The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 100 - Meg McKeen on How to Become the Person Your Prospects Want to Buy From

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Meg McKeen, Founder and Chief Confidence Officer at Adjunct Advisors, LLC, joins the podcast for a conversation on sales, the insurance industry, and the power of developing your authentic voice. Meg is a tremendous resource for our industry and I know you're going to love this episode...Episode Highlights: Meg mentions how she maintains her composure. (10:22) Meg mentions why the competition in their industry is confusing. (15:43) Meg shares why every scenario that people could need insurance for is coming from a place of negativity. (16:50) Meg shares the main factor that a successful agent of the future has. (20:46) How does an agency principal allow someone inside their agency to have a personal brand? (24:12) Meg mentions why she agrees that the majority of decision-makers in their industry have hit their number. (42:05) What keeps producers from moving to an agency that excites them? (43:19) Meg shares why selling insurance has been entrepreneurial, without having to be an entrepreneur. (47:33) Key Quotes: “Whatever the content is that you're creating, the more ability, the stronger ability you have to reach exactly who it is you want to talk to, they'll stand in line 200 deep to meet you, if you have the ability to do that.” - Meg McKeen “My heritage is the independent channel. I worked for carriers coming up in the business, for carriers that represented or had independent agents represent them. I'm not knocking one way or the other, there's a lot of ways fundamentally to get where we want to go.” - Meg McKeen “I am a champion for women in our industry. I firmly, firmly believe we have fundamentally everything it takes to be successful. We just have to see the path.” - Meg McKeen Resources Mentioned: Meg McKeen LinkedIn Adjunct Advisors, LLC Reach out to Ryan Hanley Learn 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 an absolutely tremendous episode for you. Meg McKean is on the show and if you are unaware of Meg's work, then you are not paying attention on LinkedIn. Meg is the founder and chief confidence builder at Adjunct Advisors LLC. She's a professional speaker, a sales coach, and she also has her own podcast, Bound and Determined, talking about specifically how women in the insurance industry can grow and develop and succeed and win. And I think she has an authentic voice.

She's great at storytelling. Her LinkedIn is off the charts in terms of the way that she's positioning messaging and sales. And I think she's just an incredibly intelligent, smart person. And anytime I can get an incredibly intelligent, smart person on this show, that's a victory for you. It's a victory for me. And Meg does not disappoint. So it was just an absolute pleasure to have her on.

You are going to love this show. Before we get there, I want to talk about a group of people who are also incredibly smart and intelligent. And that is Mick Hunt and his crew at Premier Strategy Box. That's Premier Strategy Box. If you haven't heard of Premier Strategy Box, again, I feel like you must be living under a rock because what Mick is doing for agencies in terms of providing sales coaching, service coaching, leadership and management, basically outsource leadership and management for whether it's your service team, your marketing team. He helps you build out your comms.

I mean, if something's going on in your agency and you either don't have the time as a principal or you don't have the experience or you don't feel like it's an area of expertise where you can really add value but you know it needs to be improved, call Mick Hunt. Go to mystrategybox.com. That's mystrategybox.com. mystrategybox.com. Reach out. Get to know Mick. Have Mick in in your rolodex you will be happy that you do you'll be very happy that you have mick in your rolodex because there'll be a day when you need what he does and you'll want to be able to reach out uh i haven't sent anyone to premiere strategy box who hasn't been absolutely blown away so my strategy box. Learn about it. Get to know Mick. Get to know his crew. You will not be disappointed.

All right. On to Meg. Hi, Ryan. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. I was just watching the video that you put on LinkedIn that prompted me to reach out, just that I thought was cool and was like, you know, whatever. And I looked at the time and I was like, oh crap, I'm watching your video. I'm going to be late for the podcast. What did you? That's well, from one, one, I would say content creator to another though. You, how you do it, like, I don't know how you do it. The quality, the professionalism,

the energy, all of it. You hear this all the time, I'm sure. But it means a lot coming from you that you saw something and it actually inspired action because you never know where this stuff goes when you put it out there. Oh, no. Truthfully, I think your stuff is more pro than mine mine's just templated um I I really like uh I really like how you've put together and and not that yeah I don't I don't know how long you've been doing it this way but these like really well copywritten LinkedIn posts with you know a short video like native video attached to them they they're really well done. I mean, and I'm sure you hear that too. I mean, it's, they're, they're really impressive. Like it's, it's very, very cool stuff. And I love the messaging too. And so I think it's, it's awesome.

I mean, I've known, I mean, I've known your work for a little while and, you know, I just, we'd never really met. So you always tend to gravitate to people, you know, first. And, you know, I just, we'd never really met. So you always tend to gravitate to people, you know, first. And then finally I was like, I'm going to, I want to know more about what you have going on. Cause it seems like it's a lot of cool stuff. Well, thanks. This is the universe doing its thing. Maybe you don't know this precious and Matthew put us both on their top 10 sales influencer list for their podcast. I did not know that. No. Yeah.

So I got a heads up that I was on it. And then I went back and watched the episode. And there you are. Gary Vee's on there. Dale Carnegie's on there. I'm like, who am I hanging with the gods? Yeah, seriously. Yeah.

Not you. I mean, just me too. Those names. Geez. Although, you know, I will say two people who I've met recently, you know how sometimes you meet someone that you follow online or has a big following or is whatever you want to say, has some moniker of celebrity. And I've met some of those people before and they've been kind of not awesome.

And then sometimes you meet them and they are just as cool in person as they are online. And I've met Gary Vee a couple of times at different events. I find him to be exactly who he is on video. And what I was impressed with, and this is more like I've taken this in as a lesson, a life lesson, this isn't just meant to stroke him, is you've probably experienced this, like you're at a live event or you give a presentation or whatever. And then afterwards, people will come up and want to ask you questions. Here's my experience with what you said here, or I didn't really understand this, or where can I get more? Or they just come up and say, thank you, whatever. And it's all amazing. When you've given an hour of time or 90 minutes or whatever, and then people come up after,

it is really difficult. Even in the, I mean, I don't know about you, but I might get like three or four people, right? He had, so he had been going the whole day, probably did, he did a keynote in the morning. He'd been doing pictures and greetings. And my time that I got to see him, whatever, just how it lined up in terms of like when I actually met him at this conference that I was at, was at like 530 at night. There was 200 people in line. I'm somewhere in the middle of that line. And he gave me five minutes of his full and undivided attention. And not just me. I mean, he did this for every person. I was like, that is a superpower to be able to take when you're exhausted and go whack.

