The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 128 - Josh Gurley on How to Be Brave Enough to Tell People the Truth

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley is joined by Josh Gurley, partner at HM Advisors, for an epic conversation to start 2022. They break down the business of insurance, selling commercials and growing your business. Josh is an all-time professional in our industry.Episode Highlights: Josh shares with us about doing a year in review. (6:00) Josh tells us that one of his top 10 happenings of last year was making new friends who inspire him. (11:55) Josh tells us that, to be successful in business you have to be brave enough to tell people the truth. (20:44) Josh says that it is very important to call the next move with your clients. (28:38) Josh mentions that his company currently operates in 23 different states. (33:33) Josh talks about what he’s learned from technology this year. (36:19 Josh says that people need to understand that technology should only do what works for them. (44:43) Josh shares what he thinks is the most valuable thing in the insurance industry. (52:41) Josh shares some advice he gave to a client. (56:51) Josh says that you only need to do the thing that you're good at and everything else will follow. (1:01:34) Josh shares the importance of family in his life and imparts some advice on a few things that you should not delegate. (1:02:51) Key Quotes: "I just really want to help provide education to our industry, because I think we're in one of the most honorable industries that a person could possibly be." - Josh Gurley "I think that what people need to understand about technology is that you should do what works for you." - Josh Gurley "I think from an ownership perspective, if growing the value of your agency is through personal production, and you can do that, then do it." - Josh Gurley Resources Mentioned: Josh Gurley LinkedIn HM Advisors 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 and happy 2022 to you hope you're already crushing this is the first episode of the new year and you know 2020 blue 2021 was an odd year i think for all of us uh we could say it's an emotional roller coaster of sorts i'm sure some of you agree disagree but i know it certainly was for me. Absolutely love who we're kicking off 2022 with, and it's Josh Gurley. Now, Josh Gurley came to fame with an epic interview that he did on David Carruthers' podcast, Power Producers' podcast, and kind of just listening to Josh talk about the business and how he approached it, I think people just responded to it. It was amazing, and I got to know Josh after that interview and being part of the killing commercial

community. And then, you know, we've just talked and gotten to know each other better and better. And, uh, it was finally time to have Josh on the show. And I told him, you know, I said, man, you got an open interview. You just tell me when you want to come. And he wasn't sure. And finally, uh, finally we got him on the show and this is. And this is just a tremendous conversation. I think it is absolutely the right way to kick off 2022. And Josh is an epic dude. So partner at HM Advisors. You're going to love this one. You're going to absolutely love this one.

Before we get there, I want to give a shout out to the people that make this podcast possible. My friends over at Pathpoint. Pathpoint is changing the game, changing the game for ENS, making it easy to quote, bind, issue. Excess and surplus lines, coverage, Pathpoint's a big part of our strategy at Rogue with the diverse nature of risks that come in, being able to quote, bind, and issue ENS business in a way that makes sense, in a way that allows you to get back to your customers faster. It's changing the nature of small business insurance, and we're very proud to represent

Pathpoint. Go to Pathpoint. Just Google Pathpoint. Go to Pathpoint right now. Sign up. Get appointed. Check it out. I'm telling you, you'll not be disappointed. Pathpoint is a game changer when it comes to ENS business. I also want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds, another company changing the game for us. Propeller Bonds makes the surety bond business a part of your day-to-day strategy. What I mean by that is, you know, bonds can be, you know, if you're not set up for bonding or you're not a bonding expert, surety can be a time-consuming item. It's something that maybe you don't offer because a lot of the premiums on bonds just aren't super big,

and it feels like a waste of time. Well, Propeller completely flips that on its head. Now, even a $100 municipal bond that you might make $10 commission on or $20 commission on becomes simple because you just send your customers a link and you say, hey, you need that municipal bond? No problem. We got you. I'm going to send you a link. You just fill out that form. You're going to get your bond five, 10 minutes. It's crazy easy, and it allows you to say to the market, we are a bonding solution for you. So highly recommend Propeller Bonds. Go to propellerbonds.com, sign up guys. Again, these tools, these digital platform players, these digital partners are the game changers. They create the efficiency for us. Yeah, you're always going to have your

standard markets and your go-to markets and all that is great. But to become the true value provider that I think the independent insurance industry claims to be and is, bringing in digital players like this, digital tools like propeller bonds and Pathpoint, just allow you to execute that in a more efficient and effective way. And that's what we're about here at Rogue Risk is providing max value in the most efficient and effective way possible. And we're proud to have Pathpoint and propepeller Bonds as sponsors moving into the new year 2022. All right, my friends, you're going to love this episode. Let's get to Josh Gurley. What's up, man? Oh, not too much, man. Just getting ready for some family photos. Nice.

That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. So right after we're done, I'm going to shoot down to this farm, I think, somewhere and get our Christmas pics made. You guys doing like a theme or anything? I don't know, man. You know, my wife used to be a photographer before we had kids so she's probably got it all figured out gotcha but you're not wearing like you're not all wearing like ugly sweaters oh no no no not

all putting like suspenders on because you're gonna be at a farm or something no the closest i'm getting is this shirt i mean it looks kind of pink on the screen but it's really red so i'm a little getting a little bit festive yeah uh for the season but you know the kids are going to have their all their finest stuff on so yeah very cool very cool um so what's up dude what's going down not too much man i'm actually working on a book uh that i'm reading uh it was recommended by chris paradiso living your best year ever by darren hardy you heard that book i have so right now i'm doing my year in review worksheet and i'm on the top 10 happenings from last year. So I've written six down.

It said that you need to take as much time as you need to, to write them down. So I'm going to think about it over the next little bit and, uh, and get them all written down. Any of those that you're willing to share? Yes. Are we officially recording now yeah always always yeah so uh i'll just go straight down the list so number one is we completed our house we wanted to build our kind of dream house and so we started on it last year and we finished it up in March of 2021. I don't think that I will ever build another house, but it was really awesome to be able to move in. And, you know, the kids love it.

