The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 053 - Tracy Cotton on Maximizing Your Value as an Insurance Producer

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comTracy Cotton, one of my favorite people in the insurance industry, joins the podcast for a deep discussion on the producer vs agency owner relationship and how producers can maximize their value over the long-term. Get more: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have one of my favorite people in the entire industry on the podcast and that is Tracy Cotton. And the reason I like Tracy Cotton is because when you look at Tracy Cotton from the outside, right? She's – you would think mild-mannered. You would just – you would think polite. And what you get is funny and ironic and sarcastic and thoughtful and introspective and dynamic. And, you know, just – I just – I love, this conversation was just, it was just so much fun. And anytime I get to spend time either, you know, virtually or in person with Tracy Cotton, I take that time because I think that she's just the treasure of our space and I think that she's

one of the great people. And I think that anybody who could have Tracy Cotton working for their organization should consider themselves lucky. And, you know, the truth is, I told her many times that the moment she wants to come work for risk, that I'll get licensed in North Carolina and Tennessee and any other state she wants. And I'll go get appointments with any carrier she wants. And she can, you know, I'm joking. But I just, that's how much I, how highly I think of her and how much I think that, you know, she's just awesome. And she's a worker and she's a salesperson. She's a marketer and she just gets it.

And I love that she focuses on ag business, something I don't know anything about. And I just think you're thoroughly gonna enjoy this episode with Tracy Cotton because you are absolutely going to take something away. We push into many different aspects of the industry, a lot of which has to do with the relationship between producers and leadership and what that means and how it's evolving and what recommendations she has and I have for producers who may not love their fit with their current organization and how they can approach different things. So I think you're going to enjoy it. I certainly did. And it's just a pleasure to share these types of episodes with you. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to Advisor Evolved. If you need a website, which you do, if you. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to Advisor Evolved.

If you need a website, which you do, if you don't have a website, then slap yourself in the face right now. If you don't have a website right now that's functional beyond just being a postcard online, literally take your hand and slap yourself as hard as you can across the face because you need to wake up. But see, here's the deal. The people who are going to benefit from an advisory wall evolved website are people who are looking to grow their business because it's not just a website. It's not just a pretty picture in the magic box. It's a tool. And I use quote vids almost every single day. Quote vids is just one of the tools that comes with an advisory wall website. And I use it almost every single day. QuoteVids is just one of the tools that comes with an advisory wall website and I

use it almost every single day. It has completely changed the game for me in terms of my ability to deliver that human experience in our digital space. It's part of my human optimized agency and when people ask me like, oh, what website should provide or should I use? There's literally no other answer. It's advisory evolved. It's Chris Langell and his use? There's literally no other answer. It's Advisor Evolved. It's Chris Langell and his team. There's literally no other answer. It's Advisor Evolved. You can go check out the other ones and you can even choose them. You'll be making a bad decision and that's okay. You just know you've made a poor decision and then at some point you will come back to Advisor Evolved where you should be. All right, go to advisoryevolved.com. Advisoryevolved.com. Check it out. Get your

new website. Get up to date. We live in a digital world, my friends. Everyone's working from home. Everyone's shopping online. You got to have a good website. Advisory Evolved is the only website option in our industry. All right, now on to the magnificent Tracy Cotton. There she is. what's going on that's what you get when you like have zoom meetings and you don't want to enter the room unmuted every single time yeah i get that i uh i haven't sold a single policy on Zoom. Not one. No? I haven't had the need to.

I haven't had one client where it even made sense. Every account I've sold, big or small, has either been through email or phone. And I've sold two in person. So you do know what just dropped this week? The new Jeb Blunt book, Virtual Selling. Yeah, I see the pictures of it everywhere. So yeah, I went ahead and grabbed that.

We'll see. I've got a couple of good friends that are pretty excited about it. It's funny. It's not like that we haven't had video for a while. It's just how to use it, I think is probably the interesting part. So yeah, it just also blows me away. He whipped it out so fast. So that's interesting. Well, that dude, I mean, one, I mean, one, he's awesome, but he also was like a content factory. So he, he, he just, he can, he can pump stuff out. You know, he's, you know, it's funny,

you know, these, some of these authors that make a living selling books, they're just so good at seeing a trend and just getting a book out about it. And it's not that they haven't talked about it before, but just, you know, I mean, right now that's probably the perfect book sell, you know, via zoom. I mean, that's the perfect book to put out right now because every company is going how the heck do we do this like they've never sold anything before yeah i've got i was just on a accountability call with us this influence circle of influences that i have and they're selling furniture how do do you do that? So he will take people on a virtual walk through the showroom and he's got camera on the gimbal and he's super excited about it because the company he

works for isn't really interested in doing what he's doing. They, then they instead spent, I don't know, probably like thousands of dollars on videos where they have people who like staged and did this specific video and talked about the furniture. And he's like, that's all well and good, but I think that I'm going to do better actually one-on-one with somebody in a Zoom and we're walking through the showroom and we can actually interact. I've got their full attention. Yeah. And they're not going to start a video and maybe get bored halfway through and

check out and go do something else. The other thing too with that, and it's so specific to people's tastes and there could be one piece of furniture in one of those videos that someone doesn't like, and it throws off another piece of furniture that maybe normally they would like because they can't see it or the room's a different size and uh yeah you know i don't think that anyone really i think the most interesting thing about this is about covid in general and just everything that's come out of being locked in our houses and having to go virtual more is um everyone who thought that they had the answer and it would always be the answer is right and wrong and everyone that thinks that they knew what the answer was going to be was both right and wrong

because you know i mean i would tell you that with my digital disposition and comfortableness that I thought I would be calendling. I haven't had one person use my calendly to set up an appointment. I thought it would be, you know, email to calendly to Zoom. That doesn't happen once. Not one time. Never. People are just like, oh, can we meet at two o'clock? Sure.

