The Ryan Hanley Show - Riding the Wave of Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comJoin Kabir Syed, founder and CEO of Ennabl, for an electrifying exploration of leadership, entrepreneurship, and technological transformation. ✅ Join over 10,000 newsletter subscribers: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ ✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley ✅ Subscribe to the YouTube show: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyConnect with Kabir SyedWebsite: https://www.ennabl.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabirsyed/Peering into the entrepreneurial mind, Kabir shares his infectious enthusiasm for the startup world and entrepreneurship, diving into the resonant highs and educational lows that shape the journey. Our dialogue peels back layers on the team dynamics that drive success, illuminating how embracing diverse inputs at every level can turn the gears of innovation and solidify a company's culture.In an era when artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules, the way we build relationships with customers and team members alike is undergoing a seismic shift. This episode reveals how Enable's customer-centric philosophy is shaping an industry, crafting experiences that transcend the transactional and foster loyalty. We also unpack recruiting strategies that are integral to growing a business that's not only forward-thinking but also deeply human, considering the shifting personal and professional needs of the talent that powers our enterprises.As the waves of AI advancement crest on the horizon, we ponder the future of decision-making and how technology will redefine roles across sectors, especially within insurance. With Kabir's guidance, we confront the challenges and opportunities AI presents, understanding that it's not about technology replacing people but about how those who leverage AI will chart the course for the future. Tune in for an episode that doesn't scratch the surface but dives deep into what it takes to thrive in the transformative landscape of business and technology.

Today, we are joined by Kabir Saeed, the founder and CEO of Enable, for an incredibly deep and dynamic conversation around entrepreneurship and leadership in the age of artificial intelligence. You're going to love this episode. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look make it look make it look easy hey stand up guy boom 10 toes big body pull up in a range rose i could chase the whole game when i say so i put

it's great to have you on the show man thanks for coming on spending some time oh thank you ryan you're legendary and it's a pleasure and privilege to be here i don't know about all that but i do like to be flattered. So thank you. Well, you know, we've gotten to know each other recently a lot better, but I have been following your journey for a while, especially after the exit that you had with Risk Match and selling Avertafor and now coming back again with Enable. And I guess my first question is, having been through the entrepreneurial journey once, why would you do that to yourself again? That's a great question.

And I have to tell you, I never thought. So first of all, it was very exciting to build and you're going to get the answer if there are two types of people right right one is people who like the highs and lows you have to enjoy being with certain kinds of things um i work before i started risk match i used to work at marsh for 16 years. It's a very large company, very corporate, very bureaucratic. And I left to start Risk Match, but I enjoyed so much learning from different kinds of people, different problems, different personalities and styles that you don't get in one company. So I enjoyed that. The second part I enjoyed very heavily was the highs and lows.

There are times and startups are not easy. Most people tend to evangelize, oh, it is hunky-dory, it's a happy place, or it's the other side, it's just a bad place. It's got all of its lows. But I like the ups and downs because it teaches you perspective on what life is, what businesses are, and what people go through. What is important today may not be important tomorrow. So I like the ups and downs because you tend to appreciate both sides of it. I have to agree with you completely. You know, in my own journey, I've realized having – I've just realized I don't fit in well in large bureaucracies. However, I love, love working with teams and different people and perspectives. And even though people are difficult

and can be annoying at the same time, they're also brilliant and amazing and funny and creative. And you know, you get ideas and, and stuff from, um, from people that you would never imagine. I tell this story again, just speaking to, I think this idea of, of working with people. Uh, cause, cause I do, I feel like there's this like solopreneur work on your own movement, which as a side hustle, I think is great. And not that you can't make it your life too. I mean, I, I, I get that, but man, there's just something to working with people. And, and back way long time ago, 15 years ago, plus when I was working with the Murray group, we were doing a rebrand and, uh, and we pulled all our employees. We just asked them like three

or four or five questions. Can't remember what it was, uh, just about, and we were trying to get a feel for brand. Like what do our employees think of the brand? And we were struggling to come up with a tagline tag, you know, whatever. And, and this isn't rocket science, but it just was exactly what it needed to be. Our receptionist who'd only been with us for four months wrote, our brand is family, four words. And it just fit what we were looking for so much. And you wouldn't, I think in large bureaucratic organizations, that person never gets asked their opinions, but in entrepreneurial organizations they do. And that's the brilliance of them. So I get that part. Yeah. And so that was what excited me. So when I exited risk match I said well this is my last company I'm never going

to work again but I found that I was constantly calling up the people I worked with I was constantly calling up my clients and talking about it and I said why would I want to miss that yeah because I'm even though I have no business at this point to be involved with them i'm still talking to them i'm still uh you know whether it's their kids weddings or with their annual retreats so i said i need to go back and enjoy what i do best what i do like and ultimately it's about the people you work with yes you solve problems but that is a side benefit That's not the major thing that I started Enable for, but to be with the people that I enjoy being with. Yeah. And sometimes I learn, sometimes they learn.

So it's a mutual benefit that we were, and most people think, well, InsurTechs can teach us, but they're also learning from you on a daily basis, probably learning more than you are learning from them. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you on that. There's something, there's like that collective struggle. You know, I have people like some, especially some of my earliest employees at Rogue, we still communicate all the time because man, when you're, when you're in that, you know,

the proverbial kind of business foxhole with somebody and like, it's all hands on deck and you're, you're, you're trying to solve, you know, even, even small problems or big problems or, or, you know, who solves them on that given day is different based on who's got 15 minutes and, and all these different things. Um, and, and just the way you communicate in the, and then, you know, as you start to grow and mature, it's very difficult to break those bonds and the loyalty that's developed in those time periods. Because it's like if someone's willing to take a pay cut, risk this thing crashing into a mountain every day. And, you know, for a brighter future, you know, they're going to be there for you when things are going well, too, for the most part. 100%. they're going to be there for you when things are going well too, for the most part. A hundred percent.