I'm going to dial in on you, listen to you, respond to you, not just to, you know, some mashup of human that I'm like picture in my mind, but like this specific person that is very, very impressive. I don't know how he does it. I wish I could do it. All I'm thinking of is I need a nap and a beer or a beer and a nap one or the other. Well, he probably does that too. It's just, I mean, isn't that part of his, his brand and how he continues to build that persona. And that that very individualized attention I mean I think that's whatever the content is that you're creating the the more ability the stronger ability you have to reach exactly who it is you want to talk to they'll stand in line 200 deep to meet you if you have the ability to do that he's managed to do that at scale, which is, is the

brilliance of Gary V take them or, or leave them. And I only follow him on LinkedIn. His persona is different, right. Depending on the platform. But yeah, I think he's an interesting case study. There are others kind of coming up along the way. I agree with that too. I think that, but I, I think, and I think this comes back to the content piece, right? Cause I've seen people who it's been the opposite. I had another guy that I followed and I thought, man, this guy's, he's just a really, he's very thoughtful. And I met him in person and I couldn't have been more unimpressed by his disposition, the way he handled himself, the way he interacted with people who were so excited to meet him from consuming his content. And he was kind of dismissive. And I just was like unfortunately, if you were to take those two individuals career, Gary's career and this other individual's career, probably about the time that I met them, which was like 2015, 2016.

Gary's probably a little ahead, but they weren't far apart. And the guy who didn't treat people well has kind of plateaued and you've seen Gary. So I think my point in all that is what we put online for better, for worse, I think needs to be as true as it can be to who we are because it all comes out in a wash. Yeah. Yeah. So that being said, you seem very introspective, very thoughtful. You don't yell into the microphone like I do. You don't seem to curse, or at least I haven't heard it yet. So these are all very respectable traits. Is that, is that, you know, is that your, is that a dialed down version of you? Is that a, or is that, that's, that's you you're composed and I like it. I wish I was composed. I'm not, no one has ever described me as composed. I think you're being a little hard on yourself. Really what it is, it's a strength in knowing who you are, exactly who you are and being comfortable and being confident in that place. And knowing that

it's not for everybody. I host a podcast as well. I'm sure there are listeners who turn it off because I don't talk fast enough, or I don't talk loud enough, or'm too this or I'm too that, that's okay. I'm not for them. There's enough of that. And we all have our persona. I built a business out of rejection of what I'd seen in our industry. There is a lot of that screaming into the microphone and the microphone could be one-on-one. It could be delivering a presentation. It could be delivering a sales training. There's a lot of bravado, machismo, over the top, big language. And I repelled that. It never felt right to me.

Those methods, that technique felt so inauthentic to me that I just kept thinking there's got to be another way. There's got, how can I, how can I be this one person, this caring, thoughtful, empathetic, strong, independent, forceful woman, all of those things, but yet have to be so different in my work. So that's my, I've already dug into my why, but it doesn't change. It's unwavering. The more clear I get, the more progress I see in the growth of my business and also how I'm showing up in the world. Yeah. No, I think, I think I love that. I love so much about it. So I have like three things that I want to ask you out of there. So one, I'm going to start out of order though. Um, one of the things that I find very interesting in life, um, I've been an athlete my whole life.

I'm very competitive. I love competing with people, but I've always found, I've always found people who bluster, even if they've had some level of success, I find them to be more of a caricature than someone I can actually take seriously. So I guess I'm interested. I think I love that that turns you off too, because it turns me off. I don't necessarily turn away from it. Cause it's kind of like a car wreck to me when I see someone like pounding their chest, there's run an account. I'm like, who cares? There's 10 bazillion accounts. Like we can all just fall into one, like congratulations. But why do you think it is that so many people, particularly in our space, you know, it's not like we're hitting home runs or scoring goals.

Like we're selling insurance policies yet. So much of our culture is this like chest pounding, look at million dollar producer, all this kind of stuff, which I think unlike the financial, somehow financial services has been able to take the competitiveness and make people excited about it. Where in insurance, in property casualty insurance, to me, it feels like a major turnoff. Like it really, it feels icky and weird. And I don't use icky lightly. Like it really, you like, you see these people talking about it and you're like, wow, that works for like stocks and stuff. But for what we're doing, it feels off and disingenuous. Is that kind of where you're coming from or do you see it from a different angle or does that make sense what I'm asking you? Yeah. So there's so much here.

I mean, you've just asked like 17 questions in one of your three, right? And so I'm going to, I'm going to ramble on and maybe we're going to get to it. There's only one rule on this show is you can talk as long as you want and you can go wherever you want. Yeah. At some point, we'll just turn it off when we feel like we're done. Well, and that's where connection happens right in the stories. I am not an athlete.

I am not competitive by nature. I do not care if I win or not. And I never have. It's never been a motivator for me. One of the most humiliating experiences I had as a young person was being invited to the front of the gym class during the tumbling exercise. And I don't know if you remember if you had them where you grew up. I was in the suburb of Chicago and we had these thick foam mats. It was yellow, but it was dirty because it had been used for many, many years and it folded in thirds foam mats. It was yellow, but it was dirty because it

had been used for many, many years and it folded in thirds. So this mat was laid out in front of the gym class. And I was asked by the teacher to demonstrate doing a somersault. And I did it, but I didn't do it well. And I landed on my side instead of in the right position. And I was humiliated. And I was probably seven. Maybe I don't remember specifically, but I remember the smell of the class and all I wanted to do was do well. There was no competition though. There wasn't, we weren't all lined up in a row, but all eyes were on me. And that pressure was enough to motivate me to want to do a good job. And that feeling of not doing it or not doing it to the expectation or my own expectation

was enough for me to know in that moment how I felt about success or not. I didn't need to line up with eight other people to know that I had not done what I wanted to do in that moment. Competition in our industry is baffling to me. Insurance, I was just thinking about this. Maybe you can help me talk through this. I can only think of one scenario where insurance comes into play in a good situation, where it's a positive outcome and therefore insurance responds. And I'm not putting you on the spot. The only thing I could think of was hole-in-one insurance in a golf tournament. You get a hole-in-one million

dollar prize. Now the insurance company has to pay. Yeah, it's bad for the insurance company. Right. Not bad for the insurance company, but that's a positive outcome for most involved, right? If you're listening and you can think of something, tag Meg and I in a LinkedIn post with another one, because I cannot think of one either. And this is going to drive me nuts, but I'm sure you put more thought into me. But if you can come up with one, tag us in a post about this. This is what you do with yourself when you're at this stage of our lives and careers, right? And our daydreams are about insurance, right? Yes. is coming from a place of negative, of fear. And what is our natural inclination to do as salespeople is to find the fear and fix it, sell to it, throw a product at it. And that's the foundation, right? We're managing risk using a tool called insurance. It's insurance 101. That's

