Brandon's Story: From the Minor Leagues to a Million-Dollar Book

You keep going back to your old self. You win an account, then drift right back to transactional, price-only selling... and you feel the time, energy, and margin bleeding out of every deal. Brandon Spivey lived it. He came out of State Farm personal lines, got rolled on a deal at a Braves game, and decided he was done playing in the minor leagues. Five years later he's sitting on a $1.35 million book using the Wedge, a locked-in ideal client profile, and a set of named proactive services he can actually monetize. The number that should stop you: when Brandon quantified those services across his top 10 accounts, they averaged $85,000 of hard, tangible value per client in year one. That is where boldness comes from. Not wanting to win, but knowing they need you. He also reveals the drift that he says cost him a $2 million book, and why he fired his biggest client to protect it. If you're tired of burning your marketing team, your underwriters, and your weekends on deals that don't pay, listen before you build your next proposal. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Here you are five years in, $1.35 million book of business. What do you see your future looking like? Where's the cap? There's no cap. My goal is to hit 2 million in our book before the [00:00:10] end of 2027. Can we find, hire, and develop producers to become million-dollar producers in five years or less? I'm tired of playing in the minor leagues.

I want to go play big ball. I want to play in the majors. When you think [00:00:20] about selling and being a commercial producer, what was your biggest frustration? It's just frustrating how much time and energy that you put on a deal by going back to your old self, being transactional. [00:00:30] You're just doing everything that the traditional insurance agent has done for the past 25 years.

Talk about your prequalification process a little bit. Like, when you do that [00:00:40] right, what does that look like for you? Saves so much time, and what I mean by that is just, like, I've done it. I did it last year. I just fired my biggest client that just hired me last year. What I got out of what you said is that [00:00:50] boldness comes from knowing that they need you rather than I want to win it.

If you're not making enough on that deal for it to make sense, you're going backwards, and you're stealing from your [00:01:00] family.

Welcome to the Agency Growth Machine Podcast, where it's all about transforming potential into profit. And now your [00:01:10] host, Randy Schwantz.

We're, we're gonna start with the present. You've been, you've been producing as commercial insurance now for Oakbridge for about how long? About five years, [00:01:20] roughly. About five years. And your book has grown to about what size? About 1.35 as of today. 1.35 million. So for all of you out there that are [00:01:30] agency owners and producers that are thinking, "Can we find, hire, and develop producers to become million-dollar producers in five years or less?"

Well, at least we got a sample of one, and this is a [00:01:40] great sample of it. So that's what we wanna talk about today and kinda how that came about. Let me ask you this, uh, Brandon. F- first of all, where do you live? I live in Macon, Georgia. Macon, Georgia. [00:01:50] Now, that's about, what, 90 minutes outside, 75 minutes outside Atlanta, something like that?

Yeah, south. Yep. Yeah. There you go. And then you, you, you have a wife and a, a little one. Isn't that right? I have a [00:02:00] wife and two kids. Um, so I have a, a three-year-old, which, um, well, that's a story for a different day. Um, I don't know. He hit three years old last week, and something changed, [00:02:10] so we're working on that.

Uh, but as far as ... And we have a three-month-old, so three-year-old and a three-month-old. Yeah. So that creates a little extra boost in the booty to, to get you motivated, doesn't it? I would say so. [00:02:20] So here's something I'm curious about. Before you started doing commercial insurance, what were you doing beforehand?

Yes, I was in the personalized business. I came from a State Farm background, left State Farm in [00:02:30] 2020, joined, uh, Waits and Foshee, which was one of the founding partners of Oak Ridge Insurance, in April of 2020, and, uh, worked on [00:02:40] personal lines. Kind of a lot of clients followed me over from State Farm to Waits and Foshee, and I just about, I guess, 18, mm, [00:02:50] 14 months in, I was like, "Man, this is, uh, this ain't for me anymore.

I mean, it's just redundant." I, I've been in the insurance business since 2013, so 2013 to 2020 is seven years of just [00:03:00] personalized. And then I saw some of the other, uh, legends in our, um, agency and the amount of money that they were making and the size accounts that they had, and I was like, "Man, I'm tired of [00:03:10] playing in the minor leagues.

I wanna go play big ball. Gonna play in the majors." So here we are. So here we are. So then there's another point, a case study at least one, and there's more Can you come [00:03:20] from Personal Lines? Can you come from State Farm? Is that a place to go recruit? Does that ... The, the things like State Farm, Farms, you know, Farmers, Allstate, all those guys, a lot of them have a ceiling, [00:03:30] and they've got a lot of bureaucracy.

And not all of them, but there are guys like Brandon who become great commercial producers. So we're gonna hear more about that story today. So wh- when you think about [00:03:40] selling and being a commercial producer, what was your biggest frustration with how you're going about selling? You know, were you winning or losing, kind of before you got involved in Bignition and learned how to [00:03:50] use the Wedge?

Yeah. I would say I kinda came in right ... Before, I, I was kinda dabbling, you know, in Personal Lines, kinda doing some small business [00:04:00] stuff like that. But, um, and I got rolled on an account, um, so I was competing with the incumbent, come in with my best number, you know, really just price [00:04:10] only, very transactional, 'cause that's

W- when you're coming from the Personal Lines, it's very transactional. Uh, you could still do some value, value there, but, um, really it's, I [00:04:20] found it's more transactional. So anyways, I got rolled on that account, and it was, like, really frustrating. I mean, I was so mad. I'll never forget. I got the call while I was at a Braves game.

Well, how about that? That's not Alabama [00:04:30] guys. That's the Braves. Um, so, um, go Dogs. Um, anyway, so I told myself, I was like, "I'm not gonna let this happen again." So I, I reached out to Cynthia and, uh, got involved with her, [00:04:40] and really just took off from there. So I really ... I didn't, I didn't use any other process at all, didn't have big

Well, I think we had access to Bignition, but I didn't really use it because I was more [00:04:50] personalized, dabbling in commercial. Once I told Cynthia I was ready to go full-fledged commercial, she said, "All right. Well, I'm gonna take you up under my wing and, and y- and, and we're gonna do it this way." [00:05:00] So, um, yeah.

