Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - The Psychology of Insurance Leadership with Larry Linne and Mick Hunt

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanley✅ Want to learn everything I know about founding, scaling and exiting an insurance business? --> https://masterclass.insure/✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley/✅ Hire me to speak at your next event: https://ryanhanley.com/speaking** Connect with Guest **✅ Premier Strategy Box: https://www.mystrategybox.com/https://greatparkinsurance.com/meet-the-team/✅ Mick Hunt's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mystrategybox/✅ Larry Linne’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrylinne/** More about this episode **Have you ever wondered how a strategic partnership can revolutionize an entire industry? Well, you're about to find out. We sat down with the masterminds behind Premier Strategy Box, Mick, and Larry. Together, they delved into the formation of this impactful organization, its growth, and its monumental influence on the insurance industry.They also highlighted their potential dynamic partnership, which promises to bring incredible benefits to insurance agencies, particularly those seeking to develop their internal structure, workflows, and standards.Change is inevitable, but how we respond to it can make all the difference. We discussed the evolving landscape of the insurance industry, emphasizing the opportunities that arise from remote work and flexible environments. We also touched on the importance of technology in enhancing client experience, productivity, and sales. With a younger generation entering the workforce, we highlighted the critical challenge of transferring industry wisdom and the role of leadership development in overcoming this hurdle.We round off with an insightful discussion on the exciting new partnership between Insight Performance Group and Premier Strategy Box, offering a valuable resource for agencies looking to grow in a hard market.Mick introduces the Patti platform, which provides various touch points for agencies to engage with the organization. You'll also enjoy a fun and relatable discussion about the joys and frustrations of being a sports fan.So, don't miss out on this engaging episode packed with rich insights and memorable conversations.#insurance #sales #leadership--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

Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. We got to create higher standards. And I just went through this long list of things that all of this has to happen if we're going to grow the business. And so that was my background, and we grew tremendously.

I mean, it was, it's a story that's, that's unmatched. that I know of in the industry of incredible internal growth. And it wasn't just me. I mean, this is a group of people that had a lot of really good ideas, really smart people that were, invested in growing a business. Rude Laboratory in the basement of his home. Well, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Mick Hunt, founder, owner of Premier Strategy Box, and one of the foremost thought leaders in the insurance industry on sales, marketing,

process, strategy, just all around gangster killer when it comes to growing your agency and one of my very dear friends. And Larry Linney, the CEO of Insight, a consulting firm that absolutely dominates our industry, especially at the high end with over 27 of the top 100 agencies in the country. Larry can call his clients. He shares in the podcast that his average client has been with them for more than 12 years, which is, if anyone's ever done consulting work, knows that that is an absolutely ridiculous number. And it just shows the quality of the two people we have on the show. They are bringing a huge announcement to the show and very honored that they would use this format and you, my audience, my listeners, my friends, the people

I love for listening to the show, that they would want to share this news with you first. So before we get to Larry and Mick, just want to shout out real quick, all of you guys. I love you for listening to this show. If you enjoy the content that you get here, the only thing that I ask is that you share the show. And I know that's work. I know you're going, oh, Ryan, I got to like pull my phone out and I got to like send it to somebody. Oh, my God. And I get all that.

And I just want to say that by stopping what you're doing, by maybe hitting pause on this episode, although you don't need to hit pause to actually share the show by sharing the show with a friend texting it emailing it to your team sharing it with a group that you're part of by sharing this show you help grow the audience you help this podcast reach more people the message reach more people is why i do this work is to put new ideas in between your ears and it it's just it means a lot to me when you do it so uh appreciate you appreciate you for listening uh if you're not subscribed, please do that. Spotify, Apple, YouTube. You can now watch all the episodes on YouTube. If you go to the YouTube channel, which you can find wherever, just type in Ryan Hanley into

YouTube and you'll find the show or Finding Peak podcast. You'll find the show as well. That way, you can watch the show on YouTube if you prefer there. But with that, we're done with the business part of the show. Let's get on to Mick Hunt and Larry Linney. wife brought me into the office today so I could do this. Good stuff. She dropped me off and left to go to breakfast with a friend. So she didn't really care about listening to this. I don't get it.

I thought she would love it. Well, I'll let you guys kind of steer the ship. I mean, it's your announcement and all that. So what's going on? Let's get the lowdown here. Yeah, Mick, why don't you start? because I think you and Ryan have a good history, and you know that his audience pretty well

and probably have been around them a lot more. So if you want to kind of tell the story, and then I think, you know, if we can tell a little bit of the why and what's going on and how pretty excited we are about all this is happening. So yeah, you started off, and then we'll just kind of play with it, man. I'm going to start it off.