I'll call you on the phone. Okay. Now, do use, uh, Langell's quote vids tool a lot. So I do use that. So what I'll do. So my process is instead of using zoom, what my process has been is package it all up, do the quote vid where I break down. I try to keep it between three to five minutes max, try to break down. Here's why I decided to do this and use this carrier. And so I give them the prequel. I, with the email link to the video, I also include the PDF to the, to the proposal. And then we just get on the phone and we talk about it. And, um, I've just found that to be a lot easier because people get all messed up with video. You know, some people care what they look like. Some people care where they're sitting. Some people don't have the time. Some people have background noise. And I'm just like, I for a little over a year. I don't remember what got me just pushed me to finally do it other than it was my sales process.

Yeah. Because I deal with so many smaller accounts that I just can't spend a tremendous amount of time going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And I don't know how if I'm going to reach them, though, right on the first call back, you know, I've got the proposal ready. And I know that, you know, like Kelly, Donna, who Pura would tell you, don't send out just a PDF naked, you know, and let them figure it out. And you need to walk them through it. Well, I also don't know if I'm going to catch them on that call. So by me going ahead and doing the video proposal, I've got, you know, I've walked them through the whole proposal. And I'm here to tell you, Ryan, I would say probably as far as my closing ratio on a video proposal, I would say that it's probably 70 or 80% because by the time

that they've already watched it, all their questions have been answered. I've highlighted all the things that I know that they're probably going to ask because I do know that part in advance, but at the very least, and they just call me up and say, I saw it. Let's do this. And it does, that does shorten my process. I love the video proposal. Huge proponent of it. You know, I, it just, to me at this point, cause I agree with, cause this, everyone is so busy, right? So you could spend the next two weeks trying to catch them at the right moment. And you know, they're busy, they're on the phone, they got something going on. They, they send you to voicemail. Hey, I got this proposal. Are we going to chat? Or you just sent them that email with that link and password and you go, hey, the answer to all your wildest

dreams is behind this gated website. And you watch this video and all your wildest dreams come true. And I love it. And the other thing too that I like about Chris's thing, and I know other platforms have this as well, is like there's this button that he puts on there. It just says like accept proposal. And it doesn't do anything. I love that. It's not like you're actually accepting the proposal. Like, you know, the coverage isn't bound.

It's just kind of visually going, yup, I'll take this. And now your next call is so easy. Hey, so happy you decided to do business. You know, any final questions? No. Okay. How do you decided to do business. You know, any final questions? No. Okay. How do you want to boom, boom, boom done. And we're now, now that call is not, and they feel like they engage with you because the like screen in a screen you all, no one can see because we're just a podcast, but like, you know, that little like picture in a picture thing,

you know, where, so they can see you talking, they see your face, see your animated when you're talking to your proposal. And, um, yeah, I am zoom selling. I, you know, I'm not negative on it. I just haven't needed it yet. Um, but video proposals are no doubter at this point in my mind. Well, the, the thing that it did for me, and I am totally jealous because we don't have Chris's product. I had to do it on my own, and I started using Vidyard just because I had used, I can't remember, maybe it was Loom. Started out with that. Didn't particularly like that as well. Started with Vidyard because it was a Marcus Sheridan plug, and it was super easy.

And I can do something, anything I need to with it and I love doing a little personalized thumbnail so that they see it and are more likely to open it I a lot of my clients I don't I don't get to see some of my clients face to face as in I just got a call just a couple minutes ago they're about four hours away they're another part of the state they were referred to me by NC State a program that they're going through hours away. They're another part of the state. They were referred to me by NC State, a program that they're going through. And that's fantastic. Maybe we'll do business with them. They won't, but I may not actually meet them face to face. The Zoom idea is great, but at the very least, even the video proposal, I've run into those people later and they knew me because they got to see that video. And not that they couldn't look on our

website and there's a picture of Tracy or they couldn't get my LinkedIn and there's a picture of Tracy and I'm all over the place, but they, they felt like they knew me. We'd only talked on the phone and I'd only put that one video proposal out. We'd never zoomed because that was of course not as big a deal as it is now, but I'll be interested to see, I think that there'll be a place for me on it. I'm, I'm actually looking for the idea with the video idea of being able to walk through a showroom. I'm looking at it from the other aspect of could I get could I possibly get a farmer to be willing to Zoom with me and walk me through their farm. That would save me the, you know, the several hours

round trip. And, you know, and if they're gonna be out there walking around doing something anyway, just take me along with you and, you know, show me and walk me through it. And let me get a better feel for what you've got going on, knowing that I'm not gonna be able to come out and visit you and the timetable that you have, or it's just not a convenient thing, or maybe you just don't feel comfortable with me being there face to face with you mask or not. I don't know what that would look like because I think that they probably won't care. But that possibility is something that I'm thinking is an interesting one. I'd like to kind of play around with it. I think there's just a lot of possibilities out there that people haven't thought through yet.

And I know that for myself, we've got to be the ones thinking through it. And that was, you know, that's basically one of the things that I wanted to talk to you today about is, you know, whose responsibility is it when it's time to recreate the wheel? Is it up to the producer? Do they get to have that kind of say in what they do for an agency? Is it respected?

Is it accepted? There's a lot of questions out there, and I know that that's been on my mind recently, in part because I've spent the last few years doing things a little bit differently. I've been really fortunate because the agency that I worked for five years ago when I said, I've got this niche I want to work on. What do you think? They were like, do we have markets for it? And I went, yes. And nobody else in the agency is working on it.

Nobody else wants to. And they said, go ahead, go for it. And then I went, well, then I'm going to do this. And then I'm gonna do that. And okay, well, whatever you want to do, not that they were going to necessarily pay for me to do any of those things. That wasn't going to mean that they were going to like fork over the cash for me to go out and get a separate website just for that particular marketing angle. They weren't going to necessarily get me business cards. They were going to have my logo versus their logo on. But they also didn't care as long as I was, you know, busy doing selling business, they were okay with it. But I think there's a little bit of a controversy there

as to, is it a threat? If I'm an agency owner and somebody wants to start branding themselves within the agency, is that cool or not? So there's a lot there. So there's a couple of things. I think that, well, one thing I wrote down that I have to get out of my brain just so I can answer your question is, and this is the way that I think, I think there is a tremendous piece of content that you could create to teach farmers how to do a video review of, that they could then send to you so you don't actually have to even be on the call, right? You're like, here's what I need to see. And you could show them, here's how you do a video, package it up and text it to me. And then I can do everything I need to do off of this video.