So let's tell everybody who Cynthia is Cynthia Mitch is a, is a, is a mentor of mine. She's ... Cynthia Mitch was, worked for you for what, 20 s- [00:05:10] 15 years. Yep. 15 years. Yep. Okay. I'm a little off, but, uh, she joined us back in '21 at the formation of Oak Bridge. So, um, [00:05:20] January '21 she joined, and then I started working with her in December of '21, and she helps all our producers go through the, the GPI score, go through that test, make sure they're good, [00:05:30] qualified to be a middle market commercial producer, and puts them through that process with Randy and his team, make sure we do the, the Money Mastermind and, and do the Wedge pla- [00:05:40] class in person.

Um, I remember the first one I did with you was actually during COVID. Um, actually it was like '21 maybe, kinda on the tail end of COVID, um, and [00:05:50] it was virtually, and that was the first one, and in person's so much better in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I mean- It was still good, but you gotta do what you gotta do during- You gotta do [00:06:00] what you gotta do

weird times. Yeah. I mean, the interaction makes a difference. And so I think one of the other things I wanna get across to agency owners that are, that are out there doing this is that, [00:06:10] I mean, look, you mentioned Cynthia. Cynthia's a great friend of mine. Cynthia worked for me for 15 years, uh, and, and as, as Brandon said, White & Foshee was, uh, w- was one of [00:06:20] the, the founding partners of Oak Bridge.

And so they were smart enough to bring over somebody that, that could really reinforce and build the system as a sales leader rather than just [00:06:30] somebody that's gonna point and say, "You ought to try things," and try to create accountability and stuff like that, and she's done a phenomenal job. So good for her and good for Oak Bridge.

Talk to me a little bit about what a typical [00:06:40] prospecting week looked like for you, you know, back in the old days. How would you go about prospecting? Uh, no really process, um, really just depending on social media. So I had a Facebook [00:06:50] marketing billboard, you know, your typical, you know, get the calls from everybody.

Really, um, I, I have a good centers of influence and stuff like that, but no really consistent [00:07:00] follow-up process with that. I mean, the no, no system, tracking, anything like that. I did some community focus, um, you know, fundraisers, stuff like that. Just it was more of a [00:07:10] branding myself, and I wanted to be the first person because I came from State Farm and that's what they were big on, right?

So I just still did that, and people could see that, and they wanted to [00:07:20] be a part of that. So that's kinda how I have gotten my business, um, before then, before I transitioned to the commercial route, which is a completely [00:07:30] different approach. All right, and so then when you became, uh, a commercial producer, and you got involved in Bignition and some of the training and all this sort of stuff, how did things change for you?

Organization, um, [00:07:40] consistency, and what I mean by that is really a database to go in there and have everything on one screen. And what I mean by that is, like, hey, we're gonna show you- [00:07:50] Using, you know, we have some other resources like Zywave, HR68, where we can pull some data in, put the website on there in Bignition, put the, the buyer, [00:08:00] the decision-maker, who's the economic, who's the coach, who's the user buyer.

We could put notes tab. We could have follow-up phone calls. We could do the 5-Layer Voicemail Email Strategy in there, put the renewal date, [00:08:10] the carrier, the incumbent, notes about the incumbent. Anyways, all one database. So when, when you have a process or a strategy with something, you're, you're gonna get better results, especially [00:08:20] with this consolidated in one screen.

So to me, that was a big, um I guess epiphany, um, or, or th- [00:08:30] being a commercial producer, you gotta be more organized. If you wanna go chase big deals, you gotta be... You gotta have, you gotta be, have a process in place for that, and Bignition is that part of that process- Yeah ... [00:08:40] in addition to the Wedge. Yep. And so then by using that, uh, were you, were you making cold calls and doing that sort of thing?

How were you going about setting appointments, or were you working refer, you know, introductions? Mm-hmm. What was your, kinda your, [00:08:50] your MO? A lot of calls at beginning, at the beginning. I mean, a lot of calls. I mean, I really didn't have... I mean, I would try to... I mean, I did a lot of prep work, a lot of looking on, [00:09:00] uh, LinkedIn, Facebook, finding mutual friends, um, making a call to that mutual friend, seeing if they knew them, trying to get in the door easy.

Be- because I mean, nine times out of 10, I was getting the [00:09:10] gatekeeper, and they were trying to figure out a way to... Now you, you helped me with that process of getting through with the knee-jerk responses and stuff like that. So cold calls, um, centers of influence, so financial [00:09:20] advisors, accountants, um, that I've kind of...

My financial advisor and my accountant that I've grown up with, uh, relationships there. Uh, [00:09:30] that's about, that's about it. Bunch of cold calls, though, and, and email marketing, too, so some 5-Layer voicemail, email stuff, too. So which is [00:09:40] good just staying out front of them. Um, but cold calls was the, was most of it at first, and referrals.

Yeah. Um, cool. And so then [00:09:50] w- back in the old days, when you'd put in all the effort, you, you'd, you'd set appointment, you go out on a call, um, and then for whatever reason, you, you, you didn't get it, [00:10:00] what was that like? 'Cause there was a time that that happened, wasn't there? I learned the hard way on, on, on some accounts, and what I mean by that is really, you know, kind of [00:10:10] getting outside the process.

Like, so I learned from other producers that I've, uh, that, that I was talking about at the beginning of this, um, from the firm, and, and they kinda teach me, like, what not to do. [00:10:20] Uh, obviously, and what I mean by that is, like, I would get outside the Wedge process. Like Cynthia, like, would pull me back in. I'm, I'm a, I'm, I tend to drift.