And the other part, while they risk a regular job or a safe job and they risk the future, but the most important thing is they still come to do the thing daily with a cheer, with a smile, and do help the clients because they know if I don't do my part, I don't do for the company, then there is no happy future. Yeah. I think, and I'm really interested in your take on this. I honestly think that entrepreneurship, and not necessarily you being the entrepreneur,

being involved in an entrepreneurial organization is actually a far safer bet for the future of your career than be working for a large company. And the reason that I think that is one, especially if you get in at the right time, there's always some form of upside. If you do hit it, right, you might not own 75% of the company, but there's some, there's some, some nut there waiting for you. If you do make good on the things you're trying to do as a team to, I think you learn things in those environments that as you said, and I want to get there, translate to the rest of your life, but, but they make you, uh, I'm really obsessed with, uh, Nicholas Nassim Taleb's book, uh, anti-fragile. And I feel like working inside of entrepreneurial organizations

and embracing them, not the BS kind of stuff you see like on Twitter where people are making it seem not what it is, but like the really just kind of like we talked about, you develop a mindset and a set of skills to survive and to thrive in chaos that the bureaucratic organizations don't have. And you, even if that company doesn't work, you can jump into another one and immediately apply those skills and immediately apply those skills where you spend too much time in a big company. One, they don't care about you are not loyal at all. And we'll fire you in a heartbeat if they

need to make their numbers. I mean, that's, seen that. Those days of being loyal to a big company are gone. They certainly are not loyal to you. And you develop such an arcane set of skills inside of those big organizations that if you do get let go, it is very difficult to apply those in another place. Very true, because you get so specialized in large organizations that your mindset works in one way and then you are not good for dealing with different types of problems, issues with or without a manager. So for example, right, when you started your company and you went through it, you're asking people's opinions

and they're giving you unfettered opinions of what they think. Sometimes it's difficult to take it, but as you go through it, you learn to say, oh, we came out of it better, or we all made a mistake in this. Let's go back and fix it. That mindset is not there in much larger because you can't question your boss or your boss's boss. Yeah. There is this public misperception, in my opinion, of entrepreneurs as being very ego-driven, and I've actually found it to be quite the opposite. When I see leaders of large bureaucratic organizations, I often find they are the most ego-driven. Now, that does not mean that entrepreneurs aren't going to have their own version of own version of swagger. A lot of times, sometimes it's quiet, nerdy swagger.

Sometimes it's boisterous sales and marketing swagger. It doesn't mean they're not going to have that, but when, but I've always found them to not be driven by ego because you are humbled so often, right? Like you bring in this great new hire. I remember,

Oh my gosh. And I'm sure you can relate. I brought in this, this guy who I was just like, man, he just, I needed a sales leader and he was a good guy. Right. And, and, but you know, and I brought him in, I'm like, this, this is the guy, like we needed this guy or we got them. Like, this is going to be great. Right. And I'm selling it to my team. And like, they're kind of like, ah, but they, they like parts of them too. They weren't. So I'm selling it to my team. This is the guy, you know, and I'm pushing, I'm pushing and sure as shit, he gets in for three months and

he's a, you know, he just wasn't a good fit. I don't want to knock him as a person. Cause I think he's a great guy. He just was not the right fit at all. The team is miserable. They were, they're referring to him as he shows who shall not be named. And then I had to eat that. Like one, I had to let him go. And then two, I got to look at my team and go, uh, maybe I shouldn't be involved in the hiring process anymore. Like you have that happen to you as an entrepreneur. You just, you, you can have swag, but you don't have ego.

And it's the exact opposite in some of these big organizations. You're absolutely. And I write about this because there's a difference between ego and confidence. And there's a fine line. I get it. And in ego, you never admit your mistakes. You're going to make mistakes, both sides of it. But as long as you admit and learn from that, that was just confidence, not ego.

And there's a very big difference from my point of view, how you come across. So building off that, going from Risk Match, very are willing to share that you immediately were able to sidestep with Enable because you'd already been through it? Yeah. Let's take three most important from my point of view. One is your team has to be very close-knit in its understanding and pursuance of that mission, whatever that mission is. So that's one part. Second part, from the point of view is, it's okay to fail.

At Risk Match, we never wanted to fail in anything. It's okay to fail. Make the mistake and do it all over again. Just keep doing it. Keep doing it. And thirdly is you're going to have highs and lows. The key is to make sure that people know that there is no superstar. We all work as a team. Not one person is the one that closes it or opens it or works with it. If engineers don't build, salespeople can't sell. If salespeople can't sell, customer service cannot help others succeed in using it. So it's a combination. But what happens over a period of time as organizations grow is, oh, the sale is just because of me, you, Kabir, somebody else. It's not because of one person.

So those three things are very important to reiterate over and over again. It can't be done once only. Dude, I could not agree with those three more. And I'll tell you, number three is exactly the reason the guy that I explained before didn't work. He came in, and while he's a killer, knew what he was talking about. It was the sales team are gods, and all you non-salespeople are the minions supporting us in what we're trying to do. And none of that came through the interview, or at least nothing that I saw, which is why I removed myself from the hiring process from then on.

But I had to look at it. And I said, we don't play that game here. Salespeople are important. What they need, we absolutely want to provide to them. Like we were very pro sales team company for sure. But they're not better than the woman that processes payroll because no one gets frigging paid if she doesn't do her job. So, you know what I mean?