what we do. It's easy to stay in that place of fear. What I have chosen to do, whether it's selling insurance directly or coaching others is where do you find that neutral ground? When we talk about meeting someone where they are, are you creating a scenario or are you listening to the scenario that's actually on their mind and in their heart? It's fascinating what people will tell you if you just stop talking. You said that on one of your, by the way, guys, if you're not following Meg on LinkedIn, absolute must follow. You said that on one of your videos that I was watching a couple of days ago, you were, and I can't remember the complete context of the video, but the line that got me was, and then I, then, then you stopped talking. And it like, it was funny because it snapped me

all the way back to the beginning of the video. Like I'd been listening, but then I have three screens in this zone. So I was like listening to it. And all of a sudden I was like whacking it, like literally turned my head to the video because I recently made a change and I want to get your, you can, you can, I'm gonna put you on the spot now. You can coach me up here a little bit on just this concept, but I started, I tend to have a casual way of life. Some people like it. Some people don't, I can't help it. I'm never going to be a formal person. I'm wearing Lululemon from head to toe right now. So, you know, everyone can deal with that. So, and it's all gray and my shoes are gray. So everyone can deal with that too. I, so what I started doing when someone calls me or, or I call

them, they, they, I get a lot of inbound traffic. That's, that's my bread and butter. So they have a problem. And I was calling them and working them through this, you know, a sheet and you know, it was fine. I also hated it. I don't love insurance sales to begin with. I love our business. I love what we do for people. I think what we do is very important. And my mission has always been, I feel like insurance, the insurance property casualty insurance business in general is underappreciated because we're terrible at telling our story. I think that's a lot of my motivation, but I just started going, Hey Meg, what's going on? And they'll go, some people will

just start barfing. This is happening. And this is happening. And I got this. And other people would be like, what do you mean? I'd be like, well, you contacted me. What's up? And then, and I found that that change from this very scripted, here's the questions I need. Here's the answer to just like, almost like, like unstructured data format, right? Like, just tell me what's going on, man. I feel like we're making such deeper connections with our clients, even though we'll never meet them in person. Half of them live around the country. Cause we, we work in all 50 States while we're not in Hawaii or Alaska, but, um, and it's just wild how, when you give people that open-ended question what they'll actually tell you. It is. And I want to compliment

you. I believe for the sophisticated insurance buyer that the future of selling is inbound marketing rather than outbound. Amen, sister. Right. I am not a fan of cold calling personally. I don't do it. So therefore I don't recommend that my clients do it either. And that said, we talked about it already. The number one thing that the successful agent of the future has is a strong, clear, personal brand. I don't care who you work for. Kudos to you for having your proverbial name on the door in your

firm, but it's the same scenario if you're working for an international broker, big or small. If you don't have a strong, clear, personal brand, the people who you want to help are never going to find you. And this is not new. This is not Meg's unique, brilliant magic formula, of which I don't think there is one, to be successful in our industry. This is leveraging the reality of the market we're in, the tools we have, the buyers we want to meet. I see so few agents being diligent and aggressive about building a personal brand and still wondering why the phone isn't ringing. Why is the phone not ringing? Have you made the path for the people you want to help clear to find you? You are so dialed in on it right now. I could not agree with you more in this particular time

this is i don't know if everyone who's listening to this completely on like understands the fact that i started insurance agency only because i've been telling these sons of bitches for so long that this is the path to six ten years none of them listening i have been literally heckled out of out of presentations before by fat 60-old white dudes who would be like, not in my agency, not in my town. My people don't go online. Now, thank God that doesn't happen anymore today. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, I'd say up into as recently as 2017, 2018, I was being heckled. I got heckled so bad in Connecticut that I had to like embarrass this guy in front of like 50 people because he's literally front and center going, you don't understand, you know,

my clients this and my clients that. And I said, bro, I could drop a pin in your backyard and start marketing to your clients tomorrow. How are you going to stop me? Well, the relationship I go, how did you get them in the first place? Did they have another agent at that time? Yes. So, so you think they're never going to change again? Like you're so good. And, and this is so, okay. So what I'm interested in from your perspective is how do we start to break down this? This is just barely starting. I mean, you probably get these calls too. I get calls every week from producers around the country who feel shackled. They feel chained to these agencies, Williams, Johnson, Thompson, and whoever, if it wasn't for that brand, you wouldn't sell a single policy and any of these, these, you know, we'll call them kids, you know, regardless of age, young to the industry people who, who just want to grow and, and feel like they're, they're part of something bigger. How do we start to break down these barriers? Because to a certain extent, I feel like I've

lost the battle. Like I tried for a really long time. I feel like there hasn't been that much movement. And, um, you know, so what is a better tact? How do we, how do we start to break these barriers down and to what you just said, to allow where an agency principal would allow someone inside their agency to have a personal brand? How do we do that? First and foremost, we have to honor the reality that we're in. We are not going to change those people, fill in the blank, those people. Yes. And I am not here to dispute that you can be successful in a multitude of ways in our industry, right? My heritage is the independent channel. I worked for carriers coming up in the business for carriers that represented or had independent agents represent

them. I'm not knocking one way or the other. There's a lot of ways fundamentally to get where we want to go. What I'm concerned about, what keeps me up at night as I think about my role in this industry, I've got 21 years behind me. If I play my cards right, I don't have 21 more, but I have more. I'm worried about the agents who have not yet joined the industry, and I'm worried that they won't because what they see is too representative of the way it used to be and not enough of what it could be. And I think you represent what it could be. I represent, I'm an independent contractor. I'm a 1099. I have a book of business. I won't get into the particulars here because it's an

agreement that I have with another independent agent, but we have to start getting creative and thinking outside the box about what does the next generation of sales leader want from an employment arrangement? How are they going to get paid? How many different ways are they going to get paid? How many hours a week are they going to work? What is that going to look like? We've learned a lot in the last 15 months. We cannot let it take us 15 years to learn the lessons and implement them in our industry. So I think fundamentally, we have to honor where we've been. It's not, we're not going to change history, right? But we can position ourselves. You're primed to do it. You own an agency. You can reinvent what that producer agency agreement looks like. You can do something that's never been done before. If you feel compelled to do it, you have that ability. Other agencies who are larger have maybe some more to overcome some more hurdles, but what's the willingness, right? What's the willingness to be the innovator in that sense? Yeah, I agree with you. I stated that my goal when I founded Rogue Risk was to develop 20 millionaires that weren't related to me. I don't know when that's going to happen, but that will happen. And by that, I mean, I want to empower at least 20 people inside my organization

to be able to make life-changing. The insurance industry has given me, I've said this a million times in this show, it's given me a life I could have never imagined. The way where I grew up and where I live today could not be more different. The things that I thought were possible were, were, were microscopic versus the world that I now know exists. And that's wholly because of the insurance industry. So I think, you know, always with respect, do we push the boundaries of what's come before only because this industry has changed many lives. That being said, I completely agree with you that the lack of willingness to flexibility and compensation agreements with young up-and-coming producers, and again, I don't mean young in age. I mean young in the business. It just befuddles me.