And then I'll come back home, right, to [00:10:30] mama, you can say. But, uh, I think just, I would, I would go back to my transactional, or I would go up and I would... I, I, I think it's, it's just frustrating how much [00:10:40] time and energy that you put on a deal by going back to your old self, being transactional. And what I mean by that is you're burning up your time on putting all the data together, all the information together.

You're burning up your [00:10:50] marketing team's effort. You're, you're wearing out the underwriters that seen the same account the past five, 10 years. You're just doing everything that the traditional insurance agent has [00:11:00] done for the past 25 years. And I, I started realizing what the value of time was. What's the value of my time?

What's the value of their time? What's the resource? Uh, what does all that add up to? [00:11:10] Well, the end product was not a great result, um, for, for, for the client, for ourself, for our marketing team. So you just burn a lot of time and energy [00:11:20] and resources that was, that, that, that you didn't have to. So I think- Just learning the wedge processing, going through that, getting the buyer [00:11:30] to gestalt and, and m- really mapping out through vision box what that looks like, and then just not wasting a lot of time.

Time is our biggest ... T- t- time is our most valuable asset, [00:11:40] so l- let's stop wasting it. And, and that's, that's what I was doing, that's what a lot of people do, and it frustrates the, the heck out of me. Uh, but, but I've done it. Yeah, so you, you [00:11:50] said something s- that's pretty interesting that's, that's very human.

Um, you learned to process, you got good at it, but then human nature would kick in and you'd go back to [00:12:00] the old way And then you'd come back to... That things wouldn't work out so well, and then you'd come back to Cynthia. You'd get some encouragement, you'd get some coaching and stuff like that. Talk to me about it from your [00:12:10] perspective.

What do you think that thing is about us that takes us back to that? And then I want you, a follow-up question is, what would life have been like had you not had the kind of sales coach that would lead [00:12:20] you back and encourage you and challenge you and all that stuff? That's the two-part question, if you don't mind.

Man, uh, where I would be as a book and what that would have done for my family. [00:12:30] I'm, I'm happy with the growth, don't get me wrong, but if I wouldn't have wasted time and, and drifted so many times, there, there's... I mean, I would be north of a $2 million book. Um, [00:12:40] and, and the reason I got out of that process is because I may have chased, like I, a shining object syndrome.

I may have chased a program. Well, that gets you back into a transitional or [00:12:50] transactional approach, right? You're kind of taking yourself out of focusing. That, that's not, that's not the focus anymore. So I was selling a, maybe a product, you know, a better mousetrap to put them in. [00:13:00] So I kind of did that for about a year, and then I came back home to mama and, and got back in the, in, in the, uh, the process.

But it did cost me. I [00:13:10] still wrote some business, but I did... I, I also didn't write some business and wasted a lot of time, energy, and effort because I wasn't running it the way that I should have been [00:13:20] running it. Yeah. You can still run it that way, but you don't have to approach it that way. So I wasn't doing a lot of prequalification.

I wasn't running through my normal qualification process for the [00:13:30] client- Yeah ... on the front end. It was just a quick- And so talk about your prequalification process a little bit. Like, when you do that right, what does that look like for you? [00:13:40] Save so much time. Uh, and what I mean by that is just, like, I've done it.

I did it last year. I just fired my biggest client that I, that just hired me last year. But I hired them [00:13:50] thinking that their beliefs were different, but I wanted it more than they wanted it, and I probably should have done a better job of, of putting my blinders on and not seeing... I didn't filter it enough.

So, [00:14:00] um, what I really did recently, uh, was I, I, I mapped that out. You know, you talk about map that out and bluff ton- Yeah ... and what, what is my ideal client profile? You know, [00:14:10] do they, are they growth-minded? Are they looking to double their business in the next five years? Are they paying north of, you know, $250,000 of premium?

Do they reinvest back into their [00:14:20] business? So just really getting real clear on that. I wish I would have done that five years ago, like you told me to. And Cynthia told me to. Um, I think, [00:14:30] I think I was just so focused on trying to pick up new biz and worried about the numbers instead of worrying about really who I wanted to grow with.

And, and, and I'll [00:14:40] tell you this. I learned this from Cal. He said, "Think about your book of business, and think about it as your, your portfolio. Like, think of this as like your rental house portfolio. If you have a [00:14:50] investment portfolio of 100, or let's just say 50 rental houses, do you want those rental houses to be a lot of crappy ones?"

Or do you want them to be really nice ones? Do you want to be ones that [00:15:00] you have to put a lot of time, energy, and effort in, a lot of money renovating them and all that, keeping them? Or do you want the ones that's already really good and you just, [00:15:10] you know, just the upkeep over time, you know, and, and just help them grow?

So I didn't explain it as good as he would, but you c- I think you grasp my point. Oh, yeah. Like, what do you [00:15:20] want those, what do you want that portfo- portfolio to look like? Well, my portfolio would look a lot better if I would've done that from the front end. Yeah, and so- I don't know if that answers your question, but

Well, no, it's perfect. So [00:15:30] staying with that, staying with that, that analogy of the, your rental portfolio. So you, you've got the house. First of all, it's a good house. It doesn't take a lot of maintenance, and then you got the person that's gonna be renting it from you, [00:15:40] and what their attitude is like and what their family's like.

And, you know, you got good renters and bad renters. Bad renters waste a lot of your time. So now you come back to, what does that corporation look like? What do those buyers look like? Do they match [00:15:50] up with what I want? And do they appreciate what we do? So now let's get into what you do. People who have watched any of our YouTubes and listen to any of our podcasts know that I'm the [00:16:00] wedge guy, and what is interesting about the wedge is that it acknowledges that there's an incumbent agent that's got to lose for you to win, period.

Consultative selling plays, like, you put on the blinders for, like, [00:16:10] there is no incumbent. Go sell yourself, which is fine. But for so many of us, we need a better methodology and we gotta kinda acknowledge the truth. So that's number one. Somebody's gotta lose for us to win. The second [00:16:20] part of it is, it's what I do that the incumbent agent's not doing is where that buyer is being underserved but doesn't know it.