Here's how you do it. Here are the things I need to see. And then they can just take the phone out without you, video the thing, email you the video and boom, now you're working and you don't have to be on the call with them because that adds a layer of to it that that is probably unnecessary so there's a cool piece of content that you could create like you know showing people how to do it how to how to whatever that is that you need to see because i've never been a farmer whatever so so you know that better than anybody you could it would be cool you could you could, you know, have someone, you know, have someone film you as you're almost doing it on one of your clients. So you could have like cuts from you

actually showing them the shots to, to the B roll would be behind you showing you getting the shots and you could come up with a really cool thing. Call, call, call Sydney. She'll, she'll help you put that together. Um, that's amazing. That, that would be a really cool. And then, then like when they call you that with the interest and they get referred to you, you could say to them, look, I'm about to send you a video. It's three and a half minutes long. It walks you through exactly what I need from a video perspective to see your farm. You just send me that video. And once I had that video back, I can get to work. And then that gives you another cool touch point. It feels like you're, you can set it up in a way that it makes

you look like, geez, man, she knows our business so well. Wow. And then you're also being very respectful of their time. Cause you can say, look, you have so much shit going on in your day. Once everything's done, once you've fed the pigs and shucked the corn or whatever, you know what I mean? Like put everyone out in the pasture, you know, just walk around real quick and get this video. And I just think that would be really cool. I had to get that out of my brain before I answered. Well, I appreciate you doing that because literally I have farm friends that are out there working on TikTok. I'm not even on there yet, and they're out there doing videos on TikTok. So they can do that.

They can take the time to do a video review for me. That's brilliant. Brilliant, Ryan. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. All right, cool. So I had to, you know, sometimes you get like something wedged in your coconut, and until you extract it, you can't think about the next thing.

So, all right. So to your question about the next thing. So, all right. So, um, to, to your question about the, the next thing I, whoo, there's so much there. So, um, you, you and I have talked about this, uh, on, on more than one occasion, but you know, kind of where you're at is very similar to where I was at, at the Murray group and that they were supportive in so much as they said go ahead do your thing but it wasn't like it wasn't like they wanted it to be part of they it wasn't part of their philosophy they didn't believe in it they weren't supportive in like hey this is amazing let's run with this they were just like if this is what you want to do we're okay okay with you doing it. And then ultimately there were some issues with, you know, there were, there were people who, and this, this isn't the, unfortunately, the Murray group isn't the only company in which this has happened to me where people started to

think like I was the owner or I was more than just a producer because of how out front I was. So, okay. So I, I can, I, I think, I think that this is a common problem for producers who, uh, create content. I think this is a very common problem. And I have a couple ideas. Um, my first idea is, and this is probably the most draconian, is there are plenty of agency, it's 100% an ego thing, 100%, if there's a problem. And I would say that just go find an agency owner who would be willing to support you. Now, there are tons of caveats to that. I'm sure you have a non-compete. I'm sure there are issues with all kinds of different stuff, right? If you don you have a non-compete. I'm sure there are issues with all kinds of different stuff, right? You, if you don't have a non-compete, then you would have to go BOR everything. You got to tell all your clients or someplace else. I mean, there's a lot of issues to that. Um, I think you have to figure out how much of a problem it is. Um, the other side of

it is like, and you maybe have done this and I'll ask this question and then be quiet. But I think, I think that there is also a point at which like, you know, if you, I don't know if you've gone in and just like, I don't want to say put your foot down, but just said like, look guys, I'm producing this. Here's what's happening. Like, I need to know what this looks like for us in the future. Cause if the answer is just, you kind of turn the other way, but you're not really supportive of it, that doesn't put me in a position for success long term. Because I feel like I'm operating with one hand behind my back, because of the current relate. So if you have issues, talk to me, I'll talk to you about let's figure this out. Because I think if we you know, we can be in a similar spot, maybe you've already done that or whatever but um I know a lot of producers haven't had that conversation and I certainly and I'm this is

firsthand experience I never a lot of the issues I had at the Murray group were because I was too immature at the time to sit down with them and have that conversation so it kind of got to a it didn't work out exactly the way that I had hoped long term. Well, and that's, that's an interesting thing. Two things on that. The first is, and I actually reached out to you at the beginning of the year when I went from being more of a hybrid role where I was selling and servicing and doing a lot of inside and then trying to grow my own niche with that, that I became a full producer.

And with that of course comes those types of things that they typically will do like signing a non-compete after all these many years of working for them. But that was the smart thing to do. That was what they should do. But then what I actually had to go back and look at is I'm reading through this non-compete and I'm realizing, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. So I get that you're going to have all the clients that I've already written and all the clients that I will write as long as I'm an employee here. I get that.

But guess what? While you weren't caring what I was doing, I was building a brand that I now don't want to exist without, or at the very least, I don't really, I mean, I could exist without, but I don't want to exist without. So I need you to confirm that I can take farm to fork insurance agent. I haven't trademarked that, but by golly, that's what I'm known for. That's where tagline is my little owl my little logo it's just my little logo and I wanted to go with me because who cares about your insurance I still want to be able to use that and that's that's what I've been doing on my own dime for these last

four and a half years before you decided that you wanted me to be a full producer and then since then I also recognize the opposite. Like I, and there was also content, of course, that I had created during that time period, which still is not being utilized on the actual company website. But that actually is the part that's finally getting ready to change. And they have approached me and said, Hey, so we want to put content on the website now. And we realized that you have an idea of how to do that.

And you already have some things you want to do. And then we're going to probably end up having to train some other people because you're going to still be the face of the farm and agribusiness and farm to fork. But we may need somebody else over here that wants to be the face of work comp. I get that. I think that's great. But they don't know where to start with that. And they're going to come to me on that. And that's great. But I really am surprised at this point that, you know, that hasn't happened already. But along with that, so I started this podcast a few weeks ago.