One of my very best friends is actually our next door neighbor. And so he's got kids that are the same age as our kids. And so it's just been awesome. We bought the lot probably three or four years ago and just spent a lot of time trying to prepare and make sure we had everything right. So we moved in, man, it's beautiful. It's awesome. That's a good one. What else? So next one is I surpassed my sales goal. I set a, I set a revenue goal for myself, new business, and I surpassed that goal. I did a really good job on my renewals. I had a revenue goal for myself, new business, and I surpassed that goal.

I did a really good job on my renewals. I had a couple of clients that sold out to some private equity funds this year, but it didn't hurt me too bad. And everything's really looking good. Renewals for the kind of the end of the year. So that was a huge one for me. It's always at one of the top of my list. So surpassed my sales goal the next one is i traveled with my wife we got going a few trips together we went down to tampa for innovation we went to key west we got a trip planned to vegas in february uh look i think we're going to miami in may and then we are going back to key west in june

so i've got some stuff planned with her got some trips playing with the kids all that kind of stuff so that's fun i love that it's super fun the next one is my son james he started kindergarten this year and his first semester of kindergarten has been awesome he's got a great teacher in a know, really cool little, it's a small little private school, nothing fancy. But, you know, they just, you know, they share a lot of the morals and all that kind of stuff that we have. So that was really cool.

He's doing so good in school. Got a lot of little friends and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter, she started her 3K this year. So she's three years old about to be four so really love the school um the next one's kind of off the wall i learned how to one wheel this year i wanted to do something different and so i bought a one wheel electric skateboard um in january and i've got probably 250 miles on it so far. So not quite a mile a day, but I've been trying to ride it as much as I can. And what is it that you like about it?

I like that. It's just one of those things I can get out. I can do it early on Saturday morning when everybody else is in bed and I can just feel some wind through my hair and just think. It's just one of those times where I can listen to a podcast, listen to a book, think about what happened the past week, kind of get my mind right for the next week. Just have some me time. Why did you pick a one wheel?

Mainly, I just thought it was cool. I was in my neighborhood while we were building our house. And there was this kid in there, probably like 15 or 16 years old. And the construction team was there. And this kid was like riding the one wheel down the street. And here I am, a 37-year-old man. And I'm like chasing him down the street. I'm like, hey, dude, I really want to try this thing.

And he was like, he had his music on. He was like, what? I was like, dude, I want to try your skateboard. I want to see if I can do this. And then he was, you know, he, the good risk manager that he was, he was like, listen, not in so many words. He was like, listen, old guy, if you break, if you break your neck on this skateboard, like this is not my problem. I was like, Hey, no problem. So we, uh, so I jumped on the one wheel. I read it around a little bit. I was like, this is kind of cool. And I was like, what the heck? So I went

and bought one online. They shifted my house and you know, the rest is history. Cool. And you still love it. I still love it, man. Yeah, I do. They just actually came out with a brand new one. So I have a little bit of jealousy that's built in there. Uh, but you know, it's cool, man. I mean, mine goes about six to eight miles. Um, if I lost, you know, maybe a pound or two, it might go a little bit farther, but, uh, which we've talked a lot about that, you know, sending, sending scale pictures back and forth. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah, man, I can get about six or eight miles and that's about all I want. Uh, just, just riding around the

neighborhood and, uh, different stuff like that. So that's, do you get weird looks when you're cruising or people into it? Or is it like now it's like a thing, you're the guy on the one wheel or what do the neighbors think? So my neighborhood is pretty small. There's only about 50 houses in the whole neighborhood. And we have this like pretty much a private, you know, some people call it a lake. I mean, I call it a pond. It's like 100 acres. And so, you know, there's like a thing for the kids down there and a little boat ramp. And you can put a little John boat in there and that kind of thing so everybody has a golf cart because everybody's

always taking their kids down there or whatever and i don't have a golf cart but i do have a one wheel and so the thing that i do that you know i'll get on the one wheel and i'll put the kids in the little wagon and i'll be like pulling them down the road in the one wheel and then everybody else is like zipping by in the golf cart so i guess i am i'm the one wheel guy and people know me for that whenever whenever i'm tooling around the neighborhood so that's cool all right what's number four uh let's see here the next one is going to be i made some new friends who inspire me i made some new friends who inspire me. I made some new friends who inspire me. So last year, I mean, I've always been a person, like ever since I've been in this business, I've just been so, I've been so focused on production. I've been so focused on like gaining new clients.

I really haven't met a ton of people in the industry. I mean, I'm not super involved in, in like the big guy or anything like that or the PIA of Georgia. Although I did recently joined the commercial lines committee for the big guy, which has been really awesome because I've met a lot of super, super smart people in that group. But so when COVID came around, I feel like there was just this really weird time where everybody was trying to figure out what was next yeah nobody really knew what was happening and people were thinking about uh you know am I an essential worker and and figuring out what they

were going to do with all their employees and so there was just this totally just dead time that was going on and And so a friend of mine, another agent was kind of like, Hey, if you want to kill some time, join, join this group. So I joined the IOA Facebook group. I had no idea what it was. And then somebody, somebody put a comment out about workers comp and they were talking about return to work. And I made a comment on the post first comment I ever made. I I'd been in the group for a. And I made a comment on the post first comment I ever made. I'd been in the group for a week or so, made a comment on the post. And then the next thing I know, I get this, I get this person that responds to my comment. His name's David Carruthers.

