Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Jeremy Lach, President of Empire Marketing Partners-Building a Family-Centered, High-Performance Advisor Community

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Jeremy believes in identifying talent early and backing it immediately, not waiting until production numbers make the decision easy. At Empire Marketing Partners, they support advisors at launch and throughout their growth by being a stable, strategic partner from day one.He is committed to proving that through service, experience, and consistency, they bring more value than anyone else in the space. This isn’t transactional. They operate like family, and their actions reflect that commitment every step of the way.Today, Jeremy focused not only on supporting advisors operationally, but also on strengthening his brand and influence within the industry—aligning with like-minded professionals and firms who are committed to growth, excellence, and long-term impact.Learn more: http://www.empiremps.com/Jeremy Lach is the Founder of Empire Marketing Partners, an independent marketing organization (IMO) that supports licensed insurance professionals. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast/interview are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as individualized investment, tax, or legal advice.Empire Marketing Partners does not provide direct financial planning or investment advisory services to the public. Insurance and annuity products are offered through properly licensed insurance professionals and are subject to state availability, carrier underwriting guidelines, and suitability requirements. Guarantees referenced, if any, are backed solely by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance carrier.Financial professionals and consumers should consult their own qualified advisors regarding their specific situation before making any financial decisions.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jeremy-lach-president-of-empire-marketing-partners-building-a-family-centered-high-performance-advisor-community

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, Jeremy Latch, who's the president of Empire Marketing Partners, and we'll be talking about building a family-centered, high-performance, advisor community. Jeremy, welcome back to the program. So good to be back, Mike. Appreciate it.

Hey, you are welcome and I've loved our conversations because you bring a fresh perspective to things that I think sometimes people go, oh, I've been there, done that, but that's a new, unique way to look at that. So, man, when you hear the phrase high performance advisor, you tend to think someone that's just out there being, you know, the use car salesman bully, let's just get her done, leaving collateral damage in the wake, but when you then tie in family-centered community, that kind of makes people sit back and go, huh, how can you be both? So talk a little bit about what a family-centered, high-performance community is and why culture matters more than compensation when working with and choosing an IMO. For sure. I mean, you know, first of all, higher comp

doesn't mean anything if there isn't any collaboration or mentorship, right, Mike. So, I mean, you know, that's, that's a big part of what we do have them. Because trust me, you get those conversations with advisors when it comes to, when it comes to cop. Yeah. They want to know. And they want everybody wants more, more, more. But ultimately, you know, higher cop doesn't mean anything if there really isn't any support. And, you know, culture is going to determine, you know, that determines whether you're just contracted with somebody or you're actually truly invested in by that firm.

Okay. So strong culture. you know, which we have at Empire, I very feel like, and I feel like we're growing it. We're still a small boutique IMO in the early stages of my career here, Mike, and what we're building, but I'm super excited about it because I feel like our culture is going to really create loyalty and, you know, shared standards and stuff like that, which I think is going to help us all with more sustainable growth in the future. So, you know, when when leadership knows that you know, knows your goals and actively checks in on progress and stuff like that, you operate

differently. You're not just writing business with a firm. You know, you're you're building something alongside people who actually care about your success. You know, so that that's where I feel we are. I mean, that sense of shared mission kind of kind of creates that stability. And this isn't just about, you know, short-term production spikes. We're looking for long-term relationships here. You know, you mentioned leadership. And I think that's really important to think about because if you're just another cog in the wheel, it's like, okay, maybe the comp is nice. But talk a a little bit about how important accessibility to the leadership is when an advisor is looking for the right IMO to partner with because that can be a make or break, right?

Oh, for sure. If you don't have access to the leadership of the organization you're with, you're always going through some kind of a layer, you know, trying to get answers and trying to get help. You know, so, and again, if that happens, guess what happens? Production slips, you know, and then, you know, at that point, you know, it's, the support system is real, Mike. You've got to have somebody that's going to push you. And not because they have to, but because they truly want to see you in.