There's some people doing some good work. I don't know if you know David Carruthers, but he has really interesting ideas around compensation. A guy by the name of Miles Merwin in South Carolina has this whole producers to principals program where he helps producers start to think like principals, both inside and outside their agency. And so I do think there's some work, but we're talking about tiny little portions of our industry that, you know, when there's 40, what, 40 some thousand independent agencies, you know, we're talking about small numbers. I think that until there is a outspoken, until there are multiple outspoken case studies

on these type of compensation plans, which I'm going to throw in a bucket of, that includes some sort of ownership or ownership-esque type upside in a business for producers, then I think we're still gonna see that pushback or the baby boomers just phase out, which can't happen fast enough. My goodness.

Not that I don't love you all. Yeah, it's interesting because I, similarly, I'm positioned very well in the industry, right? And a lot of that was because of the hard work that came before me that I was able to reap the benefit of. And I don't overlook that as I tell my story. I would challenge a little bit of the thinking,

again, you are here, you've been here for a while. You are a different generation than the one that's coming up. My sweet spot working with my clients is zero to three years. It's that critical, we call it the validation period. If we could strike that word from our language, I would be, right, we're valid. You're already valid on day one.

What a stupid concept. Right? I get it. It's a business. But the salespeople coming up now, I would challenge are not as motivated by money as even to use your word, the 20, $20 million producers. Just for me personally, I had a woman reach out. She's a fellow business coach and she was holding an exclusive event for seven figure business owners.

And she invited me and I wrote back and I said, don't meet your demographic. Thanks for the invite. And she wrote back and said, bummer. Let me know if I can coach you there. And I thought this is a woman who's made a huge assumption about what my motivation is to be here doing this work. It is not to make seven figures. I would challenge that this generation coming up cares less about the number of zeros in their paycheck and more about aligning themselves with an industry that is doing good for good. And I'm nervous about that. We still have a reputation issue to overcome. You and I only have the megaphones we have in front of us to tell a different story. And that's what you'll see this,

you see this in my content, you see this in my videos, how are you showing up? Regardless of the noise around you, regardless of the dude in the cubicle across from you, regardless of the agency owner who's concerned about his Maserati and his second home in Palm Beach? How are you showing up as an insurance salesperson? Because you can control every single individual relationship that you have with the people you want to reach, regardless of the noise. We're not going to change the institution, not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, but you can absolutely change the way that you show up in it and the way that you thrive despite it. What's up, guys?

Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in 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, et cetera. This helps the show grow. It 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, 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 subscribe if you're not subscribed and i'd 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. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Well, see, I just agreed with you on something that I'm going to push back on now, now that I actually think about it.

You said we can't change the institution. I think we are in, I think the work done today will change the institution. We may not see it in our careers because I also will not be in the industry in 21 years, God willing. But not in an agency owner capacity. Although, who the hell?

I don't even know why I say these stupid things. Who knows what's going to happen in 21 years? On the record, Ryan. Yeah, yes. I'll be fact-checked in 2040 or wherever the heck it would be. So, but I guess I believe we are currently in a time, again, and this is my lens, experience, you know, coming from,

you know, really going from being a boots on the ground producer to local agency, not knowing anything about the world outside of what I learned at that age, that was it. We weren't, we were taught not to go to industry events. We were taught just, just show up, do your job. Everything will be fine. Okay. And, and, and I learned a lot of really great stuff, but I first got out and saw the broader industry. Um, in 2010, I did my first, uh, a keynote, uh, in San Francisco, which was actually awesome. And in the industry I saw is completely

different than it is today. So we've made serious progress. Now I wish it didn't take a decade plus for these things to happen, but, you know, cause we still have, we still have issues around diversity, not just in, in ethnicity, but just in, you know, we have these agency principals who are so completely unwilling to, I'm not even talking about giving away equity, because that's immediately where everyone goes. They didn't earn it. How about you just give them the ability to build a platform, you know, simple steps of empowerment beyond, you know, I do believe the days of you're lucky you're getting a check have come to an end. I do believe that. Those agencies are not thriving anymore.

They're the ones that are coasting into, you know, wherever they're going to go. Most likely just be bought up and whatever legacy that person thought they were going to have is now Brown and Browns. And, you know, that's on them. I could hopefully they get a big enough check. But my point is, I think, sitting here today in 2021, we are in a place where your voice, hopefully, you know, the voices that come on this show, other shows, you know, I just think we are at a point where these conversations are starting to move our industry, that the insure techs are coming up, that they're starting to stick. And whether you believe in one business model or another, the way they operate is forcing people to make, to think differently about the business. So I do think we're in a very

influential time where maybe 20 years ago, it wouldn't have. So I do think we're in a very influential time where maybe 20 years ago, it wouldn't have mattered. I do think today, some of these conversations do have real impact and change. They do. So hang with me. You're at 10,000 feet. I live in the weeds with my clients.

So when we say we can't change the institution for Kayla or Jordan or Bill in the weeds, they're so in the weeds that the institution is almost irrelevant to them. What's in front of them is I have to build my book of business. I have to prove my worth. I have to show my boss that I'm hustling all of that. That is so classic insurance sales grossness that yeah, I'm with you. I mean, like I wouldn't have staked my future and my livelihood on doing this work if I didn't believe that we could change the future, right? If we could move the needle in some way. And I'm really proud that by stripping away my corporate identity and developing my own strong brand, that I'm in a position to do this and a position to show other

people that the path from there to here isn't as un-overcome-able as you might think that it is. And doing that by example, that's really powerful. And I'm with you. I've got one eyeball on what's going on in sales and another eyeball what's going on in technology and where will the two meet. As an agent who has a book of business full of small business, help me. Help me make it make sense for me to continue to feed that machine when we still have huge efficiency issues. Agents selling small business are never getting paid what they're worth. If you spend five minutes with a client on the phone, you've lost money on that deal. That's the reality of our business, right? Show me the solution.