And David Carruthers was like, well, this is kind of a watered down approach of what, of what we do. And I was like, who is this asshole you know this is like telling me that my approach is watered down that's most people's first impression of carothers is who is this asshole so he so he he says this and then i i almost wrote kind of something snarky back like well do you really want me to take my you know full process and write it down it would take me two hours to type all this up. So I didn't, but then we ended up becoming friends on Facebook somehow. And he reached out to me and he was like, Hey, you want to be, you want to come on my podcast? And he's like, I think your story

would be something that people would be interested in listening to. And I was like, no, not really. I don't want to come on your podcast and I and then I and then I started thinking about it and I said well why don't you give me about a week or two weeks and I'll think about it I'll let you know because I had no idea who this guy was he was I didn't know anybody in the whole insurance influences influencer space and so eventually I came back and I said sure let's do it why not so we recorded a And then from there, it was like all these people started friending me on Facebook. And I bet I have 300 friends on Facebook. I've been somewhat selective of the people that are my friends on Facebook now. And from there, you know, I mean, I kind of knew who you were, but I didn't really know you. And then I started meeting you. I started meeting some other guys. And, you know, some of the people have podcasts. I mean, a lot of them

were just, you know, insurance people. And I just started realizing, man, there are so many really awesome people that are out there. And then when and then this year, when my wife and I went to Key West, I mean, it was all insurance people. There was like 20 some odd insurance people that are out there. And then when, and then this year, when my wife and I went to Key West, I mean, it was all insurance people. There was like 20 some odd insurance people that went to Key West together. And so for me, I mean, that was one of the things that came out of COVID that was interesting. It was like, I made all these friends from all across the country. And I started realizing, Hey, these people are just like me. You know,

they're not, they're not so bad. These are not competitors. These are people that are trying to figure this thing out. And so if I learned one thing from COVID, it was like all these people, they're just really good people. And so it really set me on this path of having an abundance mindset, I think, of like, what can I do for the industry? So both of my parents were teachers. So my mother taught kindergarten for 30 years. And then my dad, he was actually a school superintendent administrator for many years and so growing up the only people that I was around was educators because all my mom's friends were teachers and I was always hanging

out the school late my dad was always going to school board meetings and different things like that and so I just think over the past couple years this whole idea of helping provide education to people was something that was exciting to me yeah and so the thing for me about like coming on your show and any other podcast or event that i've been a part of over the past couple of years is like i just really want to help provide education to our industry because i think we're in one of the most honorable industries that a person could possibly be i mean we're we're that we're that business that company that individual that comes to somebody's rescue when their house burns down i mean how cool is that to be the person that can show up calm calm people down, you know, talk them through the process

and help them get to a better place on the back end. And so that's something that I take really seriously. And I think it's why whenever I talk to people, I really talk a lot about the blocking and tackling all the, all the different fundamentals that are involved in this business, the relationship aspect, the education aspect, just being able to advise people in a way where you're not afraid. And cause I think a lot of times we run from things that cost money to customers because we, because we think that the client thinks that all we're trying to do is sell them another insurance policy. And that may be true for some people, But for me, I try to relate it all always back to people.

And you think about workers comp. I think about how it's our duty as an insurance agent to advise a business and say, you want your employees returning home in the same condition that they showed up to work. And so that's why it's so important to have safety programs. That's why it's so important to have workers' compensation. That's why it's so important to have, you know, return to work and provide that environment, because at the end of the day, they have families just like we do, you know. And so I try to change the way that people view our role in the industry and the way that they view the actual insurance uh you know transaction product whatever it is that you want to call it in general yeah i i couldn't agree with you more i always you know the way i talk about it

sometimes i think there's a lot of different ways of position. It is insurance is the foundation upon which business owners and entrepreneurs are able to take the risk that they need to take to grow their business, right? Like you can't hire another employee unless you have comp or you have other insurance in place. You can't buy a new building, right? You can't take on a new line or produce a new product unless you have the proper insurance in place because otherwise, you know, you're extending out without the foundation, right? So, you know, that to me, that mentality I completely agree with, and obviously it's why we connected. I think to your point about a lot of times we can feel like all the client sees us doing is trying to sell them another policy. I think it's unfortunate, but it's definitely true. And it's also completely just in our head. Yeah, I totally agree. It's just in our head. And that's, that to me was one of the hardest lessons to learn in selling insurance was that 90% of the stuff keeping me from selling was in my head, had nothing to do with the client.

This was all garbage that I was projecting onto the client, like what they thought or what their assumptions were or what their motivations were versus, you know, what, what that client actually wanted, you know, and, and, and getting past that or kind of detaching from the outcome, I guess is probably a better way to put it is once you kind of, once you kind of figure that out, man, you ascend to a whole nother level in a sales position, especially in our, in our industry. I think you have to be brave enough to tell people the truth. And I think that's the difference in kind of that order taker mentality that exists in our industry and really being an advisor, a person that is looking out for not only

the interest of the business owner, which is obviously the primary goal, but secondly, the interest of the employee and making sure that the employee is taken care of. And at least in my experience, I think that people, business owners especially, they respect when you push back on them a little bit. They respect that you think enough of yourself and your position and your job to be able to tell them what they need to do from a recommendation standpoint. Because it's no different than,

I was thinking about this, right? You go to the doctor's office and the doctor says, hey, you need cholesterol medicine. People grumble about that all the time. Nobody wants to take medicine every single day. I mean, not knock on wood. I don't take any medicine, thank goodness. But, but like people, they don't want to take medicine and they think, Oh, I'm young. I feel fine. I don't want to take this medicine. But, but the doctors over there, they're looking at their blood work and they're saying, Hey, you really need to take this

medicine. And so people, they take their medicine because they know it's what's best for them. And those doctors, they have to be bold enough to say, look, you might have a real problem if you don't take this medicine. Let me tell you the road that this is going to go down. Your arteries are going to get clogged up. You may end up having a stroke. You may end up having a heart attack, heart disease, all these different problems that happens that if this stuff builds up in your heart, so you got to do something about it. And ultimately most people, they respond to that and they do the right thing or they modify their lifestyle, right? And they eat different, they exercise, they spend time working on themselves. And so the same thing is true. I mean, we just

have to be bold enough to look at somebody and say, I know that you don't believe me, but ransomware attacks, they happen every single day, every single day. And so not only are you going to be down trying to get your data back up, but you're going to have to go figure out how to get some Bitcoin or something like that to be able to pay that ransom. Yeah. And I think people respect that. And that's really how I've always operated, out of just a place of trying to speak with authority when I talk and not be an order taker. I think the ability to walk away from a deal that doesn't make sense to you is a

powerful thing. Yeah. So I'll give you, I'll just pile on to what you're saying. Cause I, I couldn't agree more. I get a lot of questions about our business model, which is, which is unique in many ways. We've only met two of our customers in person ever in two years. And a lot of people will say things like, well, how do you, you know, what about the relationship?

