 is the complete refocusing and targeting on commercial lines. Narrowing that down further, it's extending the expertise and knowledge that I have in comp, the market access that I have in comp, the tools and resources that I've built to support businesses and their workers' compensation insurance and deploy

the program that I call Rogris 365, deploy that into the marketplace with a dynamic and aggressive campaign, we'll call it. Not just marketing campaign, just being incredible strategically and focused on putting Rogris 365 in front of the people that we can help, which are high mod businesses where I think the most opportunity lies for us. And training an army of producers to deliver Rogris 365 to the marketplace and supporting them with the back-end resources, the tools, and again, the market access that I've been able to develop to help businesses with high mods, get those mods down and be safer, healthier, more productive, efficient organizations, which allows us to differentiate ourselves in the

market, be a successful business, and do what I feel is really important and powerful work for small businesses and what is one of the more trying times, certainly the most trying time for small business in my lifetime, you know, everything that's going on. And I think that that's, that is the goal. So what does that mean? That means saying no to stuff. I am incredibly poor at saying no to things. I say yes to just about everything.

I've always just said, my philosophy has always been say yes to as many things as you can and let serendipity run its course. That has worked out well for me in some ways. but as the leader of a business, I don't know that that continues to be the best methodology. And so what does that mean? As a thought leader, as a speaker, as a content creator, I think you say yes to everything. I think you say yes to every opportunity. Oh, you want me to do a 15-minute pick my brain call?

Yes. Oh, you want me to do this event down in Florida for $1,000 less than my fee because you seem like a nice person, well, we can figure something out. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thought leader, content creator, connector, that those roles, saying yes to everything creates a karmic advantage in the universe that you'll never be able to completely attach an ROI to, but I can tell you from first-hand experience presents itself in ways that you would have never thought possible, very positive ways. And sure, do you find yourself doing things that you don't ultimately want to do sometimes? Yes, but do you also find yourself in situations and in rooms that maybe you

would have never found yourself in otherwise? Absolutely. And I'm very proud that that's been my methodology. It's served me incredibly well and many of you listening to this are connections and more than connections, your friends, even though we probably don't see each other very often. You know, connections online and people who I've shared time with and thoughts with. because I say yes to everything. As the leader of Roe Grisk and now an insurance agency and an insurance agency with incredibly large ambitions for the next three to five years,

I don't know that that methodology remains the best course of action. I just think that my willingness to go wide has prevented me from going deep and early on in any business's life, deep is the quickest way to success. I think you have to be deep and wide long term, but it's incredibly difficult to do both unless you are highly leveraged or capitalized. I am neither. So I have to pick deep or wide.

And truthfully, you know, you've got to get to escape velocity. You have to get to that point. I think as a scratch agency. And again, some of you listening have done this, but this is just my self-reflection. You have to get to that point where you aren't scrambling every day for the next buck to pay the bills

because it doesn't allow you to execute on your plan the way that you should. So we're efforting towards that. And I would say all things considered, I'm happy with where we are. I think that there's been, you know, we've, I've written more accounts in the last seven months of a size that I never even considered at the Murray Group after working there for eight years. So my overall confidence, my ability to present and deliver and sell into larger accounts, my ability to connect with people who are willing to refer larger accounts is exponentially greater today. than it was back when I worked for the Murray Group, and that's an advantage.

But have to get to escape velocity because the truth is, in the grand scheme of things, like I'm not a David Carruthers. I'm not a cold-blooded killer producer. I'm just not. I have the self-awareness to know that of all the skills that I do have, you know, that wake up in the morning and salivate at the opportunity to, you know, cold call someone and do a cold drop or, you know, get another, you know, get some wet ink on another piece of paper, that's not what wakes me up in the morning. I do, you know, obviously

nothing happens until there's a sale and you have to be able to put business on the books or you don't have a business. I mean, that's, I'm not diminishing that fact. But there are people who wake up every day and they are salespeople. And I, that's not me per se. And I think that I'm fine with that realization. I think the self-awareness to know that I'm never going to be a cold-blooded killer. Like some of you who are listening to this from a pure sales perspective, it gives me the ability to focus on the things that I am good at and then go out and recruit and find the cold-blooded killers who will come in and work this process that I know works and let me do the things that I'm good at, which are branding, relationship-building, strategy. process, systems, those are the things that really excite me. I mean, you know, even going back to like my agency nation days, the reason the agency