I'm all ears. Tarmaca is the solution to that problem. And I'm guessing they're a sponsor, right? Well, they're only a sponsor because I use them. No, I get it. But they are the solution because there are other people doing what they're doing. And I, here's my, I what, here's, here's my, I'm going to, I'm going to give you two, two, two, two more thoughts. One, I think small business and

personal, I think all the efficiencies are, are self-inflicted wounds. And I say that knowing full well that changing agency management systems and changing culture and changing process is tough. Completely agree. I have, I've, I worked in an agency that was on TAM and it still is on TAM and, you know, simple things that I do every single day here sitting in my office doing probably three people's jobs in one that takes is, you know, takes them, you know, all three people to do that thing. But the solutions do exist. They're just hard, you know, like moving to a commercial lines comparative rater. It's not easy. And it's not perfect. Right? Look, what I think is interesting about our industry in general, and, and it's still small business is still tough. I'm not discounting that. What I think is interesting in general is, and I see this in so many of the decisions that I see agency leadership make, is they will complain

about an imperfect or broken solution, but use as an excuse not to move the fact that what could be an improvement, an efficiency improvement, isn't yet perfect. So, so it's like, we could get better, but we're not going to get better because that's not perfect. Even though this system over here is wholly flawed in so many ways. And so I start to like, you know, some of those things, like I, I just start to say like, all right, maybe I should stop talking about Tarmaca. I use it every day. I sold three accounts today on it already. Average buying time, less than 40 minutes, right? So when I say I believe in them and they're a sponsor, they are because I like want more people to use them. But there's part of me that's like,

maybe I should just keep all these things quiet and just become a really efficient business and have that be a competitive advantage. And I don't know what the right thing is because, um, when I, you know, when, when you, when you, you know, and, and I don't know if you've seen this in any of the things you do, but when you put yourself out in public and then you promote something, right. There was always this thought that like, somehow you're doing it for your own benefit. That like, it's just, you know, why not SEMC, Ryan? Well, SEMC does screen scraping and it's inefficient and the rates are oftentimes guessed at and not accurate.

And it doesn't use APIs. You know what I mean? Like there are all these things. It's nothing in SEMC. I think they're working hard. I just don't think the tool is as good as Tarmaca today. And that's why I promote the things that I do. And, and my point is not, it's not about me. I'm going down the path that I didn't want to go down. My point is I feel like the efficiency problem,

we have actually solved this and people are just choosing not to do it. That's the part that bothers me is like, we can put fun, exciting, sexy tools that allow millennials to be the technology, native technologists that they are and really go out and be whatever version you want to be the craft brew person or the winery person or the art gallery person or whoever you want to be. Like all those tools are at your disposal and we're just choosing not to give them to our people. And it frustrates the hell out of me.

Why do you think that is? I think that when someone is making their number in personal income, it is impossible to get them to do anything that is hard. I think that's what it is. So the person who's got the ability to pull the trigger on that sort of once they've hit their personal number, they do nothing. nothing. So I'll tell you just another brief story. I'm talking way too much. I'm supposed to be interviewing you, but you got me all fired up here. So when I was with the Murray Group,

our traveler's rep used to come in twice a month. A marketing rep never needs to go into an agency twice a month. They don't need to go in once a month, but he used to come in twice a month and he'd bring donuts and cookies and all the standard stuff. And I always forget his name. We're just going to call him Mike. I said to him, he walked in. I was like, Mike, I love when you visit, man, but like, why are you here all the time? And he said, Ryan, we have 47 agencies in my district that I'm in charge of. Last year, three of them grew. Three. He goes,

not just grew with travelers, like literally made a dollar more than the year before. Three out of 47, you guys are one of them. He goes, and I said, and that kind of took me back, right? This is probably 2007, 2008. And I said, how can that be? And he's like, they hit their number. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, everybody has a different number. Every human does. For some people, it's a million in personal income. For some, it's 150,000.

The minute the controlling human, whoever that person is, man, woman, 70 or 22, the minute they hit their personal number, they do nothing to move forward. They just do the bare minimum to maintain that number. And I think that the vast majority of the decision makers in our industry have hit their personal number. I do not disagree with that. And I'm thinking back to my days when I was agent facing in a, it was an underwriting role, but in the field calling on agents and you could see the ones that were riding it out, that were coasting, that were satisfied. And then you could see the ones that were in sales mode. They were in growth mode. They were committed and they were sleeves rolled up

with their team on a mission. And it's a totally different energy. Think about it from the employee's standpoint. Who would you want to work for? Culture comes from the top, right? It's not a joke. I think it does. I think that, I think, especially in agencies, privately held agencies, I think that you still usually have one person who's making a decision. And if they've hit their number, everyone else is screwed. I think that's, I think that's really what it comes down to. So, so here's my question to your, you're talking about your in the weeds producers who are, you know, trying to validate themselves, which is, again, I completely agree with you, stupidest concept ever. What keeps them from moving to an agency that excites them? Why do they stay in that situation? Oh, I'm going to deliver a truth bomb here. I don't think we tell them the truth on day one. I don't know that most producers have any real sense of what actually selling insurance over the course of the first three years of their career looks like.

They see the Maserati in the second home in Palm Springs and they think that that's the outcome. And as you well know, that is not the outcome. You are far more likely to quote unquote fail than you are to succeed. And if we're not telling you that in the first meeting, we've already sold you a bill of goods. So what do I think? Why don't they go? I think they're in shock, frankly, in the first six months to 12 months about what they thought it would be versus what it actually is. I agree with you.

So what I hear you saying, and tell me if I'm wrong, is that it's almost like they haven't, they're like caught between, you know, I'm looking at this thing that I would love, like aspirationally, but no one has explained to me in real terms what it takes to get there. And the other thing is, and this is the other like dirty inside secret of our industry is that unless you actually own the agency, the Maserati is never happening. It's just never

happening. Like you just, there's not enough money. Like that's one of the things that has been the most eye opening to me as an agency owner at this point is how little we actually get paid versus the amount of time, effort and expense that it takes to run every single thing that you have to have to run an agency, not just like the extra stuff, but like the minimum stuff costs real dollars that add up every month. And, and it is very expensive and time consuming. And then when you, when you try to, when you start splitting that, now I'm going to give 50% of it to a producer or 60% or 70, whatever your makeup is, it's very difficult. So it is,

it is, that's a really, I agree with you. Cause I guess, and this is where I'm struggling and I'd love your feedback on this and is I'm looking to hire a producer. I can't find anybody. I will, I'll, I would hire anyone who has a U S property casualty license in any state, right? Cause I need what I, what I need them to do is sell insurance. We work completely over the internet. We have a whole process. We use video, phones, text, email, all the things, right? I have all the, well, not all, but I have a lot of the sexy tools

that make it fun and interesting and engaging. And you can really churn and burn and do a good, at the same time, doing a good job for people. I'd like to believe we have a fun brand. Can't find anybody. No one wants to come in. You know what I hear?