So, and most of everybody that's listening knows this story a little, but it was February of 2020. Dallas, Texas, I believe it was Dallas. It's a month before the official launch of Premier Strategy Box. I'm staying at the Billy Williams training. And in front of me is this six-foot-four, goofy, big-headed-looking dude

that's asking a lot of, of thought-provoking questions. And I'm sitting there like, I think that's Ryan Hanley, never met him personally, been following him on social media for at least four years. He turns around,

I introduced myself, and I swear we became best friends. That's not exactly how it happened. Just to clear things up. I turn around and my exact words were, who the fuck are you? Like, because he kept asking us,

asking questions. I like, you know, maybe this is ego or whatever, but I was like, I thought I knew everybody who thought this way. And Mick just kept asking and like giving answers to these questions. I was just like, oh, yeah. I never thought of it that way. Oh, I love that. And I was like, I got to know who this guy is. And it was, you know, and then, yeah, I think we went to lunch the the next two days together. Big head, but probably a good haircut, Mick, just so we're clear. Big head. Well, it's not quite like mine. Well, and I was really confused when he started this story because I've never heard this before. And when he was talking about six-four big-headed guy, I went, well, I fit the big-headed, but I'm only about six-two.

So this can't be me. Maybe he just sees me as much bigger than I am. But I'm thrilled to hear that that was your description, right? Yeah. It was totally, Ryan. And literally, it was the week and weekend that I just. decided to form Premier Strategy Box because Ryan pushed me. He said,

Mick, instead of working with a handful of agents, why don't you make this big scale? Because you would solve a lot of problems that I know I have. And this is Ryan talking with me knowing the independent agency world like I do, you're the missing link. Yeah. And so that day, I went home and started Premier Strategy Box.

I called Ryan. I said, I did it. He said, great. Can you help me? I said, sure. He said, can you do it for free? I said, I don't think so. You got to remember, at the time, I was just starting Rogue Risk.

Like, literally, so we met neither Premier Strategy Box nor Rogue Risk actually existed at that time. So I was at Billy Williams' thing. kind of reacclimating myself to the day-to-day grind of production because I had been out of the game since 2014. And so I was about two months away from starting Rogue. And I'm hearing Mick talk and I'm just, and it's true, you really have been the missing link to this industry, Mick. I mean, Premier Strategy Box for being around for such a short period of time.

It's taken the industry by storm. I mean, you've literally become a household name. And in an absolutely extraordinarily short period of time, which is a testament to, I think, a couple things about your personality and the product. I think one, unlike me, you have a very measured and tempered approach, which I think speaks better to the independent insurance agency disposition than my kind of ADHD driven off the wall personality. So I like always respect that about you, that you have the same fire,

but you're able to deliver it in such a more digestible way. and two, I think the knowledge that you packaged up and have presented to Premier Strategy Box clients, it had been toyed with in the past, but it had never been put all the way together in the way that you did it. And it's what it's been so exciting to see your growth, be part of it, be your friend and all the conversations we've had. And it's been so from the outside as your friend, rewarding to see this. thing that the industry absolutely needed come together. And I couldn't be happy for you. And now

with Larry and everything that's going on, and we're going to get to that obviously. But I just, you know, I wanted to say here at the beginning, I couldn't be happier for you because one, couldn't, you know, a better guy couldn't be building the product. And two, it really was something that the industry didn't. Certainly not in the way you packaged it up. So it's, it's tremendous, man. So I appreciate that. So now we can fast forward to. almost a year ago today, right? So it was late, early November, late November, a couple of my clients texting the crap out of me.

And they're like, Mick, do you know Larry Lenny? I was like, I don't know if I know Larry Lenny or not. And they're like, everything he's talking about at this conference are the exact same things that you guys talk about. And from an intellectual level, like, he's the one person that I feel like really jives well with you. And I'm like, okay, whatever, whatever, whatever, right? Sure.

But after like 17 texts, I was like, okay, let's figure this out. And then it just so happened that one of my friends, I think, sent a group text with Larry and I. And literally it was like talking to someone I had known forever via text. So I look up Larry, research him. and after 10 seconds, I'm on the phone with my uncle. So, Ryan, you know my affinity with the Patriots. And my uncle, Stanley Morgan, Patriot Hall of Famer, was a teammate of Larry Lenny. So Larry also played wide receiver for the New England Patriots.

And that became our bond. And I think our first two conversations, we didn't even talk insurance. We just talked like we were family members that hadn't seen each other in a couple of years and just caught up on life. And that's my idea. You didn't even add the extra part of that. And Stanley is, I'm surprised even remember my name. I was such a short timer there. But Stanley's nephew is Mick, but Stanley's other nephew is a guy by the name of Conard McGuire.

And Conard McGuire was my roommate in college. So we got a couple of connections. Absolutely. It was crazy. Absolutely. And so Larry started out as a mentor for me, right? All the things that I was doing at Premier Strategy Box, he owns, runs the most premier consultancy firm in our space and Insight. And I just wanted to pick his brain on the industry and all the things that he has done for our industry. And that led into a conversation of, Mick, why don't we join forces? Because, My clientele sweet spot is, as you know, Ryan, one and I have two million revenue up to about 10 million revenue. And Larry's client sweet spot starts in 20, 30, 40 plus. And it just made a lot of sense where we had complementary pieces. I think our ideals, our values are all the same. And so Larry said, huh, you ever thought about, you know, combining.