Yeah. And it's super exciting. I, through one of my ad contacts, through somebody that I knew on Twitter that already had an ag related podcast. I called him up because I've been wanting to do it for a long time and it just seemed too complicated. I'm not very, I'm not very good at editing and things like that, especially on the, on the sound end was afraid of it. I tried to use some of the software before and it just seemed really cumbersome.

He said, you know, I'm'm using anchor it's super easy you basically like you can just like trim by like putting your fingers on a screen and move it around a little bit next thing you know you can hit save and publish and it does all the work for you i was like done i'm gonna do a podcast he goes i have an idea tracy i know somebody who's doing somewhat the same thing that you do and she's out in Kansas and I just think the two of y'all should get together. And that in itself, of course, opened the words and it was fantastic.

And she's been the most incredible co-host to be working with that I could possibly ask for. And we do come from different backgrounds and it is wonderful that we get to play off of each other. And now we're starting to have guests and we can ask them different kinds of questions and we can really build on what the two of us are doing. But she's the one that said, now we've got to make sure and put a disclaimer at the end. And I went, okay, disclaimer, what, what do you mean? And she said, well, because of who she works for, and she was afraid that if they heard the podcast, they'd want to regulate it. Oh, no, you can't say that on the podcast. Because

if you say that in its conjunction with our name, that could, you know, we don't want to, we want to make sure you're not putting out the wrong information out there. We, you know, you actually have financial products that you could be, you know, talking about, and that would be wrong. And because it's on their, on her end, it's a little bit more heavy in that. And I hadn't really thought about it, but then once she actually came up with the wording for it, I was like, oh, bingo. That means that if I don't mention my employer on this podcast, then it's my podcast. It's a personal podcast and it gets to go with me. That's brilliant. Thank you so much, Vicki Gibson for figuring out the disclaimer at the end.

And she's the one that insisted on it, but it was because of the experience that I've seen somebody, maybe I'm talking to right now, go through and what does it look like? I know that I surely didn't want to have a cease and desist over something as silly as something that I really care about. And maybe nobody cares about what I'm doing with it. They haven't cared yet, but I just don't want them to care down the road because it's something I created while I was in that employment, if that makes sense.

Yeah. I don't know who the owners of your business are, but I do know that old men be getting grumpy and you got to be careful. I said to my wife one day, I said, I am positive that someday I will be old, but God, I hope I'm not an old grumpy white guy because they be, when they get grumpy, she gets real. So I, I, I think, I think you're doing the right thing. I, so I love this idea. I love it. Um, one thing to help you with the editing, I would say is talk to Cass. Cass has got a little

side hustle that he's doing helping this podcast is completely packaged by Cass's company so Cass yeah so what I do is I record this podcast and I'm Cass and I are going to be doing an episode about like niche podcasting he's coming on we've just both been so. We haven't been able to hook up, but, um, this podcast right here, I do the intro. I record the intro and I, and obviously I record the interview and then I send those two files to one of his people and they do the intro music. They do the outro music. They package it all up. Um, if there's any, like, like there was certain, like sometimes someone will say something and they'll come back and go, Hey, I really was certain, like sometimes someone will say something and they'll come back and go, Hey, I really wasn't supposed to say this. And I, and I think that's

super cool. Not like a curse word or something, just like maybe they give a stat out that was right. Like, like you're, you're a cohost, right? Like maybe she says something that she didn't mean to say and it would actually impact something. You know, I'll go in and I'll just chop that up. But basically I take the finished interview and the finished intro and I send those off and then I get an email. So every Wednesday night and Sunday night, the episode goes out to the podcast networks. And then every Monday and Thursday, the blog post, the corresponding blog post goes live. And I just get an email that says hey you know podcast live on Monday morning and then I start sharing it out and and that's and that's what I do I will tell you that that has changed the game for me absolutely changed the game because

now I can do an interview like this and in the back of my mind I'm not going oh shit it's gonna I gotta package this up and take all this time and then i gotta upload it to this thing and do it because that one that work for my personality is soul-sucking and two you just who has the time right i mean so i you know cast this thing has been game changer complete game changer for me so i'd reach out to him and talk to him about that because uh it's it's a game it was a game changer for me from a podcasting perspective. And that's, that's good to know. I had, I knew that Bradley and Scott for insurance guys were using an outside service that I think that's actually somebody that they know maybe in

Alabama, you know, they like to do a lot of local things there. They want to stay away from Alabama as much as possible. Well, you know, i ended up the one time that i got to be on on their show i got to do it in vegas back when you go to vegas and it was like fantastic yeah i'm just joking by the way i love alabama but oh and i love alabama too you know i i'm right here in the midst of it uh between north carolina and then looking at tennessee and and alabama's right there with it. So that's just down the road.

But no, I just, I think that as far as the angry white guys and I, we talk a lot. I say we, as in you and I, but the rest of my circle of friends and we all feel that. We feel that from lots of different aspects. We've been, you know, perhaps we've kind of been poked fun at at times, like, you know, oh, you know, that's really cute what they're doing with such and such. And, and then, literally, those are the same people who are now actually like doing the thing or paying somebody to do the thing. They're doing the thing that they made fun of. And, and I think that's ironic and it's just the way that it goes sometimes. But I mean,