Insurance is about relationships. It's about relationships. You're not building relationships. Well, I wholly and 100% agree that insurance is about relationships. I just don't agree that you have to breathe the same air to develop a relationship. So how we establish what you're saying digitally is by over-communicating and being highly transparent. So what I'll say to the customers is this, this comes in during the part where we're setting expectations for a video proposal. So after I've gathered all the necessary information,

and I know that the next step is to go quote them, I'll say, well, I have all the information I need the net. I'm going to explain to you the next step in this process. So, so what comes next now that I've, I've gathered all this info? I don't want you to think it's just going out into the ether. We're going to take this information and I already have a pretty good feel for the markets that we should go to based on what we've discussed. But we're going to hit all the markets that we have and make sure we have a good feel for coverage and price. We're going to come back with our recommendation to you. And how we deliver that is in a video proposal. And they may have a question about that. And I

just say, look, it's super easy to get into. We use neoteric agent just for anyone who's listening. There's a bunch out there. That's the one we use. Had perfectly fine success with that. I said, you're going to get an email from me and you're going to log into this website and it's super easy to get in. So, so don't even worry about that. It's super easy. But what you're going to get is this, this email that it's got three parts. It's got a video, which I hopefully you'll watch two, two to five minutes tops. You're going to get a high level breakdown of what I found. And then you're going to actually be able to download the reports right from the carrier.

Now there's a reason that we give carrier reports. Now I'm breaking the fourth wall and I'm talking to you, the audience, not my customer. There's a reason we give carrier reports and not our own proposals. And the reason is it makes it feel more real. If I were to take now again, middle market different, we're talking about 25,000 in premium and under vast majority of our accounts. So the reason that I do that is I want them to feel like they have all the inside baseball that we have, right? If I were to take it and scrape it and put in my own proposal, they could be going, well, shit, this, you know, who knows if this is real, this is something this guy put together, right? But because it's a printout, some of them are ugly. Some of them are nice,

depending on the carrier. It doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't even rename them on purpose. I want it to feel like it came right from the carrier. Cause what I, cause now I'm, now I'm not breaking the fourth wall. I'm going back to, this is what I say to my customer. I say, the reason that we do this is I want you to have as much power as I have. I said, most insurance agents are going to withhold the information, the proposal, until they have a chance to box you into a corner, right? To get you sitting at your desk or on the phone, and then they drop the proposal on you because they feel like in that moment, they're going to be able to convince you that you should purchase

this thing. That's not what I do. What I'm going to do is give you what I think you should have based on almost 20 years of experience. And you have all the information I have. So the next time we get on the phone, we can have an honest, straightforward discussion where you have all the information that I have. How's that sound? Ryan, that sounds great. Awesome. You'll have that for me in a couple of days. Done. Now what happens? Okay. So what I've just done, and I always say, I want you to have as much power as I have, because people fucking love that, right? Because who doesn't want to have power? It's like the used car salesman who doesn't try to sell you every single car that you walk by. That's the whole point, right? Is you now know everything I know. So when we get on the phone, we can talk

openly and honestly about your questions. One when we get on the phone, we can talk openly and honestly about your questions. One, it drastically reduces the amount of time we spend on the call because they've already watched the video in most cases, three times, right? So the average is like 2.3 times. When I send a video proposal out, people usually watch the video two times or three times. And, and I'll say more as I've gotten better at doing the video proposals, what ends up happening is they don't even want to have a phone call. They just email me back and go, Hey, can I do monthly payments? Yes. Okay. We're in done. Yeah. I mean, I think what you've done and I do this in middle market is i call the next move like we we should be

willing just to say hey here's what's going to happen next yeah i'll get i'll give you a great example so uh we hired a new producer in our in our office and he was working on or is currently working on an account that's with a direct writer and so i told him said, look, this is a direct writer. You know, we can't BOR this. We got to go in. We got to quote this thing. But I said, here's what you need to ask them. You need to ask them how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance?

And he's like, why is that? I said, because I know people that used to work for this company. OK, and this particular company, they are a life insurance company that sells PNC insurance. It doesn't matter what you say. All of their awards, all other stuff. It's got to be Steve Farm. It's no, it's not them. But commercial lines only care. All right. So so they say, hey, we're we're gonna you know how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance and he went in and he asked the question he said how many times have they tried to sell you life insurance and they said they try to send me life insurance

every single time they walk in the door a whole life insurance policy i said and then i said the next question you need to say is how often do they talk about what you're actually there to talk about which is your business insurance and you ask them that question they're like never they just want to sell the next policy i said i said exactly and so when we had our coaching call after that i said this is what i call calling the next move you just say this is what the person's going to do now you're a you're like isaiah the prophet you tell them what's going to happen then it happens and then you look like you're the hero in the story and it is and it's because you're transparent about what's going to happen next and whoever else is dealing with you they're just trying to get to the next sale and it doesn't matter if it's middle market it doesn't matter if

it's personal lines it doesn't matter if it's small commercial you're just calling the next step and then they're digging they're digging their own grave because they're doing every It doesn't matter if it's personal lines. It doesn't matter if it's small commercial. You're just calling the next step. And then they're digging their own grave because they're doing every single move that you predicted. 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, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you,

I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I'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 of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. It just, to me, the days, and I used to say this 10 years ago when I was talking about content marketing, the days of us as insurance professionals being the gatekeepers to information are over. It is over. We're not the gatekeepers to insurance information. They can Google

and find everything we know. Everything that we think is intrinsic knowledge that's up in our brains and we're so smart, they can Google it and find it out. Now, granted, could they apply it as well as we can apply it? No, they're not professional. They haven't done this for a career, but can they know it? Sure they can. So for us to still act in an insurance transaction in this like wedgie style bait and, you know, like, I don't want to say bait and switch, but like, you know, you're, you know, Hey, I'm not going to tell you when I'm going to call you back. And when I call you back, I'm not going to give you the, the, the quote number because you might take it and be, screw that they can take my whole proposal and BOR to the current agent. If they want, you know why? Because if they do that, they were not a good fit for us. That means they would have been a