forces. And initially I was like, I haven't, but this makes a ton of sense. And so I'm not going to still Larry's thunder, but we decided that it would make sense on the journey and start having those conversations. And those conversations led to, I think we're going to do this. I think we're going to do this. And so I'm going to pass it to Larry to start this story and then do the announcement. Yeah, now I'm going to tell you the true story. No, okay. So actually, there's some new stuff that I heard there that's really cool. So, you know, Mick, I know exactly when that happened when he started getting the text because I'm at an event and these guys keep talking and be going, man, do you know, Mick? I mean, it seems like you guys work together. You guys are staying a lot of

the same things. And of course, you know, I've been doing this since 2000. Well, I got in the industry in 1999. I joined in with another consulting firm 2005. 2014. I started with a group of people. We started Insight Performance Group. And we do have a sweet spot. There's about, we anticipate or projected that, you know, we're talking 350 to 400 insurance agencies and U.S. and Canada. So we have two companies, one in the U.S., one in Canada. And we believe there's about 400 agencies that fit what we do.

You know, they have the size to implement. They have the complexity of an organization to be able to execute the kinds of things that we teach and that we believe in. and, you know, I came from the industry, you know, selling more middle to upper middle market and very risk-focused, very risk-oriented. A lot of things I think that we all talk about frequently. But I'm sitting there listening to these guys, and I'm the same way. I'm like, yeah, sure, sure, there's somebody else that knows what we know.

Yeah, whatever. And so the more I listen to these guys talk about him, I thought, you know, he really does sound like he'd be great. And our problem is our growth has been outrageous. We have just had tremendous growth. And part of the reason why our growth has been so good is because we recognize that growing an insurance agency is not about teaching sales. You can teach sales all day long and somebody's going to get a little bit better.

And there's some great consultants out there. I mean, I can name you 10 consultants that you could hire tomorrow. And from a standpoint of teaching selling techniques, they're going to be all across the board as far as the sophistication. But all of them are going to give you some value and you're going to sell more because you're getting the training. But our belief is a little bit different. When I came into the insurance industry, I was hired by an insurance agency. I was a consultant doing some other work, and they said, we want to grow our business. And I said, well, I need to look at your business first. And after about

45 days, I told the agency, I said, we're going to grow your business, but we're not going to even work on sales for about four or five months. We've got to work on business strategy. We've got to work on the way we think around here. We've got to work on culture. We've got to work on innovation and understanding what innovation really means. We've got to develop internal structure and workflows to be able to be efficient and productive. We've got to create the ability to free up salespeople to be more successful. We got to create higher standards. And I just went through this long list of things that all of this has to happen if we're going to grow the business. And so that was my background. And we grew tremendously. I mean, it was, it's a, it's a story that's

unmatched that I know of in the industry of incredible internal growth. And it wasn't just me. I mean, this is a group of people that had a lot of really good ideas, really smart people that were invested in growing a business. So I come from that background. And all of a sudden, I'm hearing more and more about Mick and what he's doing. And it sounds like he's got the same ideology. Now, you know, my thought about Mick as we got to know each other is this guy's not only my peer, you know, he could be a guy that, uh, that's going to, and I believe will far surpass whatever I've done or whatever I know in the business. I just think we have a head start on him. And so, you know, my company has a, uh, an innovation consultant that's

worked in, you know, with a couple of Harvard guys and working with Fortune 50s on innovation, execution and implementation. My company has a lean Six Sigma black belt that specializes in the insurance industry and has been working specialization in insurance for almost 10 years just in lean processes and systems. You know, my company has, you know, X-Marsh-level large account sales across-the-board middle-account, mid-level sales. We've got people that have built personal lines departments from scratch. They've built high-net worth personal lines. So, you know, we have a team of eight advisors that have been very successful in the insurance. industry. And we've been creating intellectual property for since 2014, but even prior to that,

because we were developing it even in the prior company. So we have hundreds of pieces of intellectual property to actually help people execute the things that they need. As a matter of fact, Ryan, you don't know this story. But when we first started Insight Performance Group, I had this beautiful logo built, INS-I-G-H-T performance group. And I had a consultant friend of mine that said, Larry, I-N-S-I-G-H-T. That sounds like ideas. He said, do you really think the insurance industry needs more ideas? And I laughed and said, no, and he goes, don't you think they need action, execution, implementation, actually doing the things that you're teaching? I said, yeah, that's what they need. He said, why don't you make it INC-C-I-T-B? I went, oh my God, that's brilliant.

That's the answer. So, you know, our company was built on execution and implementation. So we have over 400 videos that are micro learning development from service teams to leadership to executives. We have over 600, maybe close to 700 pieces of intellectual property. And what was interesting was when Mick and I got a line the very first time, I said, can I just show you underneath the hood? And he looked at it. And there was nothing there that he went, I've never thought of that or I've never seen that. It's exactly the way he thought.

he just said, that's this kind of stuff I want to develop. This is what I want to become. This is what I want to create. So we were like-minded. I was just seven years ahead of him. And our firm had already developed. And he's saying, if I can join up with this, take on this machine, and then enhance and bring his ideas. And that's what I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, I've got somebody else that can make this even better because of the way he thinks.