I don't take offense to it for the most part. And like you said, with what you'd been doing, it's, there's the two sides to it. You've got the, okay, so maybe they aren't afraid of me doing what I'm doing to brand myself or to create my own content, but it's because they don't think that there's any harm in it. And that's great because they think that it's good for the agency. That's great. But if there's not any, if they're not willing to like back me up as in actually like help with the expenses of say, for instance, a podcast, if that's what I was asking for, but I'm not, or there was something that I was asking for. And that's just been harder to come by. But on the other hand, I also recognize that I've got really good friends that he is a heavy hitter. He works for one of the name brand agencies, one of those large, large alphabet houses. And he's so excited about doing his own

content and his own video now that he's doing like on LinkedIn. And the reality is he knows that he can expect their content, their name brand to keep doing what it's been doing for him. He recognizes that in order to move forward and keep moving forward, he's going to have to do a little bit of self-branding. And he also recognizes that he can't count on somebody else's content to do all the work. It's not going to be completely about what the niche he's in. It's not going to be specific to him or what he can actually bring to the table for somebody. It doesn't, it doesn't do that relationship building that I think that it's opportunity to do when you're creating the right kind of content. Um, so I have a couple of thoughts on that. My first thought is they're going to be okay with

you until you are more popular than they are. And then it doesn't matter how much revenue it's bringing in, you're going to have problems. I'm just, I'm calling that shot right now. You know, I've done things in the past that were very advantageous for people that weren't me and still had my hand slapped and, you know, all kinds of different stuff. So my point, and you know all kinds of different stuff so my point and i've seen not

just me i've seen this a time and time and time and we you know we have a mutual friend who's also in north carolina who now works for a gangster agency that before had the same exact thing happen to him right so like what happens here this is unfortunately um this is unfortunately a huge ego issue, particularly with the baby boomer generation. And I'm sure there's baby boomers out there. You're going to hate when I say this, but male baby boomers do not want to be upstaged. They just don't. It's the reason they haven't retired yet, right? Like this, this generation refuses to retire, which is okay. But the problem is when you have people in general that they do, it's not a generation that is used to sharing, sharing the hierarchical structure, right?

They've worked to get to where they are and they've earned their position and that's perfectly fine, but they're not good at sharing that position in general. So what ends up happening is as long as they see what you're doing as a nice little side project for the agency, it's pat on the head. That's great, Tracy. We're so happy for you. The moment that the podcast and the blog and your brand start to become something that is being highlighted in trade journals that people are talking about, that clients are asking about, that people might, you know, they're at a chamber event and someone goes, hey, that Tracy, man, it's great that you brought her in and made her such an

important part of the agency. And they're going to be in their mind. They're gonna be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the back of their head, they're going to be like, that motherfucker thinks that she owns this place. Screw that. That's what's going to happen. I'm telling you. And it's a shame, but it's what's going to happen. It just is.. And, and, uh, and it's, it's a shame, but it's what's going to happen. It just is. I can just tell you that. And I hope it doesn't, but, um, I I've just seen this time and time and time and time again, the moment you get to a certain level, it's wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This isn't a side project anymore. We need to take ownership. What are you saying? We want you to send this through legal before

you say that. Can you make sure that our name is part of the logo? You know, are you, have you mentioned our carrier partners yet? I mean, you're going to hear all this crap and you're going to go, what the heck? I'm the one that freaking built this thing. Like, why don't you just let me keep rocking and rolling and everyone will be happy. I'm putting business through you. You're taking a piece of it. Like, I'm not asking you for money. Like, let me do my thing. And, um, and, and, and I've just, this has happened over and over and over again across the country. And it's a shame, but it's what happens now. Not every time there are leaders who step up to the table and go, I hit the freaking gold mine. I got Tracy.

I'm a rocker. I'm going to, what do you need? Let's go. Go, go be the ag freaking queen of the Southeast of the country. Right. We'll put all our money behind you. I just think that that's rare. And if you haven't seen it already, like if they haven't seen it, then I struggle, you know, I have no idea who your ownership is, but I struggle to think that they're going to like, all of a sudden see the light. Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. You know, I have no idea who your ownership is, but I struggle to think that they're going to like all of a sudden see the light. Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. You know, I told you the other day, you emailed me and I was like, shit, if you leave, I'll hire you tomorrow. I'll go get, Rogue will be, Rogue will get licensed in North Carolina and Tennessee and you can go do your thing. You know, I don't, I just think, and there are plenty of owners.

I guess my point is there is this whole generation of owners, not just in age, just in mentality, right? There's this whole generation of owners who are thinking that they would, they would buy that brand from you and see it as an asset to their business. And they would build it and nurture it and fan the flames and give you the resources to go as far as you want to go. There's not as many of them, but they are out there. And, you know, it's not like that would be an easy transition, but it's there for you. And, you know, I guess that's my point.

Well, and I think that you're right on that point. And that's, those expectations, I think that, I just, I want to see, I want to see more producers either kind of step up and go, okay, well, I recognize that I can't just sit back on my laurels and just expect the agency brand to sell, you know, to sell something. And, you know, and some of them are just super good at whatever they're going to do. And I get that they don't feel the need to have to do anything different, because they are good with, you know, the logo on their shirt, you know, they've got the, you know, they've got their nice polo, and it's got the big agency logo. Why everybody has to have a tree when we still cut down too many of them to make paper out of, I don't know, but every agency I know practically has a tree in their logo somewhere. And the logo is great,

but if that's really what they think is going to sell, I think that the producers need to maybe kind of step up too. I see that as something that kind of goes both ways, that there are going to be agencies that are going to see the value in how to promote the agency better. And then they may end up having some pushback from those guys that are like, yeah, but I'm doing great with what I'm doing. Again, they may be of a certain age group and they are having still having better luck with conversations on a golf course than they are with trying to get a zoom meeting with somebody. They don't virtual what, know i just go and hang out the elk's lodge or whatever it is that they do and i i think that it's still a model that's working to an extent i just don't see how much longer that can

work and i also just recognize that it can't you know trace why can't we have both why can't we have the guy who goes and crushes the Elks Lodge? Go crush the Elks Lodge. Do it. Drink the cheap draft beer and play the bingo and whatever the hell you do and tell old war stories. And it's freaking amazing, right? That's amazing.