terrible client. And the other side of it is, and this talks to your abundance versus scarcity mindset, is like, we generate so many frigging leads because we're constantly doing the work, right? In our marketplace, for you guys, it's the same, just maybe less volume, but same kind of flow for a middle market transaction. So I'm not talking you can't do it in one way or the other, just for us, we constantly have new leads coming in. So if, if we just work our process and we set expectations and we deliver on the expectations that we set, and we continually do that with someone and ask the right questions throughout the process and never make them feel like they're boxed in, like they're like, we are a partnership. It's a partnership, right? It's a service request that ends with a transaction versus a sale. And that small nuance, I think, plays a large role in how we treat people, right? Because our service team is loving and caring and compassionate and patient. Our sales team is like, buy this freaking policy now or I'm going to lose my mind. But if you can just switch that mentality to more of a service mindset,

where at the end of the process, you're transacting a policy versus, you know, or a BOR or whatever, versus doing a car change, I feel like that small tweak with good flow, you get the clients you should have that fit your process, the ones that don't automatically fall out, and you just keep cranking. And I feel like that methodology can be applied to every line, every vertical, every geographic region in our country. There's nothing like seeing the light bulb pop on in somebody's eyes. When you're talking to them, whether it's on Zoom or whether it's in person. I mean, a lot of people probably don't know this about us, but I mean, we, we operate in 23 different States and not that we have offices there. We don't have producers there, but I have clients in 23 different States. So I spend a lot of time on zoom and any other,

you know, video conferencing app and talk to people all day, every single day. And, but it's always the same when you can provide somebody, I think with enough education to make their own decision and come to their own conclusion and choose to do business with you, then you're going to keep that client for a lot longer. Again, I'll knock on wood, but you know, one, one's a pretty, pretty hefty day for me. And I have not received one single loss run request. I'm not sure that I've received a loss run request in 2021, except for somebody that's looking to sell their company to a private equity firm. I went to a class like very early on in my, in my career with Scott Addis. And Scott's kind of like the OG sales trainer been around forever and ever and ever. And it was up at Cincinnati, uh, home office. And like, you know,

I remember like I ate dinner next to the JF share. He was sitting right next to me and he was the president insurance company forever. And at the time I was so young in the business, I was, I was like, Hey Jeff, I'm Josh Gurley. Hey, what do you do? And he was like, Oh, I work in the, I work in the PNC side. And then I go Google him and he's like the Cincinnati, you know, the king of the kingdom. Yeah. Yeah. He's like the king of the kingdom or whatever. But at this thing, Scott, he, you know, he broke it down and I won't say it as good as he does,

but you know, he basically talks about this whole thing's like four steps, right? I mean, you collect some information, you come up with a strategy, you implement the strategy and then you monitor the strategy that, I mean, that's what you do in the business. But I think the difference in what I do and sounds like what you do is I tell them, I tell people, look, you can do this with anybody that you want to do it with. If I'm bringing in a quote from Cincinnati,

I'll say you can do this with anybody that represents Cincinnati. Anybody you can do this with, you know, I hope that you do this with me and I think, you know, to your point, I mean, you give them that choice because you want them to choose you freely. And I think when people, they choose you freely and you're not just selling them to get onto the next thing, I think your retention goes through the roof. And that'll bring me to my next point. And I don't know. We didn't get to number five yet. Well, I think I really learned a lot about technology

this year. All right. And this may be a controversial statement that I'm, I'm going to make, but for me, technology is an add on like, you know, what we talked about, about the client relationship, about the education, you know, just being that person that acts in utmost good faith it's in the first page of the of the book that you learn insurance and it says this is a business built on utmost good faith so everything else is just an add-on right everything else is an add-on and so everybody was talking about you got to have this tool or that tool or whatever but at the end of

the day if you were to put a if you were to put a saw in my hand right or you could put me in a wood shop we have a client that has a wood shop at his house that costs like four hundred thousand dollars okay it's got every tool that you could ever imagine having inside of this thing but if you if you you could take me in the most beautiful piece of white oak wood and say make a table make whatever dude what would come out of that place would be kindergarten it would look like something that somebody that a five-year-old made because i have zero skills at doing woodworking. And so I think the same thing can be true a lot of times is that we don't really look at what's right in front of us. So the stuff that we use in my agency is we're on Applied Epic. That's just what we do.

It's great for commercial lines, great for the way that we transact business, and we're on Salesforce. And so we use Salesforce to attract and find new clients. We don't really use it on the back end for a client, reaching out to them or anything like that. And I'm not really sure that's even all that important with the kind of business that we write. Like, I think a lot of the stuff that we write should be more like manual touch anyway, because somebody commented on something, they were talking about this and I made a comment and it was like, hey, well, your margins are probably higher than other people because you're writing larger accounts which is true so we can afford to be

a little bit more hands-on because there's not as many accounts to go around but like one of the things that i realized was like i don't have to have every like cool gadget that every other person has i just have to have like what works for me you know when i play i played music uh professionally for some length of time and so guitars have all these like guitar pedal boards and and there was a time when i thought like i need to have every guitar effects pedal so i can sound like you know anybody from from the edge of youtube to jimmy hendrix to whoever else like i need every little every tool that they make and so i used to carry around this pedal board that had like 20

different things on it and i started thinking to myself i was like i don't even use this stuff and in the back of my mind i would say but i might one day so i need to go ahead and have it and then one day i just said you know what i'm done with this like and so I literally keep my guitars and stuff in my office right now and so underneath my desk there's a there's a pedal board under my desk that has probably five things on there but all the things that I have are like top of the line it's like the best stuff that money can buy is what i have but i only have like four or five things and and so like i just it's just funny how i went through the same thing when it came to my music career and then i get in the insurance business it's like i gotta have all this stuff and then

and i woke up one day i was like no i don't no i don't i don't i don't have to have all this stuff we send out georgetown cupcakes all right it's a cupcake place in washington dc like one of the most famous cupcake places in america they got 5 000 or 10 000 you know five star google reviews um they're everywhere and so it's like 55 a dozen to send out and so instead of me buying you know some kind of thousand dollar a month, you know, customer retention software or whatever. Like I send out 20 dozen cupcakes a month and it's not tied to a holiday. It's not tied to whatever. It's just like, Hey, I was thinking about you. I had a client this week. He made this joke and it was hilarious.