and because of his experience and because of his team. I mean, I love his team. The people he has on his team that can enhance what we're doing and expand it. I mean, where else are you going to find 12 advisors that have worked in the insurance industry, that have worked at the high-end level that have developed the intellectual property and resource? You cannot replicate. And I'll tell you, one of the most successful CEOs in the insurance industry today. I'm not going to say his name.

he came in and looked at what we did and he said, this can't be replicated. What you've built in people and resources and tools for implementation and execution, he goes, nobody can replicate what you've done. You're too far down the road. Well, with Mick joining and his team joining, what we have now and what we're going to be able to do and expand ourselves into a larger marketplace

place and each make each other sharper. I can't see how two plus two, it's not going to equal five. It's like seven or nine. It's exciting. So we're thrilled about learning from each other, developing each other, our team growing from each other. And we built this company on a premise that every one of our advisors is here to make all of us better.

Each one of us is out there studying the world. We're studying other industries. We're studying what's happening in the world. to become better. And we want to be able to help the insurance industry with technology. So we joined in and developed our own venture capital for insure tech. We've got a huge, we got a fund. We now have two funds. One, it's a perpetuation fund as well. We study the industry. We're learning. We're studying other industries because we want to be out in front helping insurance agents. Mick is, Mick is not only our peer. We're learning from him as well and his team. And this combination, I

think we've just pretty much launched beyond the industry right now and what other people can do. So we're excited about it. And I think the combination finding each other was just absolutely magical. Yeah, that's tremendous. I mean, what I like that I hear is there's now a bridge between if I come in in that one to $10 million range and implement and grow, I know that I have a partner for life because as big, you know, what I'm hearing is as big as they can go, go now. You know, and the opposite is true. You know, now you can have a feeder system for agencies that are high growth, you know, whether that's through M&A or organic or most likely some combination of both to bring them, you know, it's almost, you know, you don't want to, not taking

anyone account, but it's almost like a AAA program for a baseball organization where smaller organizations that are implementing, still learning the ropes, still putting tactics and strategies in place. Now I have a chance to refine at a high level before they move into the into the, into the into the big game. And that's, you know, something that our industry needs, I think, you know, so many of the agencies that I come across, agency owners that I deal with agency owners that I interview on the podcast, there is a lack of congruency in the industry that I think has caused a lot of the

headaches or frustrations that we have. And when you can find organizations that can, What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In an exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, etc.

This helps the show grow. helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business, but they all check out comments, ratings, reviews, they check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe. if you're not subscribed, and I love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments,

or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show, and I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do, creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Be a through line. To me, it seems like a home run. So this is incredibly exciting. Yeah, you know, one comment I'd make to that. And I think one of the key themes of Insight Performance, group is that we work on the insurance industry business and insurance agency business so that our clients can thrive in the business. And as you know, most people don't have time to work on the business. They're constantly working in the business. And so if you can create tools and resources and

and education and guidance and workflow process to get somewhere, if you can get somebody there quicker, that's where you have great value in this business. Because they don't have time to start from scratch and invent it and figure it out on their own. And we've got consultants all over this industry that's, you know, regurgitating the same messages for the last 25, 30 years, and people still aren't implemented because they don't have all of those tools to help support that. Great advice, no question. I don't, I don't discount the value of the advice. It's just how do I get to the point of execution? And that's what we found with Premier Strategy Box. They've built systems to help you execute. They've built workflows and processes. And they get you from, from idea to

execution so much faster than anybody else out there in the marketplace because they have that, that they're filling that gap with the tools in the process. Well, that's the same thing that we've done. And so that's where I think the magic of this relationship and the magic in the industry is how do you get people to the next phase faster? How do you move them to implementation quicker? I just, we just signed up a new client yesterday, by the way, Mick. He's got a new client yesterday, really nice, large, large client, over $100 million annual revenue. And these guys, after going through and looking at what we did, they said, oh, my gosh, you've got 15 things that we want to implement. We want to execute. And everything you've said, we know, we get it. But

it's going to take us three years to do that. The tools and resources that you have sitting right in front of us, we can do this in six months. It's about speed. And in this industry right now, you better have speed or you're going to get run past by somebody that does have it. Do you feel, Larry, like that's a major, like a sea change that we're seeing, you know, for so long, you could take as long as you needed to make a change and everything would be fine. It feels like today the rubber band is starting, starting to snap forward a little bit and say, look, where even a decade ago, you could move slow and there'd be no problems. It doesn't feel today like you can move as slow as we've traditionally moved and be all right. Yeah, I'd love to hear Mick's response on this as well.