If you can crush that environment, rock and roll. I guess what bothers me is why can't, hey, I crush Yelks Lodge and then sit right next to you and go, and you do this podcast ag virtual thing. And that's freaking amazing too. And we're both freaking amazing. Why I guess what I don't like, and I guess this is a life thing for me. And this, you know, I, this is my second interview today. So I'm very soapboxy. So I apologize to everyone. But I guess as a life thing, I don't understand why people put their shit on other people, right? Like you're not saying to the agency, you guys are all jerks because you're not podcasting. Correct. All you're saying is, hey, why don't you support my podcasting

efforts in the way I do business so that I can help bring more revenue into the agency. You go do exactly what you want to be. And I just don't like that. So often what happens is we say that's different from me. So I'm going to take stuff and I'm gonna put it on you. And, um, I just don't like that. I really don't like that. Like, I think, I think it's a big problem with a lot of the stuff that we're dealing with in the country right now is everybody on every side is trying to take their stuff and put it on everyone else instead of just living their life. But, um, it's particularly in our business with this conversation, I think that's what happens way too often is instead of just appreciating the difference, they want to tell you,

they want to either not support by just being silent or literally try to keep you from being as successful as you could be. You're right. You're absolutely right. And I know that that's, that's whether it be sales style or, or how you go about branding or marketing that, that one true way that it is not one size fits all. And if it was, then we were really boring. I think that it's much more fascinating to be able to see what people come up with and continue to come up with. I just, I think you're right that, that polarization is where we're running into trouble, where it's literally crippling certain operations. And I've got a good friend, she and I talk regularly and she is, she's an agency manager in Georgia that she is, you know, she just feels like so much of her time is spent because she's

not really selling insurance anymore. She literally works with the CSRs and she's working with the producers and she's working with agency management, which is still doing a little bit of both. I mean, most of them are still doing some, still selling some. And she says, I spend all of my time trying to build bridges just for somebody else to come over and, you know, set another one on fire. And she's like, I just, every time I think that I've got everybody kind of on that team aspect and they all are all together on it,

then somebody else has to come along. And it's, and it And we see it with technology. You know, when it comes into an agency and you've got agencies that are, you know, going to pieces because they don't know how to use something new and there's all that push and pull. And I mean, it's kind of scary out there, but I actually know agents that are like, well, you know, I'm just hoping that that person will just go ahead and retire. If they don't want to play by what we're doing, they just need to go ahead and retire.

And it's like, yeah, but you know, if they still could come in and be supportive, even if they're not going to be able to be a hundred percent functional on all the, all the technology, they still have something to offer. I mean, there's still something there. And if everybody can respect that, that's the thing. If, you know, if they're going to come back in and they're just going to they are the negative nancy that's coming in and talking about how terrible it is and they aren't going to do it that's different maybe they do need to retire but because we've seen that we've and we've seen that you know i know that back when i

used to do some consulting i i know that that was kind of the thing we knew that sometimes some knew something another wasn't even going to go over an office until such and such actually retired. Until so-and-so retires, we're never going to change agency management systems. Until so-and-so retires, we're never going to try to actually start using new CRM. We aren't going to do email marketing.

You fill in the blank. And that push and pull is, and yet the rest of the world is looking at us like we're fools i mean they're looking at us as an industry and wonder why we can't move forward it's because we can't even decide how to move forward and that's producer autonomy but it's also and it's an industry thing and think that you're, you just hit the nail on the head with that. I was on the call with a carrier the other day and they said, so we were talking about, I am, I'm part of their technology council, which is, which is really cool. Cause I one love this carrier. And two, I think, I just think they're doing a lot of things right. And they're asking the right questions and I don't know, they don't have all the answers, but I

think they're asking the right questions. I really don't know, they don't have all the answers, but I think they're asking the right questions. I really like the way they're approaching. Okay. So we're talking about this and they were walking me through an idea that they had. And I said to them, I said, are you building this for your top 20% or your bottom 20%? And they said, our disposition is, we believe there are agencies that are leaning forward

and there are agencies that are leaning back. And we are building everything from now on for the agencies that are leaning forward. And we are not even considering the agencies that we believe are leaning backwards. They said, and I said, I literally raised my hands and said, hallelujah. Hallelujah, sister. It was a woman. I said, hallelujah.

Thank you. You have just, I don't even care what you choose to do moving forward. You are already, you've just made a course correction in a positive direction. Because for so long, the stuff that has been rolled out to the industry, particularly from carriers, has been, here's what the most agents could potentially use. And what happens is, the only agents that would even ever be interested in using it, look at it as a piece of garbage, because they're like, that's like five years ago, what you just wrote out.

And then they go, how come no one's using our tech? And it's because you're building for the lowest common denominator agency. Let that agency live their life. Let's build for the people who are going to engage with you, give you feedback, use the tool, break the tool, give you more feedback. You know what I mean? Like that's, and you're only going to get better. And then what's going to happen is, and I firmly believe this, that some of those agencies

that are leaning backwards are going to look at what's happening and go, Oh, wait a minute. I think let's engage. This looks fun. I want to do, I want to be part of that game. And now all of a sudden they're going to start to lean forward versus let's put a governor on everybody because we want the guy who's choosing to not engage. We want to make sure that he has an option. Screw his option. He chose not to have an option. That's why we live in a free market capitalist environment. That's why we live here in America is because he gets to choose to not engage, just like those of us who want to engage have chosen that decision. And I don't know

that we all should have to wait because he or she, although most of the time it's he, most female run agencies are fairly, uh, forward leaning. Um, you know, he he's chosen to just kind of take it easy. And what, what, what the counterpart to, to the, to the woman who said this to me said, he said, um, he goes, our, he goes, what we've written down is we, we asked the question, this is what he said. We've asked the question of our team. How many of our agencies are losing so slowly that they believe they're winning? Oh, and I was like, Oh, that's like some Confucius buddha like that's some real hardcore stuff like

you'd hear that like in an eminem song or something you know that's that's like sitting in a boat and it's raining and you think all the water and the bottom of the boat is just from the rain and it's actually because you're sinking yes you just don't realize that because you've got all this water there that, oh, you know, this is okay. We're cool. No, it's, this is actually water coming in because you're sinking. You're not just sitting in a rainstorm. I just can't even, and that's, and that's a really, that's a really interesting thought. I was on the phone yesterday morning with an executive for a company that, it was a carrier that is really trying to up their game on crop insurance.