You know, so that's where I am. I mean, as the leader of empire and the leader of my company, you know, we're looking for advisors to bring them into our family culture because that family culture we have here, what it does, it just removes ego. And it just encourages complete transparency to people. You know, you can share all the challenges that you have openly. And, you know, you're not going to get that, again, at all, maybe a big, big box organization. And again, everyone's experiences are going to be a little bit different.

But being the boutique, smaller IMO, we really have, you know, those advantages to where you can have that openness and you get that transparency and all of that stuff is going to accelerate learning. And hopefully, I'm going to throw a, not a curveball, but like a contrarian perspective out, question-wise, because most of the time people are like, oh, look at my IMO. I'm great. Come see me. But in reality, there are some.

qualities that you will look for in an advisor when deciding if it's a good fit for your IMO. What are some of those qualities you're looking for? And not to say, no, you're out, but just to kindly say, hey, look, I don't know that we're fit because. But what are some of those qualities? Because it's not just, if you'll sign on the line, you're in, what do you look for? Well, I think a lot of it, I look for the advisors that are always pushing for more compensation. That's what.

Okay. So, you know, because again, if you're pushing for that higher comp, you know, that that's going to become a problem. And because ultimately we start losing that that collaboration that we need to have on the front end to be successful at doing what we want to do here at Empire, you know, as a family for you. You know, and advisors that don't have that type of mentorship and support, they eventually plateau anyways because of payout. And then you know what they do? They want more. You know what again? So first and foremost, one of the things that that becomes a right. for me if it's always about the higher compensation, you know, that it may mean that, hey, our culture here and our family culture here is not going to work. And again, what that kind of brings into play is a little bit of an ego. Now, in our industry, you have a lot of different levels of production inside organizations and some people are going to get a little bit more compensation than others. But staying consistent with it is what matters. And we try to continue to do that here, because that's important for us is just consistency with that. You know, I mean, everyone's got to everyone's got to rise together here, Michael.

You know, we definitely, we want to celebrate our wins together. We want to push each other to raise the standards, right? So, but everyone wants to rise together. We want to see everybody win. And if somebody is completely one-sided, whether it's on the compensation side or it's like, hey, it's me, me, me, then, you know, I don't think, you know, now growth really isn't part of your culture, but that's definitely a part of ours. And we don't want anybody here that's going to have just individual goals.

Yeah, I love that. So we kind of talked about, you know, building family centered. What does it really mean to operate like a family, but still produce at a high level? That's a good question. You know, I'll go back to operating like a family. When you think about your family and you're sitting down on Thanksgiving at dinner, you know, Thanksgiving dinner and you see a lot of those relatives you haven't seen, you know, maybe once a year, Mike, you get those show up to Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas's dinner.

It's that same thing. The biggest thing for me is ego, removing the ego. removing the ego and encouraging transparency. That is a huge part of what being a family is and the family culture. And also like I mentioned here, but just a little bit ago, celebrating together on the winds, you know, talking about those. If you have that openness with your firm, you know, hey, this didn't work for me. Oh, hey, man, this didn't work for me or this to work for this guy, but it didn't work for that

guy. You've got advisors all over that are willing to share their successes and their failures. and those willing to learn about those from the outside as they meet other firms and other advisors throughout Empire that work with us that are willing to share that stuff, when you're willing to see what other people have done and people are willing to share where they've already failed, you know, that makes it so much easier for you to kind of step into the process, you know, as, hey, this is where I failed, but now why I'm having a lot of success. Families share that stuff together. That is removing ego, separating our competition from, you know, hey, I know you're another advice.

or from this state or this state or this city or this city, when you separate all that stuff and you have that family cultural atmosphere, which I really firmly believe we do and we're going to continue to do because we drive at home constantly when we're having conversations. That support system is real. And knowing that you have that again, this is when an advisor feels super safe and he can share his wins and his losses, everybody is going to improve much faster around here.