So, Mick, get your thoughts prepared because you'll say something smarter than I do. But my answer to that is I'd love to be a fear-mongering. I'd love to go out and just scare the world and say, boy, if you don't move, you're going to get eaten up and annihilated and blah, blah, blah. But there's two things that make that not true. The first thing is our industry allows you to still not really be that good and you can make enough money to keep growing and make a lot of money. So you're going to be okay if you don't do something. Now, you're eventually going to run into the wall, but you're going to be

okay, and you're still going to make a lot of money. First of all, problems, okay? Second thing I tell you is it's market driven. If somebody doesn't come up with an idea in your market or somebody doesn't execute effectively in your market, you don't have to worry about it. However, if somebody does, buckle up. Because I've watched some people, annihilate people in the marketplace. I've seen people come in with very sophisticated, sharp captive insurance programs and absolutely knock out a large portion of large accounts from a client within months. I've seen people come in and start taking employees because cultural changes that they've created because of what they've realized is necessary to manage people

in today's workforce, work from home, whatever it looks like. There's so many new things that are happening out there that if somebody figures it out, it is happening fast in your marketplace. that rubber band's going to snap. But there's also a marketplace, and this has nothing to do a size market. I can tell you, they could be Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 markets. It doesn't really matter. It's just if somebody finally gets it and figures it out for themselves and can implement it effectively, they will dominate in that marketplace.

And the rest of people have to buckle up. Now, again, they're going to be okay. They're not going to go out of business. We are so blessed to be in this industry. So, Mick, what are your thoughts about that, or about, right? Ryan's coming. No, I agree with what you said. Here's what I'll add to Ryan's comment on the rubber band is starting to snap forward just a little bit. I think there's a couple of things that have happened in the last five years. One, the industry has, I'm going to say finally, gotten outside money. Meaning there's, there are more VCs and private equity in our business and in the world that they come from. And it doesn't matter where the world of VC or P came from, things move a little bit. it faster, right? I think that's that's part of it. I also think leaders are starting to become younger, right? We're starting to see succession planning and I mean, we can talk about my kids, right? Like,

if I can press four buttons and have something done, why in our industry do we have to press 47 things to get half of what I can get by pressing four buttons? So I think you're starting to see youth interject into our industry and slowness just isn't a thing of youth anymore. I mean, think about how fast the world is moving and how technology has changed. And then the last piece, I think, you know, segue into technology. Without naming names, the two titans in our industry from a tech space are starting to acquire smart technology and partners now. Whereas before, they were acquiring competition, just the quell competition. Now I think they're seeing, hey, we do need to make changes.

It's still slow, but I think their mindset has changed on who they're requiring where we came, where it's going from competition to let's try to get better. And that's good for our industry. Way to hide names though, Nick. That's really good. Yeah. Wow. The good news is on this show, everyone, no one, no one pulls punches. So if they're still listening, they're a fine being offended.

I'll add to that one thing that I've seen too, and I saw this a lot with Rogue. and it was how we were able to grow as fast as we were is just the cultural changes. Minorities and women and coming into the workplace, bringing different ideas, different energy, being able to work remote. I mean, I talked to Mick a lot about this. In the early days of Rogue Risk,

I hired single moms or moms with young kids because traditional agents are tossing these women out onto the street because they can't work a standard nine to five. And I'm going, I don't care if you have to put your kid down for a nap at 11, as long as you're getting your work done during the day. And we were able to pick up incredible talent across the country because we were open to a different cultural setup in the workplace.

And it brought new ideas. I mean, all the individuals, incredibly appreciative of the fact that they now had some flexibility in their lives. And then you'd read these posts and forums about how no one can hire anybody. And it's like, yes, if you need a single straight white male that lives within 15 minutes of your office who is, you know, capable, license. And has 30 years of experience. Yeah, yeah. It is hard to find that human.

Yes, I get that. If you're open your mind up just a little bit, man, there's so, so much talent out there. And I think that's been another thing that is pushed too is is that cultural change, that remote change, that flexible work environment change. which comes with its own set of challenges. Don't get me wrong, but there is a lot of opportunity there as well. Yeah, no question. And that's, I don't know if you know a lot about my background, right? But, you know, I've written books.

Whenever I finally get passionate about something, kind of like, I feel your passion in that space. Whenever I get passionate enough about something, I just jump in and write a book. And years ago, I wrote, I wrote Make the Noise Go Away, and it's the power of an effective second command. And it was just that whole relationship of how entrepreneurs get so scattered and chaotic and their life is full of noise. How do you overcome that?

Then we wrote leading performance because it can't be managed. And that was Drew, one of my partners here. Drew and I wrote that last year because of exactly what you're talking about, just the realization that there's a modern workforce and we've got to look at the world differently. And that book has just done tremendously well. And now recently I was a co-author on resigned to success. And it goes back to what we're talking about before. I think make your spot on, man. There's so many people that are,

we've talked about for years that, you know, we've got a generation of people that are going to leave the business. I'm seeing more people leave the business now than I've ever seen. I mean, it's happening. It's no longer going to happen. I'm dealing with one person after another that I'm dealing with helping with their retirement, helping them with the transition of leadership, helping with the next executives.

It is insane right now. The reality of that turning and younger people are taking over. So, you know, the business is changing. And again, I'm not an alarmist. I'm not out there trying to tell everybody you're going to have to shut your doors next week. But I'm going to tell you that the biggest thing that I would think of, if I'm running an insurance brokerage or an agency, I'm thinking this is opportunistic, not defensive. It's opportunistic.