And I've got the opportunity to go and speak at a crop conference. And even though I don't sell crop specifically, they felt like at least I understood the audience enough well i do and i don't i wanted to know more about their audience and i thought if i talked to one of the carriers that i know does a lot of business in that state and happens to be one of the sponsors so why not give them opportunity to give me a little feedback on what they'd like us to talk about and his thing was you know so we've got we actually are now providing farmers with on their cell phone they can report the crops they can go ahead and take the photos for the claims all the

things that you would expect from you know those 1-800 number companies they're already promoting their app for but this is something that's's gonna be available for crop insurance and that's staggering to me because i know that it's a very paperwork heavy line of business and we always made fun of in the agency about the fact that the lady that sold the most crop insurance in our whole agency and really has done a tremendous job there's certain deadlines they have to hit with what they have to because it's government-based you know it's like flood insurance or something else. It's so regulated, but she would be up to like, you know, they're the office to like 10 or 11 o'clock at night,

still faxing stuff in, faxing paperwork in for her farmers at the very last minute, because it had taken them that long to get back to her with information. And now they can do it from an app. And I said, well, so what kind of engagement are you seeing on that app? And he said, I've got some agencies that love it. They're promoting it to all of their farmers. They're getting good interaction. And, and then some, they're just still really good agents out there and they could care less about it. And I see that, but you talking about a carrier that's looking at

it from, we're going to, we're going to continue to put out the things that we know are going to carry our agents forward instead of spending so much money. Because it is to keep the rest of the slow crowd or the no crowd involved as a agent that writes for that carrier, then eventually, you know, they're going to lose out. And the fact that they're putting their investment in the agents that they know are going to continue to win as time goes by, that's a great bet. And that's a pretty interesting model. But this VP was just fascinating yesterday. His thing was just the whole idea that they're seeing is in so many agents out there just still assuming they know how the customer wants to be served. And that assumption, because we're not asking the right questions, we don't ask the right questions of our current customers, we don't ask the right questions of our prospects.

How do they want to be served? And to assume, do they want to be texted or they don't want to be texted? You know, if we're not asking the questions, we never know the best way for that particular client. And we are in that time period now where we have to individualize because that's what they're getting from everybody else. I mean, they get exactly what they want. They get to design the teddy bear. They get to customize every experience they have pretty much in life. If they can't customize how they handle their insurance, then we're losing out on that opportunity. I can walk into the beer store and build my own four pack of 16 ounce IPA

pounders. I mean, come on. And I, and I can't tell you how I want to get my bills or how I want to pay. You're just going to tell me this is the only option I have. I had a, I have a client who was referred to me $8,000 in personal lines said to me, Hey, is it cool if you only communicate with me via Facebook Messenger? I said, yeah, that's cool. But you just wouldn't, right? I mean, you would assume, you know, this is some grandiose, you know, whatever. He's like, hey, man, like every night when I get home, I check my Facebook messenger. Uh, can you just, can you know, if you have a message for me, I'm not going to look at

it regardless during work. So just hit me on Facebook messenger. I'll get back to you at the end of the night. And I was like, yeah, dude, that's cool. So that, you know what I mean? Like that's something, I mean, and there's probably, he's just listening and going, yeah, shit. I got tons of clients like that.

That's, and there's probably agents listening and going, yeah, shit, I got tons of clients like that. That's, and it's cool. But I guess the idea is like, you, we have to be able to accommodate that because he is, it's going to continue. If I go, you know what? I'm not really good. We don't really do that here. I would rather just call you on the phone. He's going to go, oh, well, whatever. And then a year from now, he's going to go, you know what?

This freaking guy calls me on the phone, you know? And then a year from now, he's going to go, you know what, this freaking guy calls me on the phone, you know, and then a year after that, he's going to go, you know what, screw this guy. I'm just going to go see what Geico has to offer. And that's what he's going to do. And, uh, you know, that we, I think again, speaking to the agents that are leaning forward, these are the adjustments that we have to be able to make. And, um, you know, okay that we have to be able to make. And, you know, okay, I want to kind of come full circle back to kind of the original thought here around producers, their brand, and because we have a few minutes left, and I want to be respectful of your time. But I do want to come back to this idea. I, you know, I've gotten in trouble multiple times for saying this from both carrier reps. So my, this is a very brief tangent. This was a while

ago, in fairness, but I was doing a presentation in Illinois at the Illinois State Association meeting. They had had me in. This is maybe like seven years ago. And I did my content marketing keynote or whatever. And a producer raised his hand. He said, Ryan, this is great. But what if your agency won't allow you to do this stuff? Yep.

And I looked at him and I said, well, maybe it's time to find a new agency. And this carrier rap, again, fat old white guy. And again, I don't want to I'm not hating on fat white guys, they just tend to be grumpy. And they that's who I get yelled at the most more than anyone else in my life. I get yelled at by old overweight overweight white guys. And he comes, boom, boom, boom. As soon as I'm done, I can just see him. He's got beef. He's coming hard. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You don't understand.

That's not how this industry works. You can't be doing that. Think about what will happen if producers are just moving around and all the, blah, blah, blah. And I just looked at him and I go, I don't know what to tell you, man. Like, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the agency owner. I have sympathy for the guy who's trying to feed his family and his agency owner is telling him he can't do everything that he can to make money. And he looked at me and he's just like, you don't get it. And I just said, that's fine. Look, dude, it's good. You know what I mean? Like at this point I was like,

and he wasn't, I guess he wasn't being, I'm maybe over-exaggerating how animated he was because it makes the story better. But he was upset and he wanted to let me know that I did not know what I was talking about. In the back of my mind, I was like, bro, there will come a day when producers are hired guns, when they don't sign non-competes or the non-competes that they do sign

are not as strict as they are today because I wouldn't sign a non-competes or the non-competes that they do sign are not as strict as they are today because I wouldn't sign a non-compete today. I wouldn't. If Rogue falls apart and I need to go find a job as a producer with someone else, right? I wouldn't sign a non-compete. I just wouldn't because I don't trust. I don't trust anybody. And I don't know that anyone should trust the future of their family and their livelihood completely to someone else and give them free reign to say, I can treat you like garbage because for two years after you leave here, you can't actually do what you know how to do. That to me is an antiquated idea. And it puts the agency owner in jeopardy. I am firmly aware of that.