nation worked for me, the reason that I used to wake up at 5 a.m. in the morning and create content for agency nation was because I loved putting you guys into positions to win. That's really, you know, I don't know if it's a positive or a negative in my life. It certainly isn't helping me monetarily. at this exact moment. But, you know, I get so much more joy and satisfaction in life helping others be successful than I do in my own success, if that makes sense. That's a really tough thing to wrap my head around.

It's taking me a long time because, you know, there's, I'm like anybody else. Like, I look at other people in our space and I get jealous of what they have and envious of the positions they find themselves in. And, you know, that doesn't, that's not to say that I'm not happy for people or that I'm upset with where I am. But I think to myself like, geez, if only I had solely focused on this thing for this amount of time, man, I could be in a much better position. You know, I'd be, you know, I don't peel my wife off any cash right now. It's difficult to be a 39-year-old guy. Nothing, nothing, you know, I don't mean to be offensive towards women, but, you know, dudes just tend to have egos, and I can't help that I have my own.

And to not be able to peel off cash for my wife on a monthly basis and is difficult. You know, that's a difficult thing emotionally. So you think about that and, you know, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, it's not always going to be that way. But, you know, day to day, that doesn't feel good. So I often will say to myself, like, why am I not in this position or look at this person? geez, if only my parents had handed me that opportunity that they have, you know, God, look, what would I be able to do with that?

But those, you know, and, but those aren't, that's not, one, that's not my reality. Two, I personal, personal achievement, like, like my personal achievement has never been my primary motivating factor. And it's probably why I'm not an incredible salesperson. like cold-blooded killer type salesperson. I love watching my clients be successful. I love, you know, when I can hand somebody a connection or a new product or a process that helps them be successful.

And that realization is really what is going to drive my actions in 2021. So this is a long-winded way of saying, I need to sell as much as I can until I don't have to sell anymore and I can put other people in a position to sell Roegris 365. Not because I think sales is below me, but because sales takes energy away from me and there is plenty of people who get energy from sales and I want to put them in a position to be successful because what gives me energy is building the systems, process, products, messaging around people so they can be successful. If I can wake up in the morning and know that there's someone on my team,

you know, we've put a new process in place that helps them be 5x more efficient or productive or just in general feel more satisfaction in their own job, give them a little more responsibility, whatever. Those are the things that add energy to me as a human. And as a byproduct of that, you know, I mean, obviously coming out of agency nation, And we were on a wonderful trajectory, I think, because while that thought process tends to have lagging results, when the results come, I think they tend to have a logarithmic impact on the business versus the traditional, you know, more self-oriented growth structure, which is, it tends to have more linear growth. So, you know, okay, so this is a long-winded way of saying that Rogrisk in 2021 is going to be about building out my team with a dogged, dogged focus on Rogris 365, the branding around that program, the channels in which we drive business into that program, the type of accounts that we target, and it's going to be saying no to business that doesn't fit that those tariff. targets because one of the things that I'm struggling with today is early on I wrote everything

that came in. Well, geez, I don't, I'm not an expert in all these different lines of business. I'm not an expert in some of these issues, you know, having to take an hour out of my day to figure out different, you know, why this is happening on this account or how does this work or what happens over here, that takes me away from the selling piece. And, you know, and it comes back to, it's not focused. If it were all similar products, similar veins, then I would be able to more quickly pick up the nuances of the product, of the coverages, of how everything works, and push forward.

But right now, every fire is a brand new fire that I don't know how to put out and I have to learn. And that, you know, that's not what I want the agency to be because it doesn't allow me to deliver on the value proposition. Right? If rogue risk is a human optimized agency, then the goal of optimizing your humans is to deliver more value. And if I'm constantly trying to put out fires

because I don't know how to do things because I'm doing too many different things inside the agency, that is, then you're not able to deliver on that promise. and it kills me that, you know, we're not at the product delivery level that I would like us to be at. So, okay. So what are we actually doing? So we're focused in on Rogris 365. A big part of that is defining goals.