Like this is how it works. And I love that i i love i like three out of all though i completely agree with all three but let's take the example of the three right yeah yeah yeah we decided instead of just saying it change the way you operate you pay people because think about it in in insurance sales people are producers are considered gods because they interface with the customer and sell it and they also paid the most they paid a regular salary and commission and you know other things so our point was well if we say this is all everybody's important every team is important pay them for the success of how they do things, which is salespeople get for closing a deal. But the next year, we take a percentage of all revenue that we have

and give it to engineers and account managers. Why not? Because you're retaining it, right? So pay them for it. Don't just say it's a good thing. Everybody's equal pay them the same way because if they succeed we succeed and everybody else succeeds so pay them so we have made sure that our account managers engineers get paid according to what we do as a

company but they do get paid uh separately as bonuses salary increases, or whatever. And generally, early stage startups do not give bonuses. Right? We have made sure that we want to do that for our people. I think that one of the things I found is the amount of the bonus almost doesn't matter. The fact that you are willing to look at what they do, provide them with a goal, and then when they hit it, almost celebrate paying them that. I've heard leaders of organizations of all different sizes,

this isn't necessarily the one, who will, they'll set the bonus plan up and then the person in whatever position will go out and hit the bonus and then they'll grumble about paying them the bonus and i'm like what are you talking like you one you set the goal and two they did the thing they they killed themselves they hustled they got it and now you're gonna grumble about it like you know i i have a i have a buddy who when he pays a bonus

he'll um do one of those big huge checks and make like this audacious, crazy thing. And it's fun. Even if it's like, even if it's like 250 bucks, he'll like write on the big check and you know, everyone laughs about it. And I'm like, that just, that just shows that you can't like those little touches mean so much to everybody, you know? And that's what I call rituals. You know how people grumble about rituals, whether it's going to church or going to mass or going to a temple, it doesn't matter, or celebrating pouring great rate over the coach. Those are rituals of success and things. Rituals make people feel good about themselves and of the team they're part of. And when I say team is could be work could be religion could be anything else. Yeah, you're part of a team. Ultimately, we are human beings. So we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Do you guys have any rituals that enable? Any that you're willing to share? Well, since we are 100% virtual, we meet once or twice a year for the entire company. Yep. And those days, part one is we don't work those days when we make, because part is just get to know your people, your friend, your colleague. So that's one. Second is every time people, whether they get married or they celebrate something, we all band together to give them something for their life, the journey that they have started, right? And some people, we're not asking for contribution.

We're just asking for get together to apply that. And thirdly, this is the tough one, right? We are pretty vocal about, you know, saying this person helped this happen, or we are lost even when we, to celebrate a loss, to understand why we did most people celebrate only wins we are like we need to understand why we lost and how do we not do this again not put the blame but just to understand could we have done it better the second part is

very tough to do because it impinges on anything that most companies employ so that's the tough part that we are you we've made mistakes before. So we are learning to do that better and better. How do you create that space in your business where people can have those conversations and not feel like, you know, not feel like what they say is going to come back to them either because they said it

or in ways of, you know, maybe calling someone else out if you're discussing the way a problem works. Yeah. So I don't have a successful model. So let me just start with that. Yeah. It's not like and we keep improving what we have. So I don't think I have a model that I can say, oh, this works very well to say sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But for example, right, we we have done for the last three years i think 360 reviews they can tell me anything and only the hr person knows i don't know it but we are okay kabir can be

demanding kabir can sometimes be pushing too fast or he's not patient and these are things because i'm a human being right i've grown up with things and I have gold and I have just like anybody else. So I just have to be patient. It could be the other way around, right? He promises too much and we don't have time to do it. So things like that will happen. And I'm like, yes, that is true. But that's the whole point of being in an unfettered company,

which is a startup. If you have plans that never change, then we are not supposed to be in a business of growing and changing things accordingly. Yeah. So sometimes a little structure is good, but don't go towards creating the process and structure so rigid that you cannot change. I remember when I, you know, when we were first purchased, when Rogros was first purchased, about six months in, I get a phone call and I had to have a conversation with our parent company's leadership because they felt I shot from the hip too often. And so they bring me in and they start asking me about a bunch of decisions that I was making. And I'm giving them 5, 7, 15 bullet points on each one as to why I made that decision. And I can tell that they're frustrated, not that they wanted to find something wrong, but I think they just all showed up operating under the assumption that I was some Yahoo who just like, and I was like, no, I was like, we're an entrepreneurial organization.

Like I just don't deliberate things. Right. Like I hit, you know, if, if it's yes, yes, yes. Yeah. You know, at some point in me feeling like this is the right decision, I hit some threshold where it's like, okay, we've, I've asked enough people. We feel strongly enough about there's literally no reason to keep talking about it. Engage.

And, and I said to them, I go, guys, like, how do we know what the right answer is? Unless we test it. I was like, you know, I, I don't know. Like you're, you're, you're, you want me to know that something's going to be successful before I put it in place. Like that's impossible. Like, I don't believe that that's, that's not how anyone who's innovating does business. Well, no matter what you're innovating on, like you, you, you, you watch what results you find tweaks,

pivots, iterations, process improvements, whatever. And then you take your best guess and you put it into market. And if it works, you keep doing it. If it doesn't, you try something else. And it was just like, it was such a foreign concept. And again, I'm not knocking them. It just, you know, I think culturally, and I see this even with some people who are trying to be entrepreneurs or try, you know, or, or are starting side hustles. They're like, well, what if my LinkedIn profile isn't right? And it's like, who cares? My LinkedIn profile title is probably changed 400 times. I don't know. You know what I mean?