Look how much better I can be than others if I learn to think differently. If I learn to think about the new modern workforce and managing it and leading it effectively, if I can think about technology in ways that will make me more productive and realize that technology in our industry is about client experience and improved client experience. It's about productivity, being able to do more with less, and the sales enhancement. And if I can't do one of those things, then it's probably not good technology that I need to be involved with. So having the right technology that gets those types of.

answers, that's going to be valuable to me. There are things we can do that if opportunistically, I do it and do it right, I can dominate my marketplace. This is about winning big. It's not about am I going to be put out of business tomorrow. And again, that's the problem, is the why is not big enough for most people to change? Because they're still going to make enough money today that they're okay. And they're going to make enough money tomorrow that they're okay. So inspiring people is even part of our role is we believe we get into companies and inspire, them as to what is possible, get them excited about what they can do, how much better their life can be, what kind of wealth can be created, make them think different about ownership,

make them think different about compensation. You start getting those things into place. And Ryan, that's really the world I live in as I believe we're dealing with opportunistic opportunity or an opportunistic future, not a focus of fear. I don't want people to change because they're terrified that somebody's going to take them out. I want them changing because they can't wait to absolutely dominate their marketplace. That's the space that Mick and I keep talking about and our team in teams. We keep talking about that's where we want to live is let's take those people that are willing to get after it and make a difference and win big. Yeah, I completely agree with you.

I mean, I know when I first got on the on the circuit about 13 years ago speaking and sharing what I'd done, everyone who I was packaged around. Like, I don't know how to operate. And Mick knows this about me. I don't know how to operate from anything other than a positive place and a place of abundance. Like I literally can't even think in a negative sense. It doesn't even enter my mind.

So I would be like packaged around, you know, I'm selling growth and sales and world I'd use terms like world domination and people would look at me and I'd watch their eyes. Like, what is he saying? Because the guy before me was telling me that the earth was going to come down. And the guy after me was telling me, we're all going to all going to be evaded. and it's all over and the money's going. And then here's this wacko in the middle telling us that we're going to take everything over.

And it's like this scarcity versus abundance mindset. So I think a lot of agents of the previous generation and generations were not used to it because everything they were sold for so long was sold on fear. And I think what's very fun is that the new generation, regardless of age, the new generation of insurance professionals

that are coming in are way more, in tune to an abundance mindset. So you take things like the current hard market. Like, you know, right up until the day that rogue risk was shut down, we were one of the fastest growing small commercial agencies in the entire country. We had grown three and a half X in 17 months, and we were absolutely dominating. I mean, we were, we did 500,000 in premium for a 15 person agency in the month of October. Like, you know, and we had figured something out in a hard market. And everyone's on every forum across the country, everything, hard market. What are we doing? I'm like, are you kidding me like Mick and I joke about it all the time like there is no better time to grow than right now like

you can talk to any prospect you want to today this is growth growth growth like let's go I mean I was like on fire the last like the last like six months was some of the best you know my best ones we had had in the industry and I just I feel like you come to a hard market and people go back into their turtle shell and it's like no stay with it like stay the course um So I appreciate and agree with all that. I do want to ask you, and this, Larry, Mick, pick up this, whoever you want, because this is the thing I, I'm going to use the word worry, but it's not like I'm like systemically worried.

But the thing that concerns me is in this generational sea change that's happening, how do we transfer the wisdom, not the knowledge. The knowledge is in databases and policy forms. But what I worry about is the wisdom of our industry, right? The nuanced decision-making and cues and connections and 40 years of experience. How do we make sure that the wisdom of our industry gets transferred to the next generation? Because the knowledge part is out there. We can just read and there's books and all that is there.

But the wisdom part, how do we make sure that carries on? Yeah, so great question. I wholeheartedly believe, and I'm going to do Larry's horn right here, wisdom transformation starts with leadership development and the psychology of leadership. I don't think you can truly transfer wisdom without your mind being opened. And it takes someone to open your mind because a traditional agency, right, and I'll care how small, how large, you're going to learn how dad did it or how uncle did it. But how uncle and dad did it was through relationships.

It literally had nothing to do with being a business leader. It had nothing to do with growth strategies. It was, hey, I wrote Tommy and Tommy knew Jimmy and Jimmy knew Sally and Sally knew Susie, and that's gross, right? And we know all their handicaps. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But what Larry. and insight has done prior to anything with Premier Strategy Box,

has created world-class leadership development from a psychology standpoint. The psychology of leadership is where we have to be able to go deeper in our industry. And just forget leadership development, right? Leadership development, to Larry's point earlier on this call, you can get anywhere. You can get leadership development online. But the psychology of leadership as it relates to our industry, I'm going to tell you, there's only one place that you can get that. And that's with Larry Lenny and insight from one. I love that.

Well, let me play with this a little bit. And we're so excited because to us, we do believe we're ahead of the industry, but we also believe we've got so much that needs to be developed. There's so much more to be done. And first of all, just the word wisdom. My partner, Drew Ansi, a few years ago, he's a PhD guy's brilliant. You know, Ryan, I'm one of the few people. You know, you hear all these CEOs out there saying, I hire people smarter than me. I got people with designations, EDD, PhD.

They are smarter than me, okay? So I don't have to even say it. It's real. But Drew came on our team, and he introduced the concept of the understanding where wisdom fits. So when you're learning and you want to grow or develop, it starts with information, to your point. I can get info anywhere anywhere. Knowledge is I put more time into it to understand it, which is fine.