Brent Kelly has written a couple of wonderful articles recently. One was called the 7Ps of agency success. And the other had to do with, hold on, I can pull it up here. The other had to do with bridging the performance gap. Both are on LinkedIn. If you go to Brent Kelly's LinkedIn and look at his articles or just maybe scroll through his recent posts, you'll see it looks like one was posted in November 29th

and the other was published on December 20th of this year. Both are wonderful. I've printed them both out and have read through them and taken notes. But in there, Brent outlines, especially the bridging the performance gap because that's what's happening. I think at Rogue is I have a very clear vision of how I want to deliver this product and we're not delivering it. Certainly not as well or as consistently as I would like and how do we get there.

So the first thing that Brent wrote in the bridging the performance gap was have meaningful and achievable goals. So I and he said don't be a wanderer basically. I'm paraphrasing Brent. And if you don't know Brent, have you been living? living under a rock. And two, Brent works with Roger Sikkins, at Sikkins, and he's just an incredible thought leader when it comes to agency success, leadership success, and I highly recommend that you follow him on LinkedIn if you are not and just get in his ecosystem. So I am a wanderer. I've always just been of the, I've always struggled with goals because I was like, we're going to do as much as we possibly can.

Like, what is the point of a goal if, if, if, if all we're going to do is work as hard as we can and what happens, happens, right? Like, but I know that that is the wrong way to think because it gives you easy excuses. It gives you outs. It gives you, you know, you can pull the rip cord and say, ah, today I just don't feel like working, you know, I, you know, whatever. I'm a little tired. But when you have a goal that you have to hit that is important to your business and that

you're holding yourself accountable to that goal, then you do the things necessary to reach that goal, even if they're uncomfortable or even if you're tired or even if it's not something that you want to do in that moment, you push through. I am a wanderer. And what I realized, again, trying to be incredibly self-aware, is that because of my predisposition to creating content and that kind of stuff,

instead of doing some things that are uncomfortable for me but important, I would write a blog post. or do a video. Now, granted, I do not take this as that I don't believe in video marketing or content creation because I do. You know, we're averaging right now three to four inbound leads off of YouTube a day. Take that in for a second. I've been in, you know, we've been in business since March 9th and we're just dominating YouTube already because you guys aren't truthfully. You know, take that as a slap across the face. I've been telling you guys to do YouTube videos for 12 years, 15 years, hour long I've been doing this, and most of you have not done

that. So in nine months or 10 months, whatever it's been, I've probably outpaced all of you, and you should be ashamed of that if creating content and educating people is important to you, because this isn't rocket science. I am not a rocket scientist. I basically cheated my way through college because I had smart friends and nothing that I do is something that you can't do. So there we go. That's my hardcore moment for you, at least for the minute. So putting some goals in place. So what are those goals going to be?

I'm taking this time these next two weeks between now the Christmas holidays coming up and then New Year's, cleaning up a lot of stuff in the business and ultimately doing some more planning. But Gordon Coyle, who runs a great agency, he and I have been talking and working through, we work in kind of similar, we go after similar accounts, different markets, and, you know, we've been talking a little bit. We actually took Benjamin Dennehe's telephone prospecting course together. And I don't know. if you've heard of Benjamin, he's awesome sales guy, the UK's most hated sales trainer. He was on Cass's podcast.

He's awesome. Kind of pissed me off that cast got to interview him before I did. But we took that class together and I saw him in there. We both show up. It's like a Monday afternoon and there he is too. So we've been talking about that class and stuff and I let him know what my goal was. And I could tell by his reaction that he was, he was not. impressed with my goal. And I mean that the most positive sense. I mean, Gordon's a great guy.