Cause a lot of people bought into it including me um and again this guy is in Oregon and so Jack's Facebook it said Jack is 116 years old today well Jack's like 60 and so all these people were telling him happy birthday and I was like wouldn't this be funny and I knew it wasn't his birthday because I got his driver's license in our system but I said wouldn't it be funny to send him some cupcakes and say happy 116th birthday so right then we were like boom georgetown georgetown you know cupcakes overnight oregon and we flew them all the way across the country they got to his office the next day and he sent me a text he called me it was hilarious he loved it it had nothing to do with

his birthday but it was just the fact that we were thinking about him. And so, you know, I would just say, if anybody's listening, like if it makes more sense to spend a thousand dollars a month on cupcakes, go do it. That's a great tool. And you know, that may be controversial, but that's just how I feel about it. I don't, I don't think it's controversial. I think that it's the maturation of the space. I think that, you know, and we all, dude,

we've all fallen prey to it. I think it's a natural evolution that everyone goes through in every piece of their life. I think you always, you know, if you golf, you think I got to have the most badass set of golf clubs. And then you realize that you don't, you're, if, if you golf, you think I got to have the, the most bad-ass set of golf clubs. And then you realize that you don't, you're going to stink regardless, um, or be good regardless.

You know what I mean? I mean, my friends that are good pick up wooden clubs that their grandfather had in his bag from a hundred years ago, and they hit shots right down the middle. And I can't, you know, for me, I I'm hitting it in the woods regardless. So, you know, I think that, I think I completely agree with you. It's, it's easy when things aren't going well, or you're not producing as much as you would like, or you find yourself in an, in envy of someone and their production, or at least their perceived production online that you start chasing the

next, you know, what's the next tool that's going to get me there. And, you know, I have been guilty of this. I mean, I've had five CRMs. This is my second, I'm on second agency management system, and I've only been around for two years. You know, I've tried a million tools. I haven't changed in a year. I'm proud of that. But I agree with you. I think what I definitely agree with, not that I'm executing on this today, but what I definitely agree with is buy best in class.

Buy best in class tools for the tools that you need because you get what you pay for. You know, you absolutely get what you pay for. You know, I use NowSerts as an agency management system and it's very cheap. And they'll have two hours, you know, from 10 a.m. Eastern to noon Eastern on a Tuesday. They'll just go down and they'll send a Facebook message. Hey, guys, like servers are down. Hopefully they'll be back up soon. And you're like, oh yeah. So my agency management system doesn't work for two, two hours during the middle of a workday. You know, like that's doesn't happen with Epic. It doesn't happen with others. I know it just

happened to AMS 360 the other day, but you know, you, you get what you pay for. And I think maximize the tools that you use versus using like 5% of 20 tools, right? Like pick one tool and absolutely pin max your usage of it and then move on to the next thing. There's only so many things that we actually need, man. We just don't need that much. Well, that's what we do with Salesforce because our annual spend on Salesforce between the software and the development is probably $40,000. And so I just say, let's have a system that is just rockstar for what we're trying to do.

So we pay the development costs. We have the email marketing system that goes along with it. We have the lead scoring. We have all the tracking that we do online. And then when I'm prospecting, hey, I know who's the most likely person to answer the phone.

And that's half the battle, right? Is knowing who's your most likely customer. So, but the other thing I want to say about that is like i think that what people need to understand about technology is that you should do what works for you my agency is not a high volume personalized agency like we haven't been for a long time, probably not going to be for the future. I mean, so a lot of those things are not super important to us. Our agency is not a high volume, small commercial agency. So the ability or the need to automate certain things, you know, it's just not that important to us.

Now, there are some other people that probably need all of those things in their agency, in their business, but they have a legitimate reason for needing those things. And I just don't think that our agency does at this moment, right? is the fact that we can have CSR 24 online for our people to go do their certificates if they want to, for us to deliver the policies endorsements. We have a really good sales tool from that manages our sales process and, you know, in Salesforce. And then we have, you know, some other resources through some different vendors from HR safety, you know, self service portals and that type thing. And so like, that's what's really important to our clients. And so I just really think that like everybody should figure

out, okay, well, what is, what is really important for my client? What is really important for my agency? And I mean, that's half the reason that I'm, that I'm going through this year in review right now in this, you know, living your best year ever is like, Hey, what do I need to add? What do I need to cut out? You know? And then the other thing is like just developing my own, I think, leadership, you know, and, and I'm starting to learn a lot that just because I'm a good producer and I, and I would label myself as a good producer. You know, I mean,

if you just open up the best practices guide and you see, well, what is the average producer produce in this country? You know, I produce a fair amount more than that. So I would consider myself, you know, certainly above average producer. And so, but that does not necessarily mean that I can impart my knowledge on other people in my organization or train other producers in my organization. So that's when I've been really spending a lot of time, like I'm reading the book Traction right now and trying to grow the leadership side. And I think that's just as important as anything else. Boom, there it is. I think that's just as important as anything else that we could do is, is develop leadership, develop our people, you know, and help them be more and more efficient and just not necessarily

rely on the computer or the software to do it for us. Yeah, this is, so one of the things that I became, you know, self-aware of in the second iteration of my producing or agency career here is that I'm not a great producer. I'm certainly not a great producer. I may be a good producer, but I don't love producing. I don't love it. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't get me jacked up. You know, I've written a policy every single day this week. One day I wrote two, I could give two shits. I wouldn't even list them, any of them as a highlight of my week. Cause I just't care to me. What, what, what I had to, and again, this is speaking to what you're saying is you kind of have to figure out what your strengths are. It might mean that you should never be the person who's doing that stuff that you just

said. I mean, honestly, if you're a tremendous producer, an absolutely tremendous top flight producer, why would you ever stop? And you like it, right? And you like it. If that's the case, why would you ever stop doing that? Just go fucking hire a COO who will do all that stuff for you. Like, don't, why would you take yourself out of the thing that you, and I'm not trying to say you specifically. I'm talking in general, but why take yourself out of the thing that you love and are good at and are literally probably world class at to a certain extent and go, now I need to learn all these other skills to be this thing