And so we call those proactive [00:16:30] services. So in order to help you win those accounts you're talking about, how much of a student were you, are you about those proactive [00:16:40] services, have them delineated, having them named, and knowing what they are? Just talk to us about that, son. Yeah, I don't wanna give away too much- No, no-

because that'll be making some competition ... don't give away, don't give away what they are. Just give away your, your [00:16:50] mindset about them. Absolutely. I mean, we all No, no, I'm, no, I'm kidding. So, um, I mean, I think at first I wasn't real clear on my [00:17:00] niche. I wasn't real clear of where I wanted to go, so I was, you know, my book is kind of spread out, right?

Yep. It's got ... You know. So anyways, what I'm getting at is at first I wish I would've [00:17:10] focused on 10 to 15 services that we do a really good job at. Instead, I wanted to throw it all at them, right? And that's kind of overwhelming for a client, especially when you're [00:17:20] not getting anything or not, don't, don't understand all this.

So I was so excited, and I would throw up a little bit on them. But they were, they understood. They would still hire me. We would kind of, you know, five, 10 [00:17:30] services. But I guess what, what I would go back and do different and what I like about the, being a, being a, I guess, student of these private services is really finding out three [00:17:40] high-level things.

So I focus on auto, work comp, and hiring, and there's several services under each one. We call that chunking them down, right? So we got three chunks, and then we got several services. [00:17:50] And then I found out I, I just wish I would've slowed down, took the time to really have a story or analogy with each one of those [00:18:00] services and a quantifiable result so that when I do my stewardship report or the cost control report, that it's, that the impact of that service is a lot [00:18:10] easier instead of having 40 different ones.

Now we can bring s- some more to the table later, but I just wish I would've done that from the get-go. When I slowed down and focused on those three things [00:18:20] because I felt like those, now I have a niche. Now I know what their biggest needs are, the biggest issues with their business, the most, the, [00:18:30] their most problems that they have.

Let's, let's address those and, and attack those and, and we can, we could do a much better job for them, um, if they're bought [00:18:40] in. Yeah, if they're bought in. That's what we're finding out on the front end. Yeah. Yep. So Brandon went... I think we were down in Florida during that meeting, but I'm not sure where we were.

Uh, but he opened up Bignition and, and he, [00:18:50] he labeled just one of the opportunities as, I think, Brandon's Playground. I, I don't know if that's what he exactly called it. But then you come under Pains and Wedges, and he had all 15 of [00:19:00] those listed out kinda in a rank and order. You can click through that and, and the way that Bignition's designed, we, we'll call it ladder of abstraction, but you're chunking down more, [00:19:10] you're breaking down the process.

And, um, he had all that stuff mapped out. You, sir, had all that stuff mapped out. Uh, which, [00:19:20] um, A, I was very grateful because you used it in a unique way. Secondly, I, I was very respectful that you did that. Because one of my, one of my things, [00:19:30] and if you're an agency owner, I, I want you to listen to this piece please.

When we typically go through and we hire a new producer, and we train them, we send them off to a couple of, couple of weeks of technical school at [00:19:40] some carrier, and we bring them back and, and then we say, "You need to go create a niche, and you need to start prospecting, and you, you need to create a database, and you need to start setting appointments.

You need to go out and start winning stuff." [00:19:50] It's like the reality is it's nice to say to go do all that stuff, but most of them really still don't know what needs to be done. And so [00:20:00] A lot of confidence comes from having your services named literally just like all your cousins. Each one has a name, each one [00:20:10] has a description.

You can name them. If you got a new producer and you say, "When you go to market, what are your services?" And they either go, "I don't know," or they go, "We're [00:20:20] local, we care, we got a lot of m- you know, we got great carriers, we got in-house loss control claims management," they're screwed right off the bat. And so what Brandon did a brilliant job was, [00:20:30] was taking that part seriously.

And like he said, yeah, in Bignition we give 42 services. We give even more categories. But it's important to, to pick what really works for you for your [00:20:40] niche, get it, get it memorized. You know, when we put you under fire, can you articulate what it is? Can you defend what it does? Can you talk about what it does?

And then can you also, like you said, [00:20:50] monetize its value? You walk into sales calls feeling incredibly confident. Is that true or untrue? That's absolutely true, 100%. Yeah. I wish I, I wish I would've done that a little bit earlier, but, uh, [00:21:00] I would encourage anybody to do that, to get real clear on that. And don't spend...

I mean, sp- spend time, but, like, don't get, don't get paralysis by analysis. It's really not that hard. Um, and that's what I [00:21:10] did from the beginning. But just get... There's so many features and technology out there, and your team's great. I mean, just ask. Get on the calls, ask you about it. Be pushed on. Be willing to be pushed [00:21:20] on.

Yeah. That, that's, that's, that's where the, that's where the growing comes from. Yeah. And then I, I'm gonna ask your opinion about this, uh, c- 'cause I wanna go back to your, your early days as a new producer. Again, I'm just [00:21:30] going back to Randy's opinion. Doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, it's just, it's just a strong opinion.

That when, when you hire a newbie, you need to f- you need to find a sales pros- you 100 per- a process you 100% [00:21:40] believe in. If it's consultative selling, go get it. If it's question-based selling, go get it. If it's strategic selling, go get it. If it's wedge, go get it. And then once you get it, [00:21:50] make 100% commitment to it and actually set the standards that your newbie has to learn it, and then you grade them on a scale of 0 to 10.

[00:22:00] If you don't get a 9 out of 10, we're not gonna keep you around very long Because when you offer up things like, "Go to that training, go to that training," a lot of [00:22:10] them conflict with each other, and then, and then you never say, "You have to master this." We say, "We're just gonna send it to you. We're gonna send you to it."