So he basically said that should not be your goal. Your goal should be this. And it was about five times bigger than what I had set. So I will let you guys know what my goal is once I said it. But I just wanted to share with you that moving into, you know, January 1st of 2021, I will have a clear goal. I will absolutely have a goal for this agency. for both my personal production and for the agency's production and what those goals will be. And obviously, the next point that Brent shares in his article, which is the next logical step is, I will have a process, a clear and consistent process that gets us to what that needs to be. Because I know what it is.

When I've worked the process, the process has worked. That is the crazy part. I mean, that is, oh, why are we so nuts? Like, I know, you know, Carruthers taught me this process for the most part. You know what I mean? And killing commercial, I haven't done a formal video testimonial for Carruthers yet. I will. I've kind of been holding off because I saw Cass had done one and Bradley had done one.

And some of the other, you know, men and women in the group have done, have done videotimes. testimonials and then the protege came out and I've kind of been holding, you know, keeping my powder dry because I wanted to have some really needy examples to talk you through and I have a few of those now. So I know the process. When I use the process, the process works. I've just never written it out and then put clear markers next to each segment of the process to say, do this 20 times a day. Do this five times a day. Do this. And then just done it. And then just done it. and then just execute it on every day. I made that the priority.

You know, I chase stupid things or, you know, you're feeling a little tired, so you just drop into what's easy, like creating a YouTube video instead of doing the work that you need to do, which is oftentimes cold email, cold calls. I do some postcards. And then, you know, and then the other is, you know, COIs, LinkedIn requests, you know, work in COIs and that kind of stuff.

You know, I'm happy to, in the future, maybe like around the end of the first. first quarter when I can set some metrics to the activities that I'm doing. I'll share exactly what the process is. I'm happy to do that. And I still, I'm still in the process of outlining it. You know, it's all up in my brain. And that's always been, I think, the issue for me. And one of the big takeaways I hope from this episode that you get is it doesn't exist if it's just in your brain. And that's something that I've actually talked to Brent about before and I've heard him say it's not a process if it's up in your brain. It has to be down on paper. It has to be on a

Google Doc. It has to be on something that you could hand to someone else and say, here, you come in, you do these things and you can get results. And for so long, everything that I've done, I've never slowed down. I'm always moving so fast that I don't slow down to document the process, like documenting my YouTube content campaign strategy, documenting my blog post strategy, documenting how all these different brand strategy, documenting my service strategy. I never slow down long enough to do those things. And when I look at some of the most successful agencies and the agencies that I envy, they've done that work.

They've slowed down to do that. And I don't. And I'm going to fix that because that is a huge gap. And if Rogue is going to become the agency that I believe it can be, we're going to need documented process. Because, you know, the next hires to this agency, it's highly unlikely that they're going to be 20. They're going to be in the Albany area. I mean, there's a certain part of me that would love to have some teammates here locally just for a little, you know, human interaction once in a while. And I do love office culture.

But they're probably. most likely not going to be the case. If I'm going to hire the best in the business that believe in the rogue methodology and believe in what we're trying to do, they don't necessarily have to live here. It just does, it's not a necessity. And I think that, so I have to have that documented. Okay. And then the last piece that Brent had was, was accountability and and holding yourself accountable to these things, tracking. And, you know, I have a couple of people who I talk to on a consistent basis that are, we'll call them accountability coaches to a certain extent.

But the truth is, as much as an accountability coach is amazing. Like, you have to actually track what you're doing and be consistent with it. And I'd say that at a macro level, there are certain things that I'm very consistent with, but on a micro level, I'm not. And I'll time block something and then just plow through the time block or make an excuse why I'm not making my cold calls during my blocked cold calling hour because there's some fire that I have to put out that ultimately could be done after the cold calling hour is over.

So it's things like that that really kind of bugged me about myself and bug me about what I've done. in 2020. You know, just a general lack of consistency, a lack of a clear goal, a lack of accountability. And I chased a lot of different products. You know, I think for the most part, the technology piece is just terrible. The technology in our industry is really, really difficult. Nothing does everything that you wanted to do.

Nothing does even 50% of what you wanted to do. And that's bothersome. I still struggle with it every day. As much as the tools that I use right now, I like. You know, just for what I want to do, and then you're mashing things in and you're patching, and then you spend half your time patching things versus just being able to do what you want to do for your agency.