Like I keep testing and testing until something works. And then when it works, I stop thinking about that and I move on to the next thing. I think in order to be able to pull two companies off the way that you have, because obviously Risk Manager, like we said, was a big success and Enable is going great. And I've been felt blessed and very honored to just getting to know you guys better and working with you. And I think what you're doing is wonderful. And having a chance to talk to some of your clients has been incredible because literally the first couple of times I talked to one of your clients, um, she's literally going, I, all I want to say is great things about them, but I don't know what to say. So just tell me what to say. And I'm like, well, we want it to be natural or whatever. And she's like, no, no,

it's not that I don't want to descript. I, she was like, I just, I want to make sure I say all the right things because I'm so happy with them. And I'm like, that is like, even if you're, even if you are cherry picking your best clients, there's something special about that. So I guess, how do you cultivate that in your clients? How do you make sure that what you're putting in front of your clients is innovating to their needs without disrupting your product flow? Because I think that's a big part of this. That's a great question. And what we have done is,

it's just one of the practices that we have and we have started on down this path. We do make a lot of mistakes. It's not like we don't have clients who complain, but we fix it so fast that no other company can fix it that quickly because we are like, it's a commitment we made to help you. So remember, the name of the company is

not we are a data provider, we are this, the name of the company is Enable. What can I do to help you do better, faster, cheaper? That's the first one. So that philosophy cannot go away. So we have put four people behind that to say, teach people how to make money. Take their four, what's your QBR to achieve, and then focus everything on it. Take their four, what's your QBR to achieve, and then focus everything on it. If there's a problem, fix it. So that's one. And we have Ryan who leads that customer success. So you see the mindset of Ryan is, I need to help you do better. Everything goes from there. So that's the first part. And as we decide our roadmap, we actually move things around to say, if we made a commitment or if we made a mistake, correct that. That goes number one priority.

Not AI, not anything else that is a big tool that we want to release. Push it off until you fix the commitment. So that's one. So part one was the people. Part two was the culture that we want to do and the focus that we have. And part three is put people behind teams, teams behind a person who wants to achieve that. Because if Microsoft and Google and Amazon make mistakes, we are going to make mistakes. And it's okay as long as you fix it fast and show the client that here's what we do. And it's not easy, right?

It costs you time and money and it's not easy. It's like, it's not just a philosophy. We're living it. Yeah. I think I find it interesting. And I think this is a common mistake made. And this goes across the board. This goes for everything from independent insurance agencies to standard Main Street small businesses through entrepreneurial organizations all the way up to big companies.

They get so focused on product that they forget about how their customers are experiencing the product on the backend. And one of the things in, in for full transparency to everyone I'm helping enable with some client interviews. And that's why I know so much about the company. And it's been, and then getting to know so much about the company. I was like, Kabir, you have to come on. I want you to tell your story. I love it and everything. So that's, that's how we got to where we are. Not that I wouldn't want to talk to you normally, but that's where the impetus of this was and why I know so much about the

company. It's been pretty amazing. And one of the things that kept coming back was onboarding, onboarding, onboarding. Everyone loves, they feel like, unlike so many other tools in our lives, not just the insurance industry, that the company works so hard to sell them, sell them. And then the onboarding is like, you get like the C players who don't give a crap, who like got kicked off the sales team. Now they're onboarding people, right? And they're miserable and they don't know what, and that was the exact opposite of the feedback I was getting.

So what do you, was this a lesson learned? Is it just a cultural belief of yours, et cetera, that you have worked so hard to over index on onboarding to make sure your customers feel heard even after they hit the purchase button. So it was part of the lessons learned. And second is the size of clients and types of clients. So remember, what we are trying to do is here's what works with a carrier. Here's what works in the market. And if you buy something, then I have to help you

use that otherwise you're going to say this is like buying a sales force license or an extra AMS license and not being able to use it because you know you can't get out of the contract. We are like no, we always say to clients if you can use it yes, here are the four ways. So we build it like you know you build a Mercedes, it can be used for 80 different things, but we have to build it for that. Just tell the four things you want. The second part of it is we are everybody. So if you see most people, $3 million to $10 million has a different experience. $10 million to $50 million has different experiences yeah so you're saying can we take the three million to the 20 million dollar experience of a size of a company and they may not have the had the chance so we are like we are utilizing the community of what people have done to teach them faster so your growth is faster to the next stage whatever that next stage is there's three to four three to seven three to whatever the next stage so we're trying to do that. And for that, it takes time, patience, and people. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I know early on, even at Rogue, I was so you're so focused on paying the bills, right? That, that, and we would have this and we

made this mistake. And again, I will never make this mistake again. But even early on at Rogue, it was sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And I think we had a very good and really had revolutionized the sales process that made people very happy after they purchased. But then from purchase on, it just wasn't as good because I didn't staff up that side of the house enough. And I didn't work on – all my focus was on sales. And I look back on it and I'm like, I could have downshifted one gear in sales and taken that little extra brainpower and put it into the onboarding process and some of the post sales stuff. I mean, the people that I had there were good.

There just weren't enough of them and they didn't have enough tools to help them do their job. And how much faster could we have grown? Right? Like in my head, it's new, new, new, new, but we were also losing too much out the back end because we hadn't focused on that side. And, and slowing down to do that, I think is like, it's almost like your second business. Like that's like, like, it's almost like every day, your second business is when you, you fix that mistake. It's true. And, and you'll appreciate this, right? What we learned is, I can say anything I want, but it's me saying, or my producer saying, I would love to hear, if you're buying something, when you hear from somebody else who has used this, this is how I use it. This is how well it is. So this is the return. That has a different weight than me saying I'm the best in the world. We don't want to say we are the best in the world. We want our clients to say this is awesome for these eight reasons and that's why we want to create raving fans because they love what they do and we are highlighting what they do and that's why we said Ryan do. And that's why we said, Ryan, can you help us know? What do they not like? What do they like? And what can we do better? Just