I'm making 75,000 base. Can you match that? No, I can't freaking match that. I'm a startup agency. Like, what do you want? You know what I mean? Like, so it's like, it's what's interesting to me is every, what I started to, to get a little bitter about, and this is where hopefully you can walk me off this plank or just push me into the ocean um uh is i kind of like should i actually feel sorry for these producers like there's opportunities out there that i know there are if anyone really hates their job call me i can put you in an agency that you're going to enjoy like they're out there but man like i look at how they actually have it. It's not always that bad. And they're complaining about how they're boxed in. And I'm like, yeah, but you have a $65,000 base.

You want to know how much I made this year? Negative $65,000. So, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. Am I crazy? Like, I just, I feel like it shouldn't be this hard to find someone to sell small commercial in our process. It's pretty fun. We use gifts on Slack. I curse. It's completely cool. You can wear Lululemon. Like it's, you know

what I mean? Like it's a decent place. And I just, everybody wants security. And I'm like, that's, I don't know. You don't get to have fun and be secure at the same time, in my opinion. Am I wrong? Am I crazy? I mean, you did it. You're doing it. I'm doing it. Yes. You know, I don't, I think selling insurance from my vantage point has to be one of the most entrepreneurial careers without having to be an entrepreneur, right? You check, you, you pick your clients. If you're working for the right firm, you pick your schedule. You within, if you're independent, you've got a multitude of carriers. You pick your clients. If you're working for the right firm, you pick your schedule. If you're independent, you've got a multitude of carriers. You pick your favorites.

Other than the fact that your name's not on the door and you're not writing the check to the IRS, it feels very entrepreneurial. But to actually flip the switch and go all in on your own is next level. It's why so few do it, right? It's why in my case, as I plug into the industry and more of a consulting role, there's a lot of people that would do what I do, but as an employee of someone else, right? Because you get the better health insurance and you get the PTO and you get the sick leave. And the number one hurdle I hear when I talk with people about starting their own thing is the health insurance. What about the health insurance? It's a real

consideration, but it can be overcome. So what is the health insurance for that producer? What is the thing? Is it book ownership? Is it, even though it's not his or her favorite position that they've, is it that bad? What's the thing, right? And I don't think you're playing up enough that culture piece because, you know, I don't know you that well, but I see you now and I see your energy and I see your vibe. And if that's true, right, if that's carried through to the end, which I believe it is, wow, it would feel different working for you than working for someone who's got a mandatory 8 a.m. sales meeting and is asking me what's in my pipeline.

That's the story I would be telling. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think, yeah, I just, and because I know there's other, there are other agency principals that struggle with the same thing. Ryan, not to interrupt you, this was, this was a thing 21 years ago when I started in the industry. The number one question I would get asked from agency principals when I was calling on them directly, who do you know? Got any good producers? Who's looking for a home? They're still asking today, 20, this is never going to go away, right? This is always going to be a thing for our industry. Always. And I think, you know, I'll be honest with you. I wouldn't even hire a licensed

producer if I didn't need someone today, I would go find someone who was just simply hungry. And that's the really interesting part to me is I've had two people turn the position down because I wouldn't pay them a high enough base. Yet both of them describe themselves as entrepreneurial. And I said, those two things, those are not, those don't coexist. Cause you, you know what I mean? Like you can't, you can't be afforded infinite upside and a solid, you know, a solid platform to land on. If you fall those, you just can't have both those things. And, and I agree with you. I do not recommend, I've had a lot of people call me about going out on my own because you know, it was March 9 of 2020. I launched this agency. And I tell them don't do it. Don't do it. Go find someone who is matches your disposition and and and will give you some leeway to run and go live that life. Because this life is terrible. I mean, not to mention, I mean, and granted, I'm taking a calculated risk with the understanding that hopefully there'll be more upside. So I don't want to act like I'm, it's not like I'm just a masochist. I mean, obviously I'm investing in something, but you have, you don't see your

kids, you're stressed out all the time. You're going to absolutely have issues with your spouse or your partner or whoever you spend time with, because you're not going to be around. And when you are, you're not going to be present and you don't make money. So like those things are very difficult. So when I look at it, I think there is this, I think there is this, there is a celebrity around being an agency owner. And unfortunately, I feel like I've played a role in that. And I almost want to roll that back a little bit because I did it because I was fired three times in a row. That's why I, that's why I started an agency. It was blatantly obvious that the universe was telling me

I'm not a super employee. If you're a great employee, then just find the right culture, I guess, is my thought. I don't know. I'm just like, it just seems to me like there are so many really good opportunities in the industry and those people are struggling to find good people. And I'm like, man, it doesn't have to be here.

There's tons. And I don't care man, it doesn't have to be here. There's tons. And I don't care if you wanna work on the West Coast, the East Coast. I don't care if you wanna work for a big organization or a small one. I don't care if you wanna work for a man or for a woman or for whatever, a Bills fan, or, you know, I don't care.

You know what I mean? Like there are so many good opportunities yet we all kind of stay and bitch. And I don't know how to fix that. I can't, like, I can't help myself. I'm, I have a background in the social sciences. When someone calls me a life coach for insurance agents, I cringe first. And then I say, oh yes, they finally get it. Are we talking about you, Ryan? Or are we talking about other agency principles? Because you've just laid out a lot of common experiences, yes, for agency principles, but those are exceptionally personal for you this story very publicly. By now, using the language I've developed, I was burnt out. I didn't know what it was then.