And it takes a lot of willpower to not focus on fixing technology. problems that don't help me sell today. So I know many of you are probably listening to that and agreeing or just you probably get that sense from me, but because I want to fix the strategy first, I don't do the work and that's a problem. So, you know, we'll see. I guess I hope some of this was useful to you. You know, I wanted to share this with you because it just, to me, 2021 is an enormous opportunity.

COVID's still going to be around. Yes, COVID's still going to be around for sure. COVID's going to be here. COVID's probably going to be, you know, trust me, our leadership is going to milk COVID for everything they can get. They're never going to let the, you know, the liberties that they've taken away. They're never going to let those go. And, you know, Trump, Biden, it doesn't really matter. You know, I have my views on, you know, where I would have liked to have seen us go.

But, you know, I think that part of it, the politics part of it, I'm just glad that it's not in our face every day. I'm glad that, you know, the mainstream media on both mainstream media on both sides just doesn't really have anything to report about. So we just, they're not as obnoxious as they were. You know, that part I'm very happy about, you know, the economy. Who the heck knows? I mean, it makes me a little nervous that it makes me a little nervous that the economy has not reset yet, or at least a little bit in terms of like the stock market because right now, small business and Main Street is so disconnected from what's happening in the market.

That feels very odd. I'm not an economist, so I don't understand all the dynamics there, but just, from a purely visual standpoint to see what's going on. And I drove through this kind of industrial office park the other day that is normally filled with businesses. And there were like 17 for rent signs or something like that. It was astounding. I was driving, it was a cut through from, I went and got a cup of coffee on my way to my wife's office.

And I just cut through this side street that is like an, and I just was, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how many signs there were for rent. And I'm sure some of it is people going remote, but, you know, when business is booming, people aren't putting their buildings up for rent. You know what I mean? You know, people aren't vacating their office space. So I guess I just, that makes me feel a little nervous. But, you know, and but I think in general, 2021 presents an enormous opportunity for the people who are willing to focus and do the work. and I won't say that, you know, as much as I'm not unhappy with my performance in 2020, I feel like I underperformed and that will not be the case in 2021.

And how we get there is focusing on product, focusing on process, bringing people in who are hungry, who believe in what we're trying to do, who want to have a long-term future in a brand, in a methodology that I think is both highly lucrative while also being tremendously valuable to our clients beyond just the traditional product offerings and jargon that gets thrown at people. And I think if those things fall into place, at least for rogue risk,

it will be a tremendously successful year. I think for you, wherever you find yourself, I think focus is the key. I think the internet comes, it's only going to get noisier. And it's why I wanted to have peplajon last week. And if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend you go back and do so. It is going to become more and more difficult to stand out unless you are really, really good and concise and consistent in what you do and who you do it for. And we could go so deep on that.

Go back to the – scroll all the way back to the early. episodes when I had Anne Hanley on and Marcus shared it on and Tamsin Webster on of this of this feed scroll back into those early episodes and listen to them again even if you did they're from basically September October of 2019 go back and listen to those episodes they outline what it means to stand out in your messaging and your tone and and that is going to become so incredibly important, even if you're referral-based, why should someone refer you, even if you just work with COIs, why should that COI choose you over every other agency that's going to be calling on them? Because the, you know, everybody knows homeowners COIs is the most profitable

personal lines business that you can get on a consistent basis. You can buy leads, that's great, that's really tough business. You can go out and do snail mail. That's really tough business. Referrals are great, but they can be inconsistent unless you have a clear strategy. So the COI game is only going to become more competitive. You're going to have to find new partners. You're going to have to work harder to get those partners. And if you don't have a clear brand, strategy, and messaging, it's going to be incredibly difficult to stand out.