three very simple things. Yeah, it's been it's been really incredibly fun talking to your clients and learning and, and getting their feedback on and just even, you know, very selfishly for my own edification, just understanding how people think about products, right? Like how they wrap their head around it is is is really incredible it is very difficult it is very very difficult as a founder or even an early any an early team member of a company you get so the

product you be it becomes such part of who you are that it's very difficult to step outside that and take a picture. And if you don't ask your customers, if you don't let them give you feedback and then accept it sincerely, then you will get lost in it. And you'll be developing something that isn't exactly online with what your customers want. And that ability to move with them feels like the secret to me. But again, also feels like the second time you build a company is when you learn how to do this. Because the first time I was so locked into the product,

you just keep improving it and improving. We are like, well, it's not working. Just step back and serve what they want. Yeah. So you've talked a lot about your team, hiring, recruiting. There was a period of time in 2023 where the most asked question of me

on any of my social platforms was around recruiting. Obviously, you have a great team. Chris is wonderful. Deeds is out of this world in terms of his empathy for humans and the position he. Chris is wonderful. Deeds is out of this world in terms of his empathy for humans and the position he's in is incredible. How do you go about finding the people that are going to believe in your mission, your culture, are going to buy in, work well as a team member, play their role, et cetera? What's your strategy around recruiting?

So for us, by the way, it's not easy and we have made egregious mistakes so let me start with that caveat because not everything comes through interviews uh and we put people through not one two but seven different interviews oh wow so that's the first part if you're going to work with somebody you're going to work with somebody in that colleague department in that department somebody senior, somebody adjacent. So we want to get different views of this person. So that's the first part. Second is, yeah, the minimum is technical skills. But the most important we look for is, do you have the empathy to work for the client, not for the company?

Very different rule. You don't work for us. You work for the clients, not for the company. Very different rule. You don't work for us. You work for the clients you serve. So that's the first part. Second part, are you a person who wants to be a superstar? Or are you a person who wants to be, hey, if we all win together, if I win, my team wins, or we all win together.

And we ask very simple questions to say, do you like to win or do you not like to lose? The answer is the same at the end, but it gives you how they're thinking, right? Yeah. If you just want to win, then you are the person who are the superstar. If you not want to lose, then you're saying, I want to do better for the whole thing. So it's like like do you take care of your family or you take care of yourself yeah slightly different at different stages in life when you're single you're just about yourself when you have a family you're about that family so

they come first so those are the two most important parts and do we still make mistakes yes absolutely but we have to improve right that's absolutely. But we have to improve, right? That's our way, because we have said, talent is everywhere. You have to give them a vision and a place to grow. And we have hired people, like think of Ryan, right? Ryan is a very non-traditional head of customer success. And so are other people. Chris is a very non-traditional head of sales. And it's okay because we are saying people grow and they shine in those roles. There's not a single person who can say today that, hey, I spoke to Ryan or Chris or somebody else in their role and you got the wrong guy in the job.

Not a single person. I mean, you've seen the impact that makes a client. So there's good and bad. And when we make mistakes, we'll say, let's try a different role. Not that we don't need you for this role. We tried, like Ryan has moved three times in the same company because we like the way he thinks. We like his focus.

It's just that which is the right role for you yeah and and i think you used i think you used the word term seasons and this is a concept that i have really started to wrap my head around i'd say uh since i exited rogue risk, what your priorities are, what you want to focus on, how much time you want to give things, your general attitude, energy, et cetera, goes through all these different seasons. And it's, you know, I was talking to someone the other day who shared some advice for me from a thought leader online who I think is brilliant. The person who shared this is not – I don't think they're – I think they were sharing it with good intentions. But the advice was very much I'm a successful adult with no kids kind of advice, right? It was like work till your fingers bleed or whatever, you know, and all this stuff. And, and in a person was asking me my thoughts and I was a younger, this was a younger person. And I just said, I think that when you're your age and don't have

kids, you should be working until you pass out all day, every day. You should not have hobbies. If you want to be successful in business, that's what you should do. There's being a well-rounded 24 year old is a joke. Like one, your brain's still not formed. And two, all you need to do is work right now. If that's what's important to you, if you want to be a professional golfer, then do that. But if you're, you know, taking time out of a middle of a Friday at 24 to go golfing, because you need a break, there's something wrong. Like you're not going to make it. So I think that's really good advice. I said, but when you're my age, you're 43, you have two kids,

you own a house, you're divorced. You have bills and obligations and things to take care of. You got to be a little, a little smarter about how you manage your time. And it doesn't mean right or wrong. It just means different. And this idea of seasons is something that I don't think we think enough about. And I think you can compress it down into even your story around deeds, where it's like there have probably been seasons in the company's even young life cycle where we needed you in this position right now. This is where we need you. But six months from now,

we may actually need you over here. And it doesn't mean that you weren't a good fit for this. It just means that this isn't, we're out of the season in which this is the best place for you. And I think it's hard for leaders to do that. I think it's incredibly hard for team members to wrap their

head around the fact that their role, they can be just as valuable in a different role. They feel like they've done something wrong. And that is a really hard message to get across. Yes. But guess where it starts from? It starts from if you hire a person whose goal is to help the team, you see, that's where it starts from. So why do these people move around? It's not like they didn't like their job, but they're like, I'm willing to do whatever it is where I can help a client and I can help my team and my company. Very simple rule.