Wisdom is the application feedback to understand how it applies, does it work, how does it work, etc. But I got to tell you, we're consultants and where insurance agents, because we're advisors as well, anybody that's in an advisory world where you really get the magic that turns into money is when you take wisdom and you simplify it. Simplification is the game change. I mean, I get people out there that have been learning captives for the last 20 years, and they are brilliant. They are the most knowledgeable, wise people in the world on captives, and they can't sell it to save their life. Why? Because it's too complex. The ability to simplify it, you can sell

it in a heartbeat. Yeah. Simplification is the key. And so back to your question. question about this whole challenge that we have in leadership and and next generation and how do we transfer all of this. What we have created, we've identified 64 different components that are areas that are critical for growth in an insurance agency. And it's in operations and education and learning and cultural and leadership process components and financial elements and KPI's and sales techniques and models and all of these different areas. And we have 15 years now of tracking whenever one of these things is not done well, it will impact your growth negatively. If it's done well, it will impact your growth positively. It doesn't stay on our list unless it can meet that

criteria. What we're doing is purposely getting information, helping people with methods online learning, LMS, which is where Patty is going to fit in brilliantly in this thing, to be able to get people more engaged into online learning, micro learning, short, quick pieces of knowledge, then engage them in groups and in real life practice for wisdom. But then our role as advisors and coaches is to help them take that wisdom to the simplification. How do I simplify what I know well and what I've experienced? And so we're speeding up the process. That's where we see one of our greatest values as a consulting firm is the ability to speed up. this learning cycle and introducing new components because I don't want to just know what my

40-year uncle in the business knows. I want to know that, but I want to know what's changed. I want to know what's influencing it differently. I want to know the behavioral science behind human beings today because behavioral science is real. It's a science that tells us that human beings are irrational and predictable. When I understand the predictability of human beings, I can take all that old history and knowledge, don't lose the things I shouldn't, but then maintain and learn the new things I should. And now we can apply things faster. So we're built for the purpose of speed of moving into the next generation of ownership in this business and execution and sales and operations and technology because we see that

that's where it's going. And we've been pretty successful at quite honestly, sometimes being too far ahead of the industry. There have been times that we've said things and people have looked with us like we've lost our mind. Ten years later, it was the norm in the industry. I feel like I was deep in personal brand management in 2005. 2011 or 12, it became a thing. I feel like you're in good company on this call, Larry, on that regard. I do too. I think. I've, think we've all experienced a bit of saying something, looking out at an audience, thinking you're right on the button and them going, I don't even understand. You're crazy.

Right. You're crazy. What you're saying? Then you got to, you like have that moment of like, oh, no. Like, they don't understand the words that I'm saying to them. Like, I got to back up a little bit. That's right. Well, guys, I, I'm so excited for this.

I'm excited for what's to come. I think that, you know, to, you know, Larry, we're just getting to know each other here. Obviously, I've heard of your company and know of you and, uh, in the industry and everything. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, or whatever. And, you know, they're like, geez, you know, this is kind of, I need to make this move. I'm sold. It's time. I'm sick of Hanley talking about how I should be growing in a hard market. Like, let's, let's, time to get after it. Where do they start to connect? Where would you push people? Where do they start to learn more? Yeah, let me, let me give a brief overview. Then I want Mick to

take this and run with it to help people understand the structure. We want to be accessible. You know, from a thematic standpoint, we want to be accessible. And we were, we were all pretty excited, Mick and Drew and myself is the leaders in this organization looking at it. We're trying to think through, you know, what do we do with naming? What do we do with the structure? And we recognize that Insight Performance Group just seemed like the perfect name to say, we are a group of people, companies. We may turn into four or five companies. We don't know. The group means the insurance industry now has this place you can go to to get what you need. That's the right thing. There's no reason for everybody to come in and try to get everything we do. That would be impossible.

You just need the right thing at the right time. So we created Inside Performance Group as going to be the corporate entity. Nobody externally really cares. But we're going to maintain inside advisory and Premier Strategy Box as entities. And we've got Patty now with what, you know, mixed brilliance behind Patty that can incorporate in the different components. But thematically, we have an entry point for anybody. You know, anybody can come in and get a piece here and there, get a training class here and there, or they can go into the different programs.

But Mick, take it down a little bit more of the path of the question, you know, how would somebody engage and where would they go potentially to fit in and get what they need out of this? Yeah. The great thing about us joining forces and us becoming a part of Insight Performance Group is this. Like there's no agency left behind. Dot, dot, dot, dot, unless you want to.

too, right? Unless you want to be left behind. But here's the thing. With, with us now and us being inside performance group, you're getting what I'm going to call theory and strategy, right? The why and in the how, right? You're getting implementation and action, right? The what and the where. And then you're getting accountability. Right. So with with all those components, what we're going to do between Larry, myself, and in our teams, our team with advisors, we're just going to diagnose you and see where you fit the best, right? Like, do you need something that's a 90-day strategy, a 90-day plan? And you might hang out with under the Premier Strategy Box umbrella,

but we now have 12 advisors that you could be working with on that 90-day project, right? If it is, hey, it's going to take us 12 months, 24 months, 36 months to really get this going, you're probably going to fall under the inside advisory umbrella, but again, you have 12 advisories that you're probably going to be working with during that journey. You're probably going to work with all 12 of us at some point during that journey. But you're going to be able to get literally the best of both worlds when it comes to theory and strategy, implementation, action, and then the accountability, which is where most agencies fail, right? A lot of agencies know what to do, but it's the how do I do it, where do I begin, and who's going to hold me accountable.