I just knew that at almost 40, single, making a lot of money with no kids, I questioned what the heck I was doing in this industry, doing this work. I took a year off. It was brilliant. I took a year of retirement in the middle of my career. I did amazing things. And I learned a lot about myself, mostly because I looked outside of the insurance industry and started to feel curious and motivated by things other than what I had always known to be true in insurance. the things you can't unpack, you can't disassociate all the things that you've experienced that have led to this point and package them up the way you want. They stand as they are, right, in the moment in time. And for me, one of the things I considered because I knew so much about insurance,

I'll start an agency. That was the only thing I could think of that was entrepreneurial and allowed me to do my own thing. I'll start an agency. Then I thought about actually being an agency owner. And I was like, I'd rather start over at ground zero in an entirely different industry than be an agency owner. And it's not because I don't appreciate and validate the work that they do. It's important work, but that's not me. That is not me. And one of the things that's interesting about this moment in time, I am, if I've learned nothing, I got married very young, was married for eight years in my twenties, about 30 got divorced. And for the last 10 years have been taking some twists and turns risks in my personal

life and my professional life. And the place that I've arrived to is this is where I am right now. Adjunct advisors is, it is my blood, sweat and tears right now. And I am all in, but I am also okay if I am not all in forever. Yeah.

If I change and I grow and I collect these experiences and they put me in a different place at a different time, I am okay with that. I would not have been okay with that for the first 10 years of my career. I thought the decisions I made had to be set in stone. I thought this is the path that I'm on. This is the stake that I have put down and I will live and die by this. And giving myself that freedom and that ability to be nimble and to be flexible and to roll

with it is what caused me to leave the carrier side and join the agency ranks. Leave the agency ranks, take a year off and now start doing my own thing. I don't know what's next, nor do you, right? And so there's this, we are highly qualified now in new and different ways because of the risks we've taken we've learned skills uh physical skills right how to onboard new clients how to pick a management system how to host a podcast you've also learned about resilience you've learned about communication you've learned about navigating difficult times with a partner or spouse right like these are all we're collecting all of these experiences together.

And I'm going to pause because if you give me a microphone, I don't shut up. No, it's tremendous. I told you in the beginning though, context is the key to this show. And I'm an open book. I don't think we honor enough over and over and over again. And I see it still today. We have the persona that we wear at work and we have the persona, the real us, right? The one that comes out on the weekend when we're around the campfire with friends, when we're putting our kids to bed at night, that's the real us. In our industry, we've made it really, really difficult.

It's not fault. It's just an observation. We've made it really difficult for people to show up as who they are. That's where, back to our original conversation, that's where that bravado comes from. That's that putting on a coat that isn't yours, that doesn't quite fit. And why do we do that? Because it's all that we see. I want to work exclusively with women who sell insurance. That's my hope. And that's my dream. Why don't I right now? Because there aren't enough of us. We're sitting inside agencies,

we're processing certificates of insurance, we're completing proposals. We're making the producer, who's not a woman, look really good at his sales presentation. And we're not taking the next step. We're not taking the risk. Why? Because we don't honor all the places we've been. We don't honor that we are qualified. We have left difficult relationships. We have said no, and no is a complete sentence. We have done hard things. But when it comes to taking this next step in our career and getting where we wanna go, it's a hard stop. And give me my megaphone, right? It doesn't have to be a hard stop. And this isn't a gender thing necessarily,

but I am a champion for women in our industry. I firmly, firmly believe we have fundamentally everything it takes to be successful. We just have to see the path. Yeah. I, I completely agree with that. I think, um, you know, I, uh, had, uh, um, um, a mentee who became, uh, a sister of sorts, um sorts in a different life. And the very first thing that I said to her, because I forced her to get on stage and do different things. And the very first thing I said to her was, I don't give a fuck what some fat six-year-old white dude thinks about you and the way you operate. If I see you back down for a second, that's when I'm going to get pissed. And watching her, I learned so much about, you know, I'm a guy.

Like, I've never been a woman before, so I don't necessarily always know what the life is. You know what I mean? Like, I can try to empathize, but I don't know. I'm a dude. So, but working with her and spending as much time as I did and watching her develop, it was very interesting to see, um, her journey and where she is to now. I couldn't be more proud of her, but it just is, um, it's just, it is interesting. I think, and this is what I've never understood about, about every, about any, any homogeny. Like I get that in a certain extent,

there are certain concepts and ideas that need to be homogenous inside an organization in order for it to run properly. But there are so many other aspects of the business that don't need to be in order for it to be successful. And in all of these situations, I've never understood choosing anyone other than the best person for

the job. And that is the part that's where I'm hoping we get to. And we need, we do need to push certain, certain initiatives to get people into those positions. But, you know, I, it's just sad to me that we haven't given particularly women enough at bats in our industry. Like it just, that might not, I don't mean that sounds diminutive. I don't mean it to be, I just mean it like, I don't know. I, in many regards, I prefer working with women because dudes are freaking terrible. I mean, like it just, it's just tough. You know, they're tough. Every dude I talk to is, you know, I get the, you know, I do this and I sell this and you and no one can see me and i don't know if you run in these same circles or not but like there is a whole group of of agency owners that is starting to form that is

outside of kind of the standard lines that are drawn um in some cases are literally state lines. You know what I mean? Like that have, that are completely women-owned businesses, all different, you know, people from outside the country, inside the country, all different parts of the country, all different spectrums of vantage points. And they're doing really good work.

And that doesn't have to be your business, but I'm really glad that today that that business can coexist in our space. And it couldn't have even a decade ago. They would have been pushed out through whatever mechanism was possible. Yeah. No, I love that. And I love the progress too.

I'm happy to be part of it. Anecdotally, a friend of mine in the business sent me a message on Slack not too long ago. And he was chatting with an agency principal and he's like, Meg, you got to hear this. He had asked about diversity on the sales team. This was a pretty traditional independent agent, maybe a dozen producers on staff. Every single one of them identified as male, every single one of them white. And asking about diversity, he said, oh yeah, we hired a woman once. We tried that once, period. So one singular individual defines an entire chain. Right. And so I'm guessing she showed up and let's play the stereotype game, right? She wasn't

super competitive. She wasn't motivated by money. She wasn't aggressive. All the things that we think about when we juxtapose men and women in their sales styles next to each other. She's walking in on day one into the sales culture that is all about those things that she's not. Guess what? She didn't make it. How surprised are we? What did we possibly do within our control to change that outcome for her and the firm? It's really expensive to hire someone, you know, is going to fail. It's really expensive. I don't recommend it. And with like, with that in mind, my, many, many of my clients are women, not exclusive, my insurance clients. Why do they work with me? Cause they want to work with a woman. It's the number one reason people choose me. I get no control over