How do you scale that, though? I guess at what point do you turn into the bureaucratic machine where everyone's just protecting their territory? Someone the other day shared a quote with me that executives in large companies are mediocre overachievers or something like that. And I was like, I don't know that I agree with that because I actually don't even know if they're overachievers. Like when I look at the cross cut of most of the people, I can say everybody, but most of the people who operate in mid to mid upper management and most large companies, it's often just who was able to just stick around the longest. Like it's, it's like all the really innovative,

hard charging people get the crap beat out of them in that scenario. And they jump and they go to fun entrepreneurial things. And what you're left with are the people who are just willing to punch the clock every day. It doesn't mean they're not smart. It doesn't mean they can't do good things. But then we try to ask questions of, and I'm leading this into an entrepreneurial ecosystem question, is like, then we wonder why the large companies in every industry, not just

ours, aren't innovative. And it's like, because that's not who's there, right? Their culture, the humans, the little humans in the building are there because that's not the way their brain thinks. Not right or wrong, just different. So how does, you know, we in the insurance industry specifically, we've had a couple of different waves of entrepreneurial come through, you know, we had that like 2015 to 2017. Um, I call it the MIT Dick stage where everyone had done some regression analysis and figured out that insurance agents were terrible at their job and they're

going to replace them. We wrote that one out, kind of got through, um, the like D to C wave that came after that. And now we're in this, uh, uh,

and maybe this is a good plan. We're to this enablement stage, right? Where really it feels like the innovators are finding ways to take independent agents and agents in general, the humans, and really amplify their work into the industry. You guys are obviously part of that and your tool is a big piece of that. Is that something you see continuing to sustain? Do you see this as just another season in a life cycle of entrepreneurial endeavors? Or does this one have staying power, do you think?

So two parts. The first part of your question, right? People always, when you put them in teams, will try to create those clicks of who is better or who is more senior and things because we as human beings, our entire education system has been geared from the time you're a kid to judge and say, do I do better? And if I do better, I'm the person they need to follow. So that's, that's a fault of our,

the way we are educating everyone that includes me. So that's the first part part and it starts with even small companies like us we have we saw that 15 people we see that 40 people and we are at 45 so that is never going to change you just have to fight that battle it's like a marriage or being a father you fight it every day you fight it every day there's nothing you can get out of on the other side of it right uh the second question was from your point of view, where you're like, people are left out and the real ones move on and move on and do things. That's where you were going to say. what season do you think this season of tech enablement innovation particularly in the insurance industry but really we're seeing this in other industries as well do you think this is this is going to be a longer season a pattern hold for a while or do you see this just as another

another trough or uh what's up uh not at the dip troughs or the dip what's the up one i always forget so but uh god yes i would say this is another season this season is going to be shorter okay i know the other seasons have been longer this season is going to be shorter depending on our response as an industry to what is coming so and what i mean by that is the first two seasons were just a normal application of something that was there elsewhere. The season that is coming is going to dramatically change our roles that we play in distribution. So let's say agents and brokers and the way we underwrite and the way we reach a customer and the way we address advice. You are not going to be able to keep up with all four of those. Pick one and stick with it.

We are not there yet. Do I want to be an awesome advisor to my clients? Do I want to be an awesome distributor? Do I want to be an awesome placement type of an organization? What do we want? This has happened in lots of other industries over 30 years. You're an investment bank. You have a great advisory business. You are just a Schwab kind of thing. I just want to place and keep asset management.

This has happened in a lot of industries just over a longer period of time. That hasn't even started in our industry where the stuff that is coming out is faster than we can handle. We have not even adopted the base level of technology. You see where I'm going, right? I'm like, and that scares the hell out of

me. Because if you tell me, hey, what should my kids do? You know, when we were growing up, hey, you either be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, learn coding. Now it's like, I don't think it's going to be worthwhile to do any of that. So I don't know what it's going to be in the next 20 years. Yeah. All right.

And that is scary. I love that answer because one, it's, I didn't expect you to say that, but I completely agree. And I love that. That's awesome. So I did. I recently did a keynote two weeks ago, last week. I can't remember. It was in Winnipeg to the Insurance Brokers Association of Manitoba.

Wonderful group. 300 people. Standing room only. It was so much fun. Great group of people. And I have a keynote that I'm doing now called Growth Margin and World Domination. And it's all about basically this human optimized model, which I pioneered with Rogue Risk, but adding in AI. So I have a company that I'm an advisor for, and they're doing some stuff in artificial intelligence. You got to share those companies. I would love to work with them. I would love to.

Oh, trust me, when this is over, the next thing I have is a pitch for you when we're done with this. So no, I want to make an introduction for sure. So the point is I'm working with one of the founders who is longtime artificial intelligence guy. I actually just spent a whole day with him yesterday because I want to know the guts, right? I can't be the best. In order to talk with authority, I need to know how these things work. I don't need the ones and zeros, but I was a math major, so I understand the sign functions. I understand what's going on here, at least at a high level from the calculus perspective, that all being said, when I see what's coming, like, so, so I lied to the group last week.

So if you guys are listening, I love you, but I lied to you. Um, I, I can't in good conscious because I know that a group of agents and brokers in the insurance industry who hears me tell them the truth will tune me out. So I lied to them. I lied to them with the amount of time they have. And this is the anecdote I want to give you. And then I want you to respond with however you want. I'm talking to a very good friend of mine. He's in the industry, makes a lot of investments, super smart guy, super smart, probably one of my closest friends. We talk almost every day. And he calls me the other day and I could just tell someone was off. I go, what's up, bud? And he's like, I have been watching, reading, digesting every

piece of content I possibly can on AI because I want to get a handle on this. And I said, okay, what's up? He tells me I was bothering him. I'm like, what's up? He goes, this is what he said. Verbatim. I thought I had more runway. That's what he said. And I said, well, you know, so I took that in for a second. I go, what exactly do you mean? And he said, there are at least two companies that I've invested in, in the last 12 months that if I knew what I knew today, I would not have invested in. Not that they're not good companies, not that they don't have a shot, but he's like, this is coming so fast, has so much application to what we do. He's like, there are going to be clear winners and losers. And unlike we've ever seen before.