that I feel like I should be, but, but maybe isn't even what you want to do. And maybe you want to do that. I'm not saying you don't, you know, and I had to have that conversation with myself because I, I could produce, I could, I absolutely could. I just, to me, my value, every policy that I write, I consider a loss in our agency. Like that's, that was a loss. Like that's time that I could have been working on our onboarding process. I could have been refining how, you know, who we're quoting, how we're quoting them, getting a better feel for that, digging deeper into new markets that we need. You know, there's a million things that are more where I specialize in than that thing. And if I were to say, if I were to go try

to teach one of my current producers, we have three producers. If I were to try to teach them how to produce like you can, I would be doing them a disservice because I don't know that I can, that I'm even as good at them as, as at that stuff. So it's, you know, I feel like we all have to figure out, and I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you're doing. Cause, cause you should, if that's what you feel is right. But I think it's worth considering, and this goes to like your technology thing, right? Like feeling pressure to take on tech, you probably feel pressure to lead. Dude, I do not, I think it is a misnomer that just because you're the owner, you also have to be the day-to-day leader. I think that's a complete

misnomer. I think as the owner, the, the, the, or an owner, the freedom that you get is to choose to do whatever it is that you want to do and be wherever it is that you add the most value and find someone else to do all the other shit that you, that isn't either what you want to do or something that you're good at. And, um, you know, I, I don't, you know, I feel zero pressure to be a producer. And when I walk into a room full of agency owners, I know that they look at me like I'm freaking crazy. I've sat at a table before and said, every policy I sell is a loss and watch guys literally stink eye me. Like what's wrong with this guy is not a really, what's he,. Like, what's wrong with this guy? He's not a real agent. What's he talking about? Literally, their eyebrows, that face,

no one watching can see, but that face that I just did, I have seen that face from people when I say that. And it's because I know, at best, I'm a good producer, at best. That's me on my best day, I'm a good producer. I have never been a great producer, nor will I ever be. And so what that tells me is my value to the organization is not

production. It's something else. And that's why I do everything I can not to produce. You know what? One of my business partners, he said something to me recently that, man, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And he said, and this is why this is the whole reason that I'm reading the book. He said, do you know what the most valuable thing in the insurance industry is? And I said, my ability to produce new accounts accounts and that's really that's what i thought for a long time but he said it's not the most valuable thing he said equity is the most important thing in the insurance business right building your balance sheet is one of the most is the most important thing in the insurance industry because we can produce a book of business we can create cash flow through that through that and i've certainly done that and

i've enjoyed that and i've had a lot of fun doing that it's been awesome i mean i've gotten to go all different kind of places trade shows all over the country it's been a lot of fun for me i'm in fact i'm going to iowa next week so sunday i'm going to iowa and i'm going to doing a little tour through there and through through missouri and you know, going to see some clients and some, some prospects and that's, that's a lot of fun. But, but I think what, what you're really saying is you're trying to build the equity of the business. You're trying to build the value of, of the company and i think as as an agency owner whether you own 100 or whether you're a minority i'm a minority owner in my agency so it's not like i'm the you know the president or anything like that but you know what can i do to help grow that balance sheet and so you know if

if one day i end up being you know owning, owning a super significant portion of our agency, then then, you know, those will be that'll be the same priority. But I mean, right now, the most valuable asset that sits on my personal balance sheet is my agency. That's that's that's it. That's the most valuable thing I have. And so I think from an ownership perspective, if growing the value of your agency is through personal production and you can do that, then do it. If it's through creating systems for other people to produce, then do that. There's no right way to do this. There's no wrong way to do this. I mean, I was talking. I disagree with that second part. There's absolutely a wrong way to do it. I think it is. I think it's your point. I think, I think to the point that you just made the wrong way to do this is to,

is to put yourself in a position that you think you should be in, that you shouldn't actually be in. Like you, like you reading IOA posts and you feel pressure to do this or to do that when really, you know, your value is here or there, right? I feel like that is the cardinal mistake. Here's a common example. The cardinal mistake that I see is agency principal is a rock star producer, just has all the connections in town, knows the coverage, knows the carriers, crushes business, does a great job. Customers love him, love her, whatever, just dominates. Never hires an operations person, never gets a COO, never finds the partner to run the business. And what happens is outside of that

agency owner's personal production, the rest of the agency is in shambles. And you see that over and over and over and over again. And there was never enough self-awareness in the moment to say, I'm just going to freaking crush forever and build a team around me that allows me to do that. And that, that to me is the mistake or the great producer who stops producing. And I'm not saying this is what you're doing. Stops producing to go chase technology and process, right? Like you're a great producer. Keep producing. I don't know. That's my, that's my thought process.

Well, I guess what I mean is like, when I say there's not a wrong way, let me explain that. Well, you're being very nice is like, when I say there's not a wrong way, let me explain that. Well, you're being very nice. I get it. You're Southern. I understand. Well, I mean, what I mean by that is, all right, so a year ago,

I was in St. Louis, all right? I've got a client that's not too far from there. I was in St. Louis. You know, Jason Cass is not far from St. Louis. And so Carruthers was going up there to hang out with Jason for a day or two. And it just happened to be like the same, the same day. All right. And so there was a guy that we ended up meeting up in the lobby of a hotel. And we just were all, we're all just talking.

And the guy that was already in St. Louis was there and he was talking and he was telling me he was a personalized guy and he was talking about getting into commercial insurance and i said man tell me about your agency and and i got to be honest with you i expected him to say that he was like a one-man shop i mean to hear the guy talk he was so humble but then he drops these i mean they got like a freaking zillion employees and like a gazillion dollars in revenue in personal lines and i just told the guy i said look i said you may think that you're doing something wrong okay but but dude you are crushing you are crushing i said if you're writing this much personal lines if your agency is like three3 million in personalized revenue,

like commission, why don't you just do more of that? Like, why would you stop doing that and decide I want to be a middle market insurance agency? Like, no way, man. I would just, I was like, I would just keep doing what you're doing. I mean, that's, that's just me. And so I was just trying to encourage him to say, Hey, you're not doing anything wrong, dude. You're doing everything right. Yeah, I think, dude, I think this is why we make a lot of the bad decisions that we make throughout our life, not just in insurance, but we look out at the world and we go, man, I get this thing I'm doing right now.