And then they go with intent, "You sent it to me [00:22:20] and, and now I can tell you I went to the training, but I can't do it." So I, I'm kinda like a bit of a... Some people go, "Well, Randy, you're a [00:22:30] monster. You, you actually would mandate and demand that people learn this and be able to prove that they know it." What's your thoughts on that?

I think you need to fully commit. I think if [00:22:40] you either ha- You, you can't be half in, half out. You need to be 100% committed. And what that can do for you and your family, um, is, is life-changing. So what I mean by that is, like, [00:22:50] it, it... To me, it took me about two years, uh, to really get extremely, like, bold, confident, um, and it's because of that drifting, right?

It... I could've done it [00:23:00] in less than 18 months. Um, and what I mean is that's r- I think now with... I think now I could, if I went back in time, I could do it in less than a year. Yeah. [00:23:10] I mean, really. I mean, if I really focus, I really gr- I, I d- I did followed Cynthia's, you know, 90-day process and got really good with, um, all my [00:23:20] Language.

So yes, you have to be committed. I wouldn't even send anybody if they weren't fully committed. I mean, I make them read the Wedge book, do the Wedge pledge, make sure that [00:23:30] they, like, were committed, and if you're not, I'm not gonna invest this time and money in you because it's the, the, the end result, they'll be gone and then they'll use that somewhere else, whatever tidbits and [00:23:40] pieces.

So, um, you have to commit and I... Th- there's no halfway in and halfway out, like I just said. You've... The, the reward is worth the work. [00:23:50] So here you are, five years in, $1.35 million book of business. What do you, what do you see your future looking like? Where's the cap? There's no cap. So I mean, I, I can... [00:24:00] I mean, my goal is to hit, um, a $2 million book before the end of 2027, and it's, uh, it's attainable.

It is very [00:24:10] attainable. The only, the only thing that would take away from that is myself, and what I mean by that is, um, letting stuff get in the way. So I think just really having non-negotiables around time blocking, [00:24:20] prospecting efforts, red hot introduction ask. Um, you know, just being consistent, having processes in place around every single client.

"Hey, when are we gonna do this cost containment [00:24:30] stewardship report meeting? You know, we're gonna do it six months into the year, and here's what we're gonna do, and we'll come out with..." So I, I, that's... But my goal, I mean, I would love to ha- I, I will have [00:24:40] a $5 million book of business in the next 10 years.

Okay? Now, I think, I th- I, I could probably have north of that, um, if, [00:24:50] if I really, if I really, uh, focus. There's some guys in our firm that have north of $4 million books of business. They ain't been in the, the industry, uh, 25 [00:25:00] years, but they have said, "Look, if I would've started off with Cynthia and Randy and using the Wedge, there i- I, I could've been here [00:25:10] 15 years ago, um, and, and, and, and saved my time a lot of headache, a lot of headache, a lot of, uh, wasted time on [00:25:20] writing these smaller deals that don't pay you anything."

So I think, I think what I would encourage anybody to do, especially from ag- agency owner, agents, producers, is do the [00:25:30] time value exercise. What is your time worth? What is your hourly rate? And then if you're not making enough on that deal to, for it to make sense, you're going backwards and you're [00:25:40] stealing from your family.

You're stealing from yourself, you're stealing from your savings, your retirement, everything that aligns with you. So Do that first. Find out [00:25:50] your... And then every probably six months as you're growing, you need to recalculate that and make sure that you're always moving upstream. Yeah. All right, so, Zach, I got two other [00:26:00] questions here.

Uh, uh, uh, and just so I don't forget, I'm gonna put them both out. One is, I want you to talk about the monetization of the stewardship report at the end of the, [00:26:10] at the end of the year and kind of what you do on that. That's number one. Uh, number two, I don't know, hit... This hit me just recently when I was doing something about lifetime earnings, [00:26:20] 'cause I'm always talking about get really clear on your savings goal.

Uh, you know, reverse engineer how much you want in retirement, pay for the kids' cars, universities and weddings, get it all mapped out, and [00:26:30] go, "How much do I have to save to be able to accomplish that?" But I, I started flipping on the, on the other side, and started thinking about it too. I was thinking about, like, lifetime career earnings.[00:26:40] 

So, so let's suppose you're committed to this career for 30 years, this will be 30 years. At $100,000 a year, that's $3 million. At $200,000 a year on average, that's $6 million. At $300,000 a [00:26:50] year, that's $9 million. You grow a book and you're making $400,000, that's $12 million. The difference between $12 million and $3 million is a lot of money to support your [00:27:00] family, leave legacy ties if you want to.

And to make, to make 400,000, you gotta have a $1.3 million [00:27:10] book, right? To make a half a million- 600, you gotta be t- you gotta be two million. Yeah. Yeah. You just do the math, and then, and then, so then you start thinking about it. But that's, that would like to me was kind of a, [00:27:20] a big, a big deal about lifetime earnings.

Now, what, what's weird about that, thing about that is it's always out in the future, and you never know what your future's gonna be. But when you start to vision- [00:27:30] visualize that and start to imagine what you want it to be, and sit there and go, "I could... If I, if I change what I'm doing now, I can influence the difference between, say, $3 million [00:27:40] lifetime earnings and 12 or $15 million lifetime earnings," whoa, go talk to your spouse and go, "What do you think about this?

W- w- what, what do you want? All right, [00:27:50] now, now you want that, will you become my accountability partner in this? Will you become my understanding also of what I have to do to do it? And I might have up days, I'm gonna have down days. Every once in a while, I'm gonna need some love, and every [00:28:00] once in a while, I'm gonna need a kick in the ass.

So what do you think about that?" That's what I'm curious about. I think you have to do that. I think, I wish I would've done that earlier, and it's all mapped out in the system, right? Like, you could set it up your goal page and everything like that. But... [00:28:10] And mine's changed a lot, right? With having two kids since I've started this, you know, then I've added two cars, two universities.