Additionally, I do think that technology is going to continue to space people out. I can tell you today that rogue-hedy, there was a no-immy, there was no-immy impact by COVID on our business. There was never a day when I was like, oh, man, COVID's keeping us from operating. That never happened. That never happened. We had zero downtime. If your agency is still stuck in a world where something like COVID or something like work

from home or remote work is keeping you from being optimal, you need to make that change or you are getting outpaced by your competition. I do think those type of tools, I think tools like Donna for agents, the Aeus analytics tool that is starting to come out. You've seen probably Paradiso talk about it a little bit. I've spent some time with those guys. I first met them at a mastermind that Paradiso put on, Paradiso and Tom Larson and have gotten to know them a little more.

And though we haven't yet implemented it into Rogue, that will happen in 2021. I will tell you, and I've spent significant time with them because I do think that this tool, like what they're doing from a third-party data integration standpoint into your agency and their centimeter score tool that they have, I mean, these are the kind of things that are going to take, even if you have tremendous retention, even if you're looking at like a, you're looking at a 90 to 91% retention, these are the tools that are going to get you up into that 92, 93, 94% retention range.

I mean, take the numbers out exactly, but we're talking about the ability to add points of retention to your business, which is just as good as sales. It's actually better than sales because this is low-cost stuff. This is someone had a bad interaction and you as the business owner didn't really know and you would never know. If you're on, you know, Tam or one of these tools that doesn't give you any insight into your business, something like Donna comes in and says, just so you know, this guy over here that's got six policies with you, his last four emails, the tone and the words that he's using, man, he's not happy. He's highly likely not to renew his policies.

Now, you as an agency owner as a leader or as a producer can dip in and give that guy a call and say, hey, man, what's going on? Like, what's, it seems like there's some friction here. What's happening? How can we solve this problem? Like, that kind of tool is going to separate businesses. They're going to separate agencies from others. And I look at tools like Donna.

I look at tools like tarmica. I mean, obviously neon is coming along every single day. I look at, you know, the usage of VAs, an agency VA's, an agency VA. I mean, I'm, you know, while I've been sitting here, I've slacked a couple, I'm talking to you guys. There's a part of my brain that's slack. I'm slacking with my VA because he asked me a question about a COI. So I'm able to produce this podcast for you because I have a VA who's already logged in,

who's already operating, who's already producing results for my clients. And, you know, when I was doing COIs myself, it took me time. It took me, you know, I had five of the things going on. I might not get to it until the afternoon the next day. He's getting them out within an hour. And, you know, these are the type of tools and methodology and process that is not traditional, but is absolutely going to start separating agencies. And I think in 2021, the keys here are, are, are, are,

set big goals, set process and procedure that gets you there, focus in on the things that are going to help you hit those goals and say no to everything else and find the tools. This is number four, this is number one, find the tools that backfill into allowing you to do that work. And that's how 2021 becomes the best year ever. That's what I'm doing here. I know that it won't be perfect,

but man, if I'm sitting here next year and I have a full-time, agency, administrative and operations person and say three producers killing the game, spread throughout the Northeast or wherever, that's where we want to be. And I think it's very likely. And I want, I just believe that it's possible and I believe in the process. And I think that being clear and concise and consistent will get it done. All right, guys, I've probably beat this up a little too much. You know, hopefully you'll connect with the tools that I talked about.

Connect with Brent, Kelly. You know, finishing out the year, I want to give just a couple shoutouts to some people. If I don't mention your name, please don't take it personally because I'm just kind of coming off the cuff here. But just huge shout out to Jason Cass. I know most of you know that he's, you know, one of my best buddies in the industry. and friends for a very long time, but his support of me and taking my phone calls when I have crazy ideas and telling me, you know, most of the time telling me that idea is nuts and I should just, you know, not do it, even though I don't listen to him half the time, you know, I wouldn't

be here without him. David Carruthers has been a mentor for me. Like I would have, I mean, I didn't even know David a year ago. I met him for the first time in January at, at, in San Diego at IAOA, Innovation. And, you know, I talk to him almost every single day. Certainly we Slack or not Slack, Facebook Messenger every day. And he's just been a tremendous mentor to me. And killing commercials, been a wonderful community. But I wanted to thank him.