Yeah. And, you know, I like the Thanksgiving. analogy except for the fact that sometimes those can get to be into a melee but but but let's let's even uh follow it back up with um but then 10 minutes later you're hugging and high five and again so that's what family does so i think that's that's really really huge so can you think of a time that one of your advisors and you community shared an idea or strategy that helped someone else really generate something better like more income more cases or better client outcomes absolutely uh you know we we host events with some of our top advisor firms that are that are willing to, you know, share what

they do. You know, I mean, imagine having, you know, imagine having a firm, Mike, that brings on over a hundred million plus of assets a year, you know, that says, hey, I'm going to open up my book and I'm going to teach you why we're good at what we do, why we have success. I'm talking process from the very beginning to the close of the business, exactly what we do. You know, we have those and we have those with a few different offices that come out here, and anybody can have an opportunity to see this and hear this. And when we have these, what it allows is that complete, you know, collaboration, where again, collaboration like this, that shortens, that shortens the learning curve.

You know, instead of having to figure things out all by yourself, you can leverage other experiences that people have. And that's going to do a lot, right? And just what you just mentioned, when we can impose, you know, excuse me, when we can improve closing ratios or whatever it is that we have, or case design or provide different ideas are alternatives to what another advisor has been used in the past. And they immediately call you back and say, holy cow,

Jeremy, I can't believe this. I've gotten way more attendance at my workshops now because I switched to this simple idea. And, you know, all of those and the smile it brings to my face. But guess what, guess what emperor remembers?

Like, this has nothing to do with me. This has to do with the family culture relationship that we built here and the other advisors that are willing to share. That's why we're so grateful. We're just surrounded by wonderful people that are able to, you know, share not only their failures,

but there's successes. And, you know, P.J. Fleck, who's the head coach of the Minnesota gopher football team here, Mike, he's got the saying is, I don't hire anybody unless they failed. And the rationale and the logic behind all of that, right, is these guys have gone through all these trials and tribulations and they know what they needed to be successful. You know, and how do they pick themselves up? Because that's what you're looking for. How do they pick themselves up?

What do they do differently? What are they changing in their business? I love that about PJ. and how he runs his program and the culture that he runs his program. Not that we're implementing the exact same thing here because it's completely different industry. This is not sports. But that can teach us a lot about life, right? And what we're doing and ultimately to me is I've got advisors that have started from nothing

and built themselves up into incredible firms. And the reason they do that is because they failed and they were willing to learn. And now they're willing to educate and teach others why they did so they don't do the same mistakes that they had in the past. Love it. I mean, it's just all about Knai, C-A-N-I. Tony Roberts talks about it, constant and never-ending improvement. Personally, corporately as a group, so that collaboration and idea sharing, you know, really does help increase production because guess what?

When one of the advisors helps out another advisor, they're being generous and abundant mindset, but guess what else happens? It refines their own processes because they're giving and serving so everyone wins. So let's talk about a little bit about if an advisor, feeling maybe isolated or unsupported, what should they be looking for in a new home? You know, like I think that sometimes you think about, oh, I'm just over here on Zoom land or, you know, I go once a year to the corporate office. But what are some of the ways that people can feel a little bit more supported that way?

Your accessibility to leadership, right? So if you can't, if you can't reach decision makers and the organization that you're working with right now, you're likely just another number, right? So, you know, in the right environment, you could pick up that phone, Mike, and you could get strategic input immediately. Like, I need some help. I need case design. I've got a tough case that I'm working on. I need an expert.

You know, immediately you should be able to pick up the phone and be able to get that input pretty fast. You know, that just having that type of accessibility alone to the leadership, that could prevent some mistakes and, you know, obviously, you know, prevent missed opportunities as well. So communication, I always go back to that term. not only communication, but the speed of that communication often makes a difference, you know, for an advisor. So like, yes, you communicate with me, but it was three days later. Yes, I asked you for this information, but it's 24 hours later. That's unacceptable.