And now with inside performance group, that's what you get. Yeah. And, you know, one of the exciting things, Mick's created that's just, I get so excited about his skill set and just so talented is, you know, this Patty platform, you know, some people may just choose, you know what, I'm just going to be a part of a mastermind group with CEOs and just engage with this organization. And they can, they can sign up and just attend a master, a mastermind program for CEOs or COOs or whatever we create. We're going to have touch points that are going to allow people to participate and engage on pretty much regular basis if they choose to. And then like Mike, like Mick said, once we analyze and you're committed to more, then we figure out where it goes from there. But the accessibility is going to be easy. People are going to be able to have access to this entity and the individual organization, the pieces inside of that, we're going to be very accessible.

Now, going deeper requires you to be committed and us to be committed and believing that you are committed because we do have limited resources. We have 12 with the number of people that are asking and already wanting to work with us. It's going to be limited. So we're going to have to choose between both sides have to choose. Are we committed to go make this happen? Is it 90 days? Is it six months? Or is it a multi-year relationship?

And, Ryan, you don't know this, but Insight Performance Group, our average, client. We're a month to month agreed organization. We don't do long-term contracts. Month to month, our average, I haven't looked at it this year, but our average client is over 12 years. They stick with us because they get a return on the investment. Keep writing the check because I've got something else I need to do. Yeah, that's, I mean, what a testament to the quality of the work and the relationship. And, you know, it, having worked with a lot of consultants, haven't been a consultant, it takes a lot of commitment to have it, to have something. I mean, for those who have never worked in the field or have a lot of experience with consultants, that is a, I mean,

I would love to put that number against up, against some of the biggest consulting firms in the entire country or the world. I mean, that's a big number for, especially on month-to-month contracts. That's, that's, that's, that's, you should be very proud of it. The biggest challenge that I have right now, Ryan, though, is, I think if I took my entire database, that's why I said, I don't know what the number is today. If we took the entire clientele today, I think the number goes down dramatically. But the only reason it goes down was not because of the last clients, because of how many new clients we have. I almost have to take my one to two year clients that are all in place, pull them out and see what the norm is, and then bring them in because we have had more growth in

the last two years than we've ever had. And I think it's a testament to the industry. The industry is a need. Yeah. We've created a brand that people want. The same thing's happening with Mick. I mean, the growth that Premier Strategy Boxes is experiencing right now, when people finally see what's possible, write the check because they know the return on investment is easy to get. Mick, we just got to figure out how we can charge a lot more money because people are writing the check too easy right now. We'll let Ryan.

That's not our goal. We want to be accessible. Yeah, yeah. And just to clean this bit up, Patty is Premier Agency Development Institute, and you can go to agency development.com to find out more about Patty. And as far as Patty goes, I'll say I'm not just a podcaster. I'm also, I guess, former client mix since Rogue doesn't exist anymore. But I will tell you that my Rogue team, half the team was in there every single day with Patty.

Half the team was in there every single day. That's agency developments. When we say Patty, we mean Premier Agency Development Institute. And you can get there through agency development.com just to kind of clean up that bit. Well, guys, I appreciate you using the Finding Peak podcast as a forum to make this announcement, to talk about this. I mean, obviously, you guys are titans in the industry and the knowledge that you have is unbelievable. I think we gave everyone just a taste. But I'm a firm believer in partnering with people who are going to help you grow.

You cannot do this alone, friends. There is no, in my opinion, there's no, in my opinion, there's no, there's no, or award for having built something on your own, struggling through it. Partner, like you said, you wrote the book on it, right? Having a great number two. Like all these ideas of getting yourself out of the tactical task-oriented grind of day-to-day and really starting to grow your enterprise is what it's about. And I can be more excited for the industry.

I'm excited for the two of you. And this has been a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you for doing this, man. We appreciate it. I've been a big fan of yours, so I'm thrilled to even get to spend time with you. And I'm even happier that you came in with the Bruce Lee,

with the Bruce Lee sweatshirt. I made him take his bills jersey off. So he's a bill. It is red. I'm sporting the red. I'm not. We got to be Kansas City this week. We got to be Kansas City this week.

You're going to be like us. You're going to be sitting home with the playoffs too. Especially when the MVP of the league is, is our quarterback. We got the MVP on our team and we can't win a football game. I don't understand. All right. With that note, we won't, we don't want to lose the entire audience right at the end with sports analogies.

So we'll call it quits. I appreciate the hell out of you, too. Thank you so much. We'll get out of here. Thanks, brother. Great to meet you, man. Thank you. I'm going to Shaboons.

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