You know, I'm like, well, this is... We're about to buy our, [00:28:20] our, our dream home. You know, we're closing in two and a half weeks. So if- Anyways, I, I, I think you have to do that. You gotta figure out, like, you gotta get [00:28:30] clear on your goals, right? And you taught me this back in, I think it was Bluffton last year, and you said, "Clarity eliminates distractions."

And I was kind of, I'm kind of at this inflection point where I'm like, you [00:28:40] know, it's, it's, need to get an account executive, and we can talk about that different day. But just, you can really get caught up too much in the mundane or the day-to-day [00:28:50] stuff, and it really takes time from where you're going, and that's gonna be distractions, right?

So when y- clarity eliminates those distractions from happening. So when you can re- really get clear on [00:29:00] those, and that's what you helped me with. Um, and I would encourage anybody to just really sit down, map that out, get with your, your, your spouse or significant other and, uh... It, it's [00:29:10] just, you have a goal, right?

I mean, that, that's the thing is we, we all, it, you can have a dream. You know, everybody has dreams, but, like, let's write it down. That's when it co- when it comes become a goal, [00:29:20] and then let's back into it. Like you said, let's get, "Hey, if I want to retire at 50 and I have to have, you know, $15 million in the bank, well, how do I get there?"

Let's map it out. Let's g- okay, well, how do I do that from a [00:29:30] prospecting? What I need, how many appointments do I need to set? And that's what you can do in Bignition. What's my qualifying ratio? What's my closing ratio? What... A- anyways, that, it, it, it all can be done [00:29:40] in Bignition, but I think you have to get real clear on that.

If you get real clear on that at first, it makes everything else easier, right? I, I, I would, I think so. Yeah. I think you, there's- And [00:29:50] just so everybody know, Bignition is like a car. You gotta wanna go somewhere for your car to be valuable. Bignition, you, you g- you gotta wanna do something, and then what happens is [00:30:00] the tools in there just make it about 12, 15 times easier Going back to the tools in there.

So we, one of the things that I, I've asked a lot of, a l- a lot of my clients, a [00:30:10] lot of producers like you, is if you went and, uh, surveyed your prospects and asked 100 prospects, "What are you [00:30:20] gonna get for your, from your broker, your current broker over the next 12, 24, 36 months?" What would they show us? And most people say, "Not much or nothing."

Some little [00:30:30] verbal promises, but not much. And so then that's where guys like Brandon have, have, have used Bignition to create a written service timeline where you drag and drop those things you're gonna [00:30:40] do onto a timeline, both sign off on it, stuff like that. But now you actually do those services, you complete them, and as you complete them, now you're [00:30:50] monetizing them two ways, I believe, because you can monetize how much work we put into it and the value of the work, but then also we're monetizing the impact we had on your business and your profit.

Talk about that a [00:31:00] little bit and how that's worked for you w- and w- and the benefit of doing it. I think confidence is the biggest piece. Becoming bold because you know what you bring to the table. You know what your team [00:31:10] brings to the table- Right ... I should say. And I think it's, it's just, it's, it's getting clear on the goals for the business, like I just said personally.

I mean, everybody, every business wants... I mean, not every business, but most [00:31:20] businesses want to do right. They just, and, and they hate insurance because they don't understand it, because they feel like they can't control it. Well, now we, we, we love when people say that, because we can make you understand how to control it, what [00:31:30] do you want to control.

And what I do with all my clients is, Randy, I, I, we, we go through the wedge process. We find out, you know, three [00:31:40] to five services for onboard our, uh, private services team plus one, and we go through, you know, you will help hiring, you will help [00:31:50] auto work comp, like, DOT, whatever it is, and then we m- we map that out on a schedule throughout the year, and then mid y- you don't have to...

You could wait a quarter. [00:32:00] We br- we bring lots to the table the first quarter. But what I'm getting at is when you can see the amount of hours, the impact that that has to that business, [00:32:10] if they didn't have that process in place, if they didn't have whatever that, uh, safety manual of, uh, vehicle us- uh, safety it said of whatever it was What [00:32:20] is the value to that business by having that one service, five services?

So I guess that's where the boldness comes from, and I, I, I love [00:32:30] being able to back what I'm saying because I've seen it. And what I also did, and what I've, uh... And I think, I think Cynthia maybe encouraged me, maybe it was you, but, [00:32:40] like, I've me- I put these 15 services out there. I went through my top 10 accounts, and I went through the auto, the work comp, and the hiring [00:32:50] services, and I quanti- I, I put on my self profile, I put the top 10 accounts, each service, and the quantification of each service.

And I totaled them up, and then I divided them by 10. [00:33:00] The average value was about $85,000 in the first year of doing business of quantification- Okay. Let's, let- ... um, of those services. So that- Yeah. Go ahead ... so that people don't [00:33:10] misunderstand what you just said. Yep. Those services that you're providing for your top 10 accounts, when you quantified its value, it- you were able to quantify [00:33:20] $85,000 worth of additional hard tangible value to them by doing those things.

Now, when you did that and the buyer [00:33:30] saw that, what kind of responses did you get? "I've never seen anything like this before. Wow, this is, this is... I've never seen anything like this before. W- this [00:33:40] is great. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll never leave you." Like, I mean, really. I mean, I've, I've had people tell me that.

W- what the, the s- the things that you have brought to the table to make us see and make us [00:33:50] like insurance again, to make us understand, like, this is huge right here. We want help, but we didn't realize we needed help until we started pushing all the pain points [00:34:00] and finding out if they really needed it, if they really cared about their business, and that's goes back to the ideal client profile that you can filter them on the front end to make sure that they're, that you, you don't wanna waste a [00:34:10] lot of time.

What, what is their proclivity to then want to introduce you to other people they know? It's a goldmine. I mean, it, the, they, they are your biggest advocate. Uh, [00:34:20] have I done the best job of asking for red-hot introductions? Probably not. No, I haven't. Who has? But I have- Okay. You're healed ... but I w- Okay.