But the other side of the coin is if you hire right, if you incentivize properly, if you support, if you give people a path to, you know, I don't know ownership in the agency, but maybe some sort of like shadow profit sharing, uh, like a shadow profit sharing, maybe just in their own book as a percentage. You know what I mean? There's all kinds of ways. I mean, I, that I'm just throwing it. There's all kinds of ways that you can incentivize a producer to have, to align their long-term interests with your long-term interests. And that's not easy. I am not saying that's easy. So, so no one send me DMs going, you don't understand. I get it.

That's not an easy thing, but I'm saying, super talented producers should think twice about hiring non-competes. I just think they should. It's just a dangerous game. It's a very, you are putting, you are giving up way more than leadership is giving up. You are, you are, you just are.

You just are. That's the way it is. I'm not saying you did anything wrong because I've signed them too. But like, that is my position is that, and as a leadership, you're like, shit, I want, can I get a 10 year non-compete? How do I make it so that you got to give me, you you know your income no matter what you do for the rest of your

life like that's I get that as a good business owner that's what you're trying to do I just I don't know that I'll be able to do it because I I just have been toasted too many times by them. And I think it, it immediately creates a, uh, um, uh, what's the word I'm immediately creates a combative there's, there's immediately a combative nature between the producer and ownership because in the back of their mind, they know that agency owner can say no to anything and there's nothing they can do because for two years they can't do their job. I that i think that you're right about that but you know one of the things that i i was sitting there thinking though as you were talking is going back to your

experiences with the murray group and you know they did start to see that you were making a difference and you know as long as you don't get too popular, right. You know, that's, that point I get, but I soften a little bit about, you know, where I know that I'm at personally, it's been, it's been rewarding to recognize that, you know, that they finally went, Oh, well, Tracy actually did know what she was talking about. And that's, you know, and that's, that's not all there is to it. That's, then that's, I don't need an attagirl every time I do anything.

I just recognize that sometimes you have to kind of show that it does work because they aren't seeing it anywhere else. Now they're starting to see it from other places too. So, you know, my, I guess the, you know, I'm not the only one standing out in the middle of a desert going, I think this is going to work. They also see that it's working for other agencies and I hate that that took that maybe for them to necessarily go we'd really like to get some videos done

when can we do would you like to blog and for us to put some more stuff on our website because we think that we could actually you know get some yeah you could actually I know that because you know I know where my stuff usually falls on a page you know even years later it shows up. But sometimes you do have to expect that there's going to be a little bit of, okay, we don't want to like give you a whole lot for this right now. We don't, we're not really ready to fund this whole project right off the bat. We kind of need to see where it's going. And you might also need to recognize that, you know, this kind of need to see where it's going. And you might also

need to recognize that, you know, this person may not have really gotten there quite yet. They might need to learn a little bit about it. I mean, obviously, neither one of us were very good at the very beginning, and I'm still not an expert by any means, but it's taken me a long time to feel more comfortable. And that person may need to go through that a little bit before they could actually but at the same time i just don't want anybody to be held back on the other hand by an agency that just is afraid to let them fly when it's really the right thing for them to do so they may need to prove themselves a little bit but they also and do the work i mean doing the work is definitely you don't get to skip that 100 yes and so the other side of the coin is this is not carte blanche for some 24-year-old millennial,

you know, trophy recipient to assume that they should be given equity in an agency that they have nothing to build. That's not, that's also not the case that I'm making. You know, and I think you make, I think there is a whole other side to this coin. If we had another hour, we could do it. Because the truth is, I made a lot of very poor decisions at the Murray Group. So as much as there were things that were misaligned from their, their side, you know, they did. It was a good place to work. I also made a lot of poor decisions and I communicated very poorly as well. Um, what my goals were and what my expectations were. So, you know, that was a

learning experience I think across the board. Um, and, but you know, I think the point is that established producers, established employees who are, who are hungry, who are, you know, we're not talking about every producer should have, you know, we're not talking about every producer should have, you know, should have these type of things, but I'm talking about your good people, your people who you can build an agency around. I don't know that tethering them contractually is the best method anymore because they have so many options because the internet and social media and IAOA and Cass's mastermind and you know and all these other groups they give you they give all of us so much exposure to what else is available that I just don't know that that

contractually tethering your rock stars in a combative nature to your business is going to long-term create the best solution. That's probably the best way that I can articulate what my position is. As always, fantastic. Now I've got content to go make. You've given me work to do. Mission accomplished. I can't wait to see this video walkthrough thing. I mean, you can do a whole landing page about it. There's so much you can do. It would be, it's awesome. I think, um, and it's that kind of stuff that just continues to separate you and, you know, and your bubbly winning disposition that is irresistible. You know, you get that too.

Just how anyone can choose not to buy insurance from you is beyond me. If I had a farm, you would insure it. I wouldn't even insure it through my own agency. I'd send it to you. Thank you so much for your time. And I just, where can people connect with what you're doing? You mentioned the website, but just hit them with it again, your LinkedIn or whatever. Just let people know where they can connect with you. I'm on everything. Instagram is IntsWiseTracy. I have Tracy L. Cotton. And then of course, I still have insurancewisetracy.com. It's a website that I'm not really doing anything

right now. It's just because I wanted to kind of hang on to it. But I recognize that I may need to develop more behind the agency. And I'm cool with that too. That's what's going to help us both. Then that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, yeah. Cool. And on the podcast. There's the podcast too. Yeah, yeah. So how do they get at the podcast?

What are they? It's Protect and Grow. And it is available on Apple and almost any place else that you can listen to podcasts. Oh, I love that name. That's a great name. Okay. Well, thank you so much. You are wonderful.

And I appreciate you. And I'm glad that we got to spend some time together. And just be good i will you take care I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it I'm gonna make it Yeah, me Yeah, me You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass Yeah, me Yeah, me Thank you. Do you want a few drinks and smoke a joint bubbles?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, me Yeah, me Yeah, me Yeah, me Yeah, me Yeah, me Thank you. Do you want a few drinks and smoke a joint, Bubbles? Yeah.

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