And when he finished that like that, and this is where I want to get your take. Like what I'm trying to convince people when I'm on the road, when I'm doing the podcast, when I'm at my keynotes, whether it's in the insurance industry or not, because I've started doing keynotes outside the insurance industry as well, is like this is, but I think this is particularly poignant for our space. This is coming so fast. And the delineation between winners and losers is so clear. I don't think people are mentally prepared for it. Does that seem, is that your experience? Is that your thought? And where would you go wherever you want off of that? Because I'm really interested in your take. So 100% agree, it's going to come, it's coming faster than we can absorb. We are not even prepared for it. Forget, say, I'll change and jump into it, because our ships are too set in our journey. And our experience has been, well, it'll change, it's not changed so far,

it'll take time. And that time has collapsed. So that's one part. The second thing is, it's going to come so fast that it's going to take out not the larger ones first and that's what i fear yeah it's going to take out the smaller ones first and those are the ones that are actually very important for the whole distribution of insurance in the us i agree i, and that's, so whether it's an agent, whether it's the coverage, whether it's a distribution, whether it's advice, it is coming too fast. Here's what I believe the flip side is. And tell me here's the, I'm going to steal man, the other side of the argument with one caveat. And you tell me if you believe it. I actually think though, the small guy, if they put their mind to this stuff today, if they put the work in adopt and I don't want to say pivot, but transition their business into an AI enabled or what I call human optimized agency.

I believe they can compete at a level with the big guys. They've never been able to and actually become a real nuisance to the big guys where today they're they're gnats the the big agencies don't care they just give lip service to the little guys but they can give two craps i actually believe the smaller agencies one can pivot into this technology faster and two if used properly and used with intent can compete and become real competitors at scale i mean mean, I look at road, we were a national agency with, you know,

I think, uh, at, we had 23 at one point, but we really settled in like the 16 to 17 person range. And we were growing at a clip. The industry has never seen before. And we didn't even really have AI.

We were just using automations. So it's like, you think about what's coming. I do think they can play, but I agree with you. If they, if you keep your head in the the sand too long or you try to play the laggard game with this technology, the space between the winners and losers is going to say, why? Is it because you're talking to independent agents? I'm like, no, I'll tell you why. Because you're smaller and more adept at actually listening to clients than bigger companies have. That's one. Second part is you have a shorter runway in terms of spending to adapt new things. Then compared to you bought a hundred companies, you are at a billion dollars and you have all of these, whether it's systems, people's processes, it's easier to change at a 10, 50 person shop than a 1000, 15,000 person shop.

And that's why it's going to be easier. But there's so much noise, right? They don't know which one they know they have to work at it. There's so much noise to say, hey, just what should we be using? What should we be doing? So there are stages for that. And whether it's data, application, and then finally putting it out, you need to work on this very soon. Whether we like this and don't have to buy enable, don't have to do anything, fix your stuff, because this is going to impact, I always say in their words, whether you buy a yacht, a boat, or your seven series, that's not going to last for too long if you don't change yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I had this quote from a white paper that IBM did. AI will not replace people. People who embrace AI will replace people. And I'm I'm seeing it every day. Like it's crazy. And I'm so like, if I'm not doing,

you know, working with my, one of my clients or, or, or keynoting, I am researching AI like that. This is, I can't like, I thought I'd never use my math education. And all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, 30 years later, all I'm getting back my math education. And all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, 30 years later, all I'm getting back all that money I put into getting a math degree from the university of Rochester. It all makes sense. You know, I can understand again, I'll never understand the ones and zeros and I'm not a coder. So, and nor do I want to be, but I do love the, the algorithm, the, the, the mathematical equations. And when you start to understand, again, I don't need to go to ground

level on this stuff, but I do want to understand as close as I can get, because when you start to see how it really works, all of a sudden, like the problems it's capable of solving, the efficiencies it's able to create, the effectiveness in your jobs and decision-making. Like I've been doing this whole vein. So, so every Monday, an interview like this comes out with someone who, you know, I want to talk to. And, and, and then on Thursdays I'm doing, I do solo episodes, usually a little shorter, one idea. And I've been doing this, the series recently, the last few episodes has, and will be for

the foreseeable future is on i'm making better decisions uh particularly as leaders of organizations and um and i had someone say like what's with the decisions thing and i was like because everything i'm learning because there's a real reason it's not just like a vein of content i feel like going down like you know the job our job is not going to be all 90% of the bullshit we're doing today in whatever job we're doing. It's going to be taking this, the analytics, the actionable items, the insights, the semantic relational value between things. It's going to become our job. The value of us as leaders is the singular act of making decisions on the

insights and action items we get from AI. That's going to be the job. It's yes, you'll have to work with people, but like at the end of the day, we have to, we're as leaders are going to have to become so good at making decisions because that's going to be to become so good at making decisions

because that's going to be the whole job and the decisions are going to have to happen like this because that's how fast our business is going to be moving so i i just i don't know how you can be a laggard today i just i do think this is different it's not even going to be the internet it's it's this is going to, this is tighter than the internet. And I do want to ask you something. So I said all that you can respond to in a second, but this is why I'm a terrible interviewer. So I have this theory and I'm interested in your, in your take. I have this theory that AI destroys APIs. Now I know APIs will still exist, but we for so long have been like, well, if only this piece of technology API into this piece of technology. And now that I understand, I see companies like Gaia who are doing super copy, super paste.