I want to thank Chris Paradiso, who has been a friend for a very long time and has been instrumental in helping me make Rogue a success at all. and his support, he supports the industry in so many ways, but I just feel blessed to be able to call him on the phone when I have questions and have him pick up the phone and answer him because he runs an agency that we all could be envious of in terms of just the quality work that he does and his commitment and consistency.

I want to give a shout out to Matt Nommoli, who's been a tremendous help for me. Matt is the antithesis, I think, of me in so much as he is the kind of person who really thinks about a decision and weighs the decision. And I am the type of person who just leaps at things. And to be able to text Matt or whatever and just say, hey, man, I'm thinking about doing this and have him say, maybe you should sleep on it, has allowed me to realign my thinking on different topics and again his support for rogue and just again the willingness to pick up the phone

when I call even though half the time we don't even end up talking about insurance stuff we talk about other things it's just it's nice to have someone in the industry who uh who's willing to help you pump the brakes on crazy ideas um and then you know there's so many others uh you know i i just want to I just want to maybe end with my wife who, you know, I probably do not give enough praise to. She has to put up with me. You know, like I said earlier, you know, right now I'm in a startup business. So, you know, I'm not making any income for the family, which is a hard thing. Thankfully, she is gainfully employed and has been very willing to take on some of that burden

in exchange for her belief in what I think this agency could be someday. and in a not too distant future. And, you know, probably a partner that I don't deserve. But certainly the perfect person to keep me out of trouble considering all the craziness that goes on between my ears and keeping me aligned. And 2020 was an emotional roller coaster for everyone. Certainly not me, but certainly me included.

And she has been an absolute, bedrock for me and grounding force. Otherwise, I probably would have flown, you know, flown off the handle a long time ago. And Rogue would not be possible without her and her support. And I know it's not easy on her. And I know that there are definitely days when she wakes up and wishes that I wasn't, you know, at 4.30 in the morning in the basement and then back in the basement once the kids go to bed, you know, working on the agent, my office is in the basement. and that's why. Nothing weird just working on the business.

Well, I guess that is weird. But, you know, that's not easy for her. And my mind is always on the business. And, you know, so sometimes I'm not always as present as I should be. And I know that's not easy either. And I just, she deserves so much, whatever ends up happening with Rogue, indirectly, she will be an enormous part of that for so many reasons. And, you know, I don't praise her publicly as much as I should,

although I do try to give her some shoutouts on the gram every once in a while. You know, I'm blessed to have such a smart and beautiful wife and someone who's willing to put up with my nonsense. So I wanted to give her a shout out as well. And again, everyone else who's taken phone calls, who talks, who's been willing to, you know, who have worked with over the, this last year, please, I want you to know that, you know, even if I didn't mention you, it's just so much appreciation and love. And, you know, I wish you guys a Merry Christmas.

I wish you happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, whatever you're celebrating. I wish you know them with the best. I wish peace, happiness, all that kind of stuff. I hope that you're able to connect with your family. You know, I don't know that I philosophically believe. in the fact that we are legally not allowed to group in more than 10, at least in the state of New York, because I find that to be fascist. But I think whatever's safe for you, and I hope you're able to connect with your family because as much as virtual is nice, nothing beats breathing the same air as people that you love and care about and sharing a laugh in person. there's just something special about that.

And the fact that we are growing comfortable or more comfortable with being separated makes me very nervous because I hate it as much as I believe that it's an inevitable part of our future. So that being said, as always, if there's anything I can do for you, if there's anything that I can help you with, I'm always here. I want to say that I just thank you so much for you. for listening to the show. This was way longer than I expected it to be.

But I love you guys for listening to this show. And I know that I can be inconsistent with its production. That's going to change in 2021. Big, big announcement coming in 2021, but we're going to get more consistent, a little more professional, a little more polished in 2021 with the show. Format will still be the same,

me talking shit and cursing and having people on and talking to people and stuff. But ultimately, hopefully a little more, Consistent, polished pro will, that announcement will come. So I'm super happy. But I just thank you guys. Just thank you. Thank you for everything.

I wish you nothing by the best. I'm on here. Peace. Impossible. It's not. With the one call closed system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals. In one call.

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