Forgiven. Move on. [00:34:30] Of course you haven't. Thank you. But, but, but have you done a good job? I think so Yeah I think, and, and I think every one of them would, would say the same [00:34:40] Yeah. So, so that's a interesting thing, interesting thing to go from what is my value to my value are, you know, outside the normal table stake [00:34:50] stuff that has to happen in the insurance industry.

Here's the 15 named services I do. Of those 15, or here's the three buckets. When I deliver those, those things to my top clients, it [00:35:00] has an additional $85,000 worth of concrete tangible value, rather than pat you on the head and say, "Well, thanks, Brandon, you did a good job this year." It's just... And I don't go through [00:35:10] the whole, you know, package of pages, right?

I just go through the, the, the list of services at the end and then the calendar. And, uh, we just... I mean, it's really up to them. Uh, it's their [00:35:20] choice. You're just saying, "Hey, here's, here's what you said that you wanted. You tell me when you want it done, and then we'll come back and, and we'll deliver it.

But we're also gonna come back and, and [00:35:30] deliver this stewardship report, and that's the best time for me to, to ask for those introductions." But in the meantime, I'm doing some digging and getting real clear on three to five people that they may know. [00:35:40] Um, and some of them say, "No, you don't wanna you don't wanna, you don't wanna do business with them."

Or they may say, "Yes, I'll call them right now." Yeah. Um, so... And, and they're, they're just advocates for [00:35:50] you because the relationship's different. They're not... You're not a vendor anymore. You're a real true partner. You're a business partner. I, I'm curious, you know, now that you've [00:36:00] had this success and it's pretty early in your career, what has happened to your mentorship ability for others?

What are you, what are you doing in that regard to kind of like pay it forward some? Yeah. [00:36:10] I, I spend a lot of time on doing that. I probably need to only spend a couple hours so I could still... So I can get to that $5 million quicker, right? Yeah. Um, but I, I think, [00:36:20] I think it's if I can see that there's potential in someone, then I'll invest it.

I'll, I'll invest in them be- like others have invested in me. So I think it's just a, [00:36:30] you know, get on there and do the crisp calls, right? You know, being a crisp call leader, uh, pushing on them like people pushed on me. You know, put me in the hot seat. I mean, that's where you grow the most. I [00:36:40] think I like doing that.

I like leading people. A lot of that's kind of going back to like some of my State Farm days. I had a team of eight, eight employees, and I love seeing them [00:36:50] win. Um, so when they win, I win, right? It's just... And, and likewise with this. So I don't know if that answers your question, but... Yeah. And one, [00:37:00] one of the things that is a core part of...

You know, we've... You know, as a... Bignition is really three things. It's seven steps to seven figures for [00:37:10] producers. So it's, you know, it's goes from goal setting and differentiation, prospecting, preparing to win, selling, retention, and then measuring success. Seven steps. And there's five steps for [00:37:20] leaders, and one of those five things for leaders is driving behavior through crisp sales meetings, which is in contrast to spreadsheet liars club meetings [00:37:30] And I mean, like, I've, I've done that 4,000 times and you've been...

You, you, you could say you've been a victim of some Randyism, putting you on the hot [00:37:40] seat, letting you sweat, making you define what you do better, making you defend that you do it better. My belief is, uh, we ought to be... Th- that it's a disservice if we don't [00:37:50] challenge producers in a quantifiable way to get a specific outcome preparing them to go win the business.

I'm gonna say that diff- again. I think we're disserving our producers [00:38:00] if we don't challenge them in a quantifiable, strategic way to get them really clear about how they're gonna go on that next sales call and beat that [00:38:10] specific incumbent. If we just leave it up to them to kind of figure it out, by definition, most are kind of lazy.

Um, or we're gonna say, "Well, they're not [00:38:20] lazy, they're just busy doing something else." Whatever you want to say, doesn't matter to me, but they won't do it. And when they're not prepared, their confidence is not as high plus they're just not as sharp with [00:38:30] what, what wedges they're gonna use to be able to win that piece of business.

So, kinda, kinda what, what's your thoughts about what, what, what you think leaders throughout... I mean, if you're gonna be [00:38:40] running a sales team of four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 people, how intense do you think they ought to be? I think you have to be. I mean, you gotta prepare for the meeting. I mean, you don't know what's about to come [00:38:50] across the table.

You know, their agent could be doing a really good job. I mean, so I think the prep work is where you win. Um, I, I think... I mean, I used to spend, um, and this may be a little much, but [00:39:00] I used to spend 10 to 12 hours on prepping for a meeting. Wow. Um, I don't spend near that now because I've gotten better with what, with what...

I mean, with time, I know my wedges, I know my story. I [00:39:10] mean, all that, I don't really have to role play a lot of that anymore. Yep. Um, but, but yeah. So I think the win is in the prep work, and as far as in, you gotta be a super [00:39:20] intense because you... I mean, it's a real sales meet. We're, we're, we're pushing on you.

I want, I want to see them extremely uncomfortable. I want, I want to see them really thinking because that's where the [00:39:30] work That's where your, your mental game, and you're gonna be put on the spot in the meeting, and you gotta be able to answer. And if you don't become, be- if you're not able to answer and not an- not to answer [00:39:40] confidently, they see that.

So it's all about the body language, right? If you're confident, you're, "I'm coming in," like- Yep ... like, "We, we, we about to..." And so if you do the CRISP call, [00:39:50] you get them pushed on. We've done a couple role plays, and they come in with a chest kind of puffed out a little bit more than just kinda like, you know.

And [00:40:00] you've seen it. You've seen it in yourself, you've seen it in others. Is that true? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's been fun seeing the, seeing the [00:40:10] difference. I'll never forget, and th- this is, this is pretty funny. I, uh, one of the... Actually, one of my top 10 accounts, uh, probably a 60,000 or 65,000 revenue account [00:40:20] now, they, uh...