That's unacceptable to me. You know, so ultimately to me, like communication is one of the lifebloods of our organization, the lifelines of our organization that we offer. But it's not just that. It's also the speed of that, Mike. Yep. Love it. Well, let's wrap up with this thought. Let's talk a little bit about it's kind of going deeper than what we've been mentioning here on community. But what about mentorship? What role does mentorship play in helping your advisors grow and scale to the next level? And then what does that look like there at Empire? Like what are some of the deliverables that would fall up underneath of the phrase mentorship? Yeah. I mean, I think with mentorship, I mean, we, the advisors.

needs to look for alignment that is in their vision, right? And it, and it, it's with their values. You know, so the right home and the right IMO or the organization, it should feel collaborative. It should feel like it's growth focused. It should, you know, they should personally be invested in your success. When you can get that type of mentorship and that, that type of family culture, you know, that, that's when, you know, alignment becomes stronger. You know, decisions become a lot easier for you with your business. You know, momentum starts to build more naturally, stuff like that. Like, you know, when you quit second-guessing everything that you do or your environment and you just start focusing on growth, Mike, you know, the right fit just brings more clarity.

I like that term. It brings more clarity. It brings you a lot more confidence, you know, and it's kind of like, you know, Mike, when a baseball player goes to play with the New York Yankees, you know, it's, he looks at acts and feels different than he would on, I don't want to bring up any other teams, I guess, because I don't want to offend anybody else. But a minor league. Yeah, let's just say a minor league team.

When he plays on some other team, you know, the expectations are different when he plays for the Yankees, right? You know, they're higher. The culture is stronger. The performance has to rise to match the level of what the New York Yankees at. This is exactly what I want here. And what I want, the same feeling for our advisors is when you're plugged into the right spot, the right organization, the right environment, your standards are going to just

elevate naturally. and that is where I feel like we can help create your success, you know, with that type of relationship. You know, it's like what you're saying about clarity. When you confuse, you lose. And I think that too many times people are, you know, just all over the place. And sometimes when people are, they get caught in their own like, oh, well, I've always done it that way or said it that way. But sometimes when you are around other people. their top producers, guess what happens then? Their perspective of possibility changes. And they're like,

oh, wow, I was producing at this level, but look at this person over here doing triple that much, that production that I'm doing. I guess if they can do it, I can do it. Or I heard how they explained that on that last call we had together. I'm going to try that. And so you start learning from each other, but I think that it expands your horizon to go, well, I guess I'm just a producer at the X level, but now all of a sudden you start seeing someone else produce in two or three times that going maybe I won't get there but maybe I could get past my current level. Yeah, I mean, if you're not walking into appointments with your client meetings and you're not prepared and confident, you're missing out, right?

You know, that is that is something that the culture here, the family mentorship here, what we're building here is, you know, teaching advisors or helping advisors just be different, create higher standards with themselves. hold yourself to a higher standards. And being around top guys does that to you. So 100%. What could agree more? Well, Jeremy, let's wrap up with this.

If someone is listening to this going, man, family centered, high performance, community, those are some words that resonate with me. What's the best way that they can learn a little bit more and also reach out and connect with you? Hey, Mike. Yeah, I definitely have them go directly to our website. That's www. EmpireMPS. That's Matt Paulsam.

empire mps.com. There you can get all my information. You can get my, you can email, you get directly to my phone access. You're going to get directly to me. Again, the advantage of the small boutique IMO. You're going to get directly to the guy that's building this thing. And give us a call. Let's have a 15 minute introduction call. And in 15 minutes, I think we're both going to find out if we'd like to work together. Love it. Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate you coming back on today. Thank you, Mike. It's been a pleasure and appreciate you having me. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes,

visit www. www.Influentialentrepreneursradio.com.