it, right? But they understand what it means to support another woman in business. They know that the energy is different. All the stereotypes, they're true. And so why are we not leveraging this? Why are we not creating practices around meeting people where they are? Could you imagine if you said out loud that I work with CFOs who are managing hectic work-life schedules? What does that feel like to the buyer of insurance? Oh, she gets me. She sees me. I didn't even throw gender in there, but already we're going to self-identify. We're going to self-identify with whatever that reality is in that moment. I think we're, we've got to be really honest with ourselves in the cultures that we're creating

within these agencies and how high, how hard are we really, are we really trying? There's enough to go around, right? Like there's- There's more than enough to go around. Yeah, right? There's more than enough. If anything that I've realized is true, it's, I mean, there's an agent who's in the county just below me, who's a tremendous agent,

who in a different decade, it would be never, you never talked to him. You would never go share with you. He calls me. He's like, Hey, what do you think about this thing? I'm like, Oh, here's exactly what I'm doing. You know what I mean? And he does the same with me. And, and the idea is that today there's the, there's so much business. There's so much business that there's, there's just no reason not to share and be open. And, you know, and what I would say is I am competitive. I do like, not that you're not competitive,

but you did say that you weren't motivated by competition. You know, I do like a bit of competitive nature, but I guess my point is, you know, if I were to stereotype that situation, what I'd probably say is she probably was, she probably was a bulldog. She probably was willing to work and get in. And what happened was they didn't support her like they would have any other person

that came into that spot. And, and it wouldn't matter who you were. If you were, if you looked just as vanilla as all the rest of the dudes in that room and they cut you out and didn't support you and you got the shit leads because you were the odd person out, that dude would have failed too. So, you know, I actually would, you know, my, I bet she probably didn't even get that opportunity if she wasn't more than qualified for the position.

And it was probably just because the culture wasn't supportive. And again, I don't want to trash all these agencies and make it seem like these are terrible places to work because I don't mean it to be that way. But there is, I think we really have to, if we're, if we're, if we're, if we actually care about our legacy and growth, and I want to be respectful of your time away over and, and we are trying to grow and we are trying to set our businesses up for more than just an exit in a few years, right? Cause none of this applies. If you're exiting in a few years, do whatever you want, who cares? But if you are not, then these are the things we need to be thinking about,

like really thinking about that, that, you know, how do you position your team? And if you're just a pure capitalist and nothing but just a pure capitalist, having a woman on your team who you support because women like doing business with women, at least some do, makes sense just from a capitalistic standpoint I mean I just that's I don't know I said to um Billy Williams I don't know do you know Billy Williams you familiar with

him I know of Billy Williams yeah so Billy Williams is amazing and we got a little into the into the um into the into the race issue because when he came on was like hardcore BLM rioting or protesting, whatever. And I just said, you know, I've never understood. I've never understood racism from the pure standpoint of maybe I just played too many sports. It makes literally no sense. There's no, you know, there's no sense to it. You always want

to surround yourself with the best and the brightest. And if that's the case, then to have a, have a racist bone doesn't make any sense at all. So what that means is you don't actually want the best. And if that's the case, then we need to push those people off the Island anyways, because we don't want them. So like, I, you know, I guess I just, you know, I, I have a hard time relating to that, to that mentality. You know how you try to know, I guess I just, you know, I, I have a hard time relating to that, to that mentality. You know how you try to empathize with your enemy and then you understand them. And I just have such a hard time with that because at its core, I'm a capitalist. And I feel like if done without corruption, capitalism is the freest way for everyone to be equal.

Unfortunately, we have too many corrupt individuals in our system. So I don't know, I went way off the rails there. But that's just that's, I don't know, I would, I would leave you maybe with this thought or challenge this thought to deepen the thinking a little bit. That apprehension, apprehension to change what you know, what's familiar is often because of a perceived threat. And so when I think about these cultures and these are real stories, more than once I've had clients who have come to me because they've been excluded in some way, right? The carrier had four tickets to the ball game. It was the four male producers who got invited. Why didn't I get invited from the female producer? And part of it is that we want to perpetuate what we know. It's safe there. And so this culture,

this sort of bro culture is what we know. It's familiar and it's safe. And so we make decisions, some of them deliberate, some of them a little less so, to protect what we know because of the unknown is a threat, right? And so there are ways we can force progress. And I'm a fan, right? One of the last things I did when I was on the carrier side of the business was the carrier was going through a whole revamped hiring process. And are you making sure that you have diversity at the table? I think it's great. Are you calling out your own bias? Are you recognizing that even though you might know who you think you want for the job, do you have diversity at the table?

Why are we not doing this as insurance organizations, right? As agencies and capitalism or just good business or just being relevant as we look to the future, right? These are no longer nice to haves. These are imperatives. Our clients will demand this of us. Part of the work I do is for carriers, right? So carriers work with lots of agents. They have lots of choices. I work with them on a branded coaching program that they can deliver to their message, to their agents, to create an environment. It also addresses the diversity issue, the inclusion issue we have. Why is it a space for women? Because there hasn't been a space for women to have these conversations. So it's really less about like, oh gosh, we have a problem. Maybe someday we'll find a solution. It's like, no, we have a problem and we're willing to invest

legit corporate dollars to solve it. So. Yeah. I think that, you know, I, I probably, I probably have a little more libertarian take, although I completely agree with the concept because it's how I run my own business. I think that, I think you are wholly right in the organizations that when moving forward are going to be the ones who look for ways to provide opportunity in places where it may not have existed before.

I think that it makes a lot of sense on many levels. I'm never one for mandating anything on anybody, but as a best practice, I wholly believe in it. And it's the way that I personally operate. So I don't know if there's someone out there who's listened to all this and hates where they work and wants to sell a shit ton of insurance, I have a job for you. So hopefully someone will find it finally take me up on that. But Meg, I we went a million different places. I had a tremendous time. I want to thank you so much. I wish that we had talked more about specifically about what you do, but we've teased what you do. And tell everybody where they can tell everyone where they can, they can get more, where they can listen.

And we'll have all the links up in the show notes as well, but, but let them know where to find you. Yeah. Website's a great place to start adjunct advisors with an O-R-S. LinkedIn, Meg McKean. I'm all over LinkedIn. It's why are we not all as insurance professionals, right? Wink, wink. And I host a podcast. It's called bound and determined friends in the industry. We'll get the

bound reference on iTunes and, and all over the place, but it's a show that features the stories of women working in insurance and they're not the insurance stories. It's the rest of the stuff. Well, I appreciate the work you do. I think it's very important. I'm so glad we had a chance to talk today and I look forward to the next time. Thank you. Cheers. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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