I, I'll never forget, we had a discovery call, and somebody introduced me to them. Uh, met him at a concert, saying, "You need to call this guy. We're having some issues with our agent," blah, [00:40:30] blah, blah. Anyways, um, so I got ready for the discovery call, uh, before the in-person meeting, before we did the CRISP, just to kinda see if they're really a good fit, if we'd be a good fit for each other.[00:40:40] 

Well, uh, had a great call, 40-minute call. Well, had the CRISP call, got ready for the meeting, went out, and I'll never forget at the end of the meeting, he said, "How do I know that [00:40:50] you're not gonna do anything that you say you're gonna do?" Hmm. "How do I know that?" I said, "Well, let me tell you something. Winning your account right now, helping you out, is not gonna change the way my family [00:41:00] eats.

It's not gonna change anything about... You said this is what, this is what you said that you wanted. If you want it done, then let's do it. If not, I'll get up and walk [00:41:10] away. I've got about, you know, four or five hours into this deal right now." And he said, "You tell me where to sign." And I'll never forget that meeting, and he still brings it up to this day whenever he [00:41:20] introduces me to others.

He'll say, "This guy, he was, he was pretty... But I had... This is one of those buyers you have to be bold with." Mm-hmm. Um, I wasn't gonna let him... I had to... Anyways, that was... I'll never [00:41:30] forget that to this day, and that's one of my favorite wins, and they are growing fast, and it's, they're, they're fun to, fun to see, but they're so appreciative because we're delivering the service.

We're doing everything that they, we said that we were gonna do, [00:41:40] and he's seeing it. He's seeing we saved him 120 grand in the first year. Huge. It is. Huge. And, uh, and, and what, what I got out of what you said is that [00:41:50] that boldness comes from knowing that they need you rather than, than, "I wanna win it." And I think that is s- such an attitude that [00:42:00] you can develop if you've defined your proactive services.

You kn- you know what you're gonna deliver. You know where the incumbent's weak. I mean, it, it's such a simple little formula. It's the [00:42:10] things you do the incumbent's not doing is where they're being underserved but don't know it. The more you know what you do that the incumbent doesn't do, the more you know have pain, you know where they have pain even when they don't.

And so when I [00:42:20] know that you have pain because the incumbent doesn't do these things, then I know you need me. Yeah, I wanna win the business. Yeah, I wanna earn it. Yeah, I wanna get paid, but I know you need me. [00:42:30] And when I know that- I'm a tiger, I'm a monster, I'm a bear. I'm whatever you, you wanna call it.

Well, that's, well, that's what gets me up in the morning, right? And that's the thing is, like, I know that people need me. I know [00:42:40] that, I know that, that, but they don't know that they need me, so it's my job to get ready and prepared and have the right cold call conversation, red hot introduction [00:42:50] conversation.

Just all that, all that hard work that I've put in in the past five years is... The confidence is huge. And, and now what gets me up every morning is I know [00:43:00] that there's so much, so many more businesses out there that are going through the same crap every single year, and it's just that, that [00:43:10] we gotta go find them Find pain.

It's pretty easy to find most of the time, especially with y'all's help. And, uh, go in the business and, and show them some impact. [00:43:20] Well, Brandon, I, I appreciate you coming on with us. Brandon's a very successful, very humble guy, good dude. And for those of you agency owners out there, I [00:43:30] think of, I think of the situation you're in as one of, one of, I, I call it selling 1, 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0.

1.0 is the old days where we taught, you know, Dale Carnegie's [00:43:40] feature benefit selling, and we kept everything in our day timer or 3x5 cards. That's selling 1.0. Then it evolved to selling 2.0, which was consultative selling, where you built [00:43:50] relationships, you asked good questions. And then the technology world came around, and people started using things like Salesforce or Pipedrive or HubSpot.

But the problem [00:44:00] is that and that don't match up at all. And so producers, I mean, I, I hear, I hear so many agency owners when I have conversations with them that go, "Yeah, we have [00:44:10] Salesforce, but nobody uses it." Because it doesn't match. And then selling 3.0 is just like this thing behind my left, seven steps to seven figures for leader, for [00:44:20] producers.

Five steps to extraordinary growth for leaders sandwiched together with a piece of technology that makes everything we're asking guys like Brandon to do. The goal setting's in there. His 15 [00:44:30] w- uh, differentiations are in there. How he prospects is in there. His red hot introductions in there. His five-layer email voicemail is in there.

Preparing for the sales meeting, CRISP sales meeting, that's in there. [00:44:40] The pipeline for selling is in there. The service timeline creation is in there, and then all the dashboards. So it just glues it together, and it fits like a glove in hand. And so if you're one of [00:44:50] those agency owners that... And, and what I appreciate what Brandon Silvaggo's like, you know, he's, he, he's got his avatar.

He knows who's he wants to work with. I know who I want to work with. I want [00:45:00] agency owners that if you bought that, that legacy stuff, just admit it doesn't work. Let it go. And if you can't do that, I don't want to talk to you, [00:45:10] because then we're having to fight your legacy stuff with something new, and, and then ob- it's hard for producers.

If you're a producer, agency owner, you haven't, you haven't gotten into that trap [00:45:20] yet, and you're still just operating off of spreadsheets, then if you're looking for a system that you can drive and you want to drive and you want to double your agency, [00:45:30] then come out, check out Bignition Selling 3.0. It is different.

And, uh, you'll see people getting results. I don't know if you'll see people getting as good [00:45:40] as results as Brandon. Brandon's pretty darn awesome. But, but you'll see a lot of producers go from writing 50,000 new business to 100,000 plus, and then you'll also be able [00:45:50] to hire more guys like Brandon, put it in the mix, and five years from now, your agency will be a whole different package.

So Brandon, thank you so much for coming on and playing with us today. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. [00:46:00] Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate your time. Thanks, bud