Ah, man, geez, I'd love to be doing that thing too. Or, you know, listen to this guy, he's selling life policies. I need to go get my life license and become a life expert or whatever, right? Or man, if we only had text, automated text messages that can't, you know, you know, all this different stuff when, you know, I think, I think a big part of it is,

is, you know, I said this before, but I think a big part of it is self-awareness and just, just double into your strengths. Like, what are you good at? What are you good at? If you're good at that thing, be the absolute tippy top world-class best at that thing. If you can be it before you ever consider moving into other spaces. And, you know, I've learned this lesson the hard way so many times in my career. And then I had to learn it again, probably the first year that rogue existed when I made a million bad decisions and pivoted 15 times. And like, you know, where we are today, you know, this episode is going to come out after an episode that I kind of explain, you know, the maturation of where we are, which isn't necessarily different

just as we continue to evolve and what we're doing. So you can go back and listen to that. But, you know, at heart, you know, I'm a hype man. I support people. I get people jacked up. I put them on the path. You know, that's what I do. I'm good at process. I'm good at getting people excited about things. I'm good at culture. I'm not a great insurance guy. I'm not like, you know what I mean? You know more in your left pinky finger about insurance than I probably do. I, you know, I enough, enough to be dangerous, but, you know, I have to own that. That's not who I'm going to be. And I think, you know, you, we all have to figure out that thing. And once you figure out what your thing is and you double into it,

that's how you really get to the next level. Cause then other opportunities do come right. Like you may find from being the absolute best and pinning your niche or, or a couple of niches that there's this third niche that you can get into because it's a natural fit and it's easy and and they're they're aligned with the business you're already in but the only way you get to kind of that materializes in a meaningful way is if you really pinned in that one place um and i feel like how we get in trouble is we get like kind of good at something and we hit our first real plateau and then we go ah this thing's dead i gotta go do something else

and it's like no you just hit the first of like 17 plateaus on the way to being great um i don't know i i don't know if that makes sense or not but no i mean i mean it definitely does i mean i i know that that that's just what i tell people all the time it's just like hey you do the thing that you're really good at and then everything everything else is going to work out. And you don't have to self-promote that hard because people can see through the bullshit if you want to know the truth. They can see people that are really genuine and they really want to help other people. And that's just all over the place. I mean, it's just kind of like the podcast that people listen to the most insurance people

listen to the most are the ones that they feel like people are just being real. And the people that buy these products from us that we create these relationships with, they, they want to deal with the people that are, that are real. And so that's why I've just always kind of been a cut to the chase kind of guy and, you know, and just not been a really fancy word, you know, salesperson. And so I don't know, man, I don't know. I can tell you this. I've enjoyed talking about this topic. Yeah. So I want to be respectful of your time, but real quick, you only got through the first five. What was number six on the list? golly, it's Christmas time. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been listening to the Counting Crows long December on repeat, or if it's just the fact that, you know,

we went and saw Santa Claus last night. I don't really know. But I want to end this the way that I end everything, every talk that I've ever given, everything I've ever done. And this is really one of the things that I'm the most grateful for, is that no matter what I have done

throughout this year, I have not delegated the things that are the most important to me. And I'll give an example. I'll give you three things. All right. So the big three gifts that we got our kids for Christmas this year is we got a GoPro. All right. I got my kids a GoPro. Thank goodness they're like six and three and they can't listen to this. Got them a GoPro because my son loves to swing his golf club. He loves to be outside. He loves to make crazy videos and stuff. So I got a GoPro so we can take it to the beach and do family stuff together. All right. I got my kids a 3d printer. My daughter loves little jewelry and all this kind of stuff she can she can make. So she's got a 3D printer and we got him this big, like massive jungle gym that my neighbor, who is awesome, is going to let me put together inside of his garage and keep inside of his garage until Christmas Day.

And so the reason that we did those things is because we like to do stuff this active. We like to do stuff where we're not just sitting in the house all day long and, and, and get out and move around, whether it's using our mind or whether it's using our body. But I would tell everybody this, this listening, and I set it up to say this is that there's, there's two things that you can't delegate. I don't, I don't care. Two things you can't delegate. I don't care. Two things you can't delegate, you can't automate. And the first one is the relationship that you have with your spouse.

I mean, that's the most important thing on the planet is that. You have to walk in every day, kiss your wife or your husband before you kiss your kids. If I could give people one piece of advice, do that. Kiss your wife or husband before you kiss your kids. All right, that's where it all starts. Don't try to make that relationship not as important as something else. And the second one is the relationship with your children.

You can't delegate that. Nobody else can do that job but you. And so if you're planning for next year, and this may come out in 2022, but for 2021, if you're planning for next year, and this may come out in 2022, but for 2021, if you're planning for next year, like no matter what, don't delegate those things. Don't put those things to the side. Make those things a priority. Plan out that time with your family. It's the most important thing that you have.

The girl that I sat next to in college orientation has got incurable bone cancer. It's crazy. incurable bone cancer. It's crazy incurable bone cancer. And so for her, I mean, she spent this time, became a nurse practitioner. And like, at the end of the day, she's a 37 year old that has a terminal disease. And so you just, I think you just have to keep it all in perspective and say, this is fun. This is something that I get to do. But the most important thing is not what you do, but who you raise.

Amen to that, man. Amen to that. A hundred percent. That's a great way to end it, dude. I appreciate you so much. Getting to know you and the conversations that we've haven't shared and never will and shouldn't over the course of the last year plus have been very meaningful to me and it's just such a pleasure to have you on the show bribe i'm so happy for your success and and thank you for for sharing what you have with us and wish you nothing but the best and merry christmas and a happy new year and crush 2022 right same to you my friend thank you 2022, right? Same to you, my friend. Same to you. Yes. possible, it's not. With the one-call-close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start

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