I see, you know, there's all these different tools coming out. And I'm like, wait a minute. We're not going to need APIs anymore because AI will be able to say, okay, in your agency management system, this is the way the data looks. Here's the fields. There's no commas in the data here, blah, blah, blah, blah. We call this field, this field. And then in this tool over here, we do use commas and we do use a dollar sign and it's called this and it's this many characters. And it will just be able to relate those two things together without ever having to actually pass the data through pipes, you know, our digital pipes behind the scenes. Does that feel real to you?

Does that seem like a real future? I just, we've been worried about download for so long. I'm like, we're going to bypass download and API and go all the way and not need either one of them. So 100% agree with you. So it's like, you know, in the US, you used to have landlines. Every house had one. And there was those little phones on the wall

you have to take and walk around. And then we moved to cell phones. I don't even have a house phone. I just use two cell phones for it, right? Some people don't have to go through that. And that's exactly what is happening. So the first stage, it's not going to be right. But's going to be so fast and uh cheaper than what we do today and the number of people involved which is tell your differences and say would you like me to correct it and you're

like you don't have to correct it because i don't care now what the state it is in i care how i get it right that's the ultimate part of it, right? So once I get it in this and consume it in this way, which it can do, it can go back and say, I'm going to keep it the way I want. I don't need it to be in a certain cube in a certain way in a certain table. So that's one. The second part of it is, is going to say, it's learning, right? And the part that most people, anybody, I'm nobody in AI, so most people don't understand is like, we can't explain how it does it fast.

We can explain what we tell it and it's learned over a period of time. It's now going to start suggesting, depending on how you do things, it's going to start suggesting and it's going to be better than us. Yeah. That will come in the second or third stage,

but as it sees us interacting, so part of the thing what we do today, so the reason I'm saying it's in stages is, first stage is it's going to give you prompts on where it is wrong, where we are wrong on data and things like that and processes. It can do it faster. Once it has access to why we placed it in here, so it's access to why we have done this, and part of the access is in your phone log, your CRM, your AMS, and your email. Now, all of this is separate.

We don't have to put it together. We just have to give it access. So it's going to absorb that and say, Ryan placed it with travelers because of this reason. Or Ryan placed it with travelers because his friend took him for a golf game. Maybe that's fine. But AI doesn't go to a golf game. But does Ryan want to go to a golf game? Yes, I'll throw a bone here or there, but I'm not going to take that. So that's the intent, and it's going to learn and give you very unbiased.

Now, there's good and bad to unbiased advice, and that is going to be very tricky, which means your commissions is not based on things and stuff like that right so it is going to impact relationship metrics and people yeah this my my pitch to the group in manitoba and and all the future keynotes i'll be giving on this topic um are is basically we can't hide behind transactional activity as value creation anymore. We are going back to what initially made humans so powerful in this transaction, which is build relationships, solve problems, bind business.

That's it. And the actual transactional part of the binding isn't there. It's just the, hey, I'm here for you kind of buying part, right? So that's going to be all the humans are, which is incredibly important and where they should be spending their time. I don't mean that to be trite. I mean, like that's where we should be spending our time and where we say we're spending our time, except we're not.

And the part that people don't get, and if they missed it when you said it, I want to reiterate it because you said it perfectly. We no longer have to connect all the systems. AI just has to be able to consume the system. And what that means is, guys, is where in an API, if I'm APIing from my system into enable, I have to get all the data structure, know how everything works. And then I got to do all this mapping and it's got to go through this series of digital pipes. And then I have to de-map it to mine and make sure the structure is the same and add a comma if they don't use a comma. And then they tweak one thing and then it breaks the whole thing.

And that is all toast because once AI understands how you use the data inside a tool like Enable and then inside this XYZ tool over here, it knows when you put something in over here, you want that over here and it can just do it. It can just map it for you. Now, it has to learn it, right? And there's work there. It's not like this just happens in a finger snap, but once it learns it, and once you can validate the, the, the success rate of that, of what it's learned, then it's happening at pace and in real time and changes don't impact it because it understands how those changes relate to each other. And that is just something we have not seen. And as I said, uh, if you have that capacity, you will pull away from your competitors so fast,

they will not be able to catch up. A hundred percent. So I want to put a caveat onto that. I want our people to understand the way this is going to happen is to teach it to solve our problems, which is, I have this problem and this problem. You can sequence it, but go on this journey today. Second is, as an industry, our data is bifurcated, even within a company, across systems and across multiple companies. So that's the second problem we are going to face. So be very careful who you're training and for whose benefit. There are two parts to this question, right? Are you the first person getting in and training for the result for the 10th person?

Or are you the 10th person benefiting from the result? Because the pricing model is not SaaS there. I agree. That's a great point. Kabir, I want to be respectful of your time and of the audiences. And I also, we could go on for hours on this, but this has been incredibly valuable. I got a page full of notes. This has been wonderful. I appreciate the hell out of you. I think what you're doing at Enable is tremendous. Let people know where the best place is to learn more about Enable, reach out to you or whoever on your team you think would be the best person for them to reach out to

if they want to learn more about what you guys have going on. No, thank you, Ryan. This has been a pleasure. I love discussions like this because it opens up my mind and helps me talk other than just running a company. Yeah. Look, we are a small piece of this whole, it takes a whole village to run insurance. So my point is whether you pick us, you pick somebody else, work together and try to be mutually benefit. We are doing it for only for brokers today. And our focus is purely brokers.

And anyone on my team is going to be helpful. You can either send us an email at sales at enable or just reach out to any one of us. We are absolutely available. We are not trying to push you to buy a product. We're going to try to help you to say, here are the stages you need to think about. And I'll have links and stuff and everything in the show notes, guys, whether you're listening to the audio or watching on YouTube and, uh, uh, Kabir, appreciate you, man. Let's do it again soon. Thank you. It's been my pleasure. running this game and it came for me i never switched to no changing me the only thing changing

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