Ignore the Noise: Why Every Agency Owner Needs Fewer Outside Opinions

Everyone has an opinion. Your mentor. Your competitors. Social media. Industry Facebook groups. Even well-meaning friends and family. The challenge isn't finding advice. It's knowing which voices deserve your attention.  We discuss why asking too many people for advice can actually make decision-making harder, which causes agency owner to get stuck searching for "perfect."

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Jane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Lee. Welcome to IA Forward.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

And we just had our very corporate call before the call. And what we found out is that Shane is masterful when it comes to shopping with gift cards.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Or hoarding gift cards. I mean, one or the other, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

I I'm not masterful. I'm forgetful that I have gift cards. So maybe I would maybe rephrase that to be in a gift card collector. Kind of like art, but not.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

That's just yeah, and instead of putting them on your walls, you have them strategically hidden in places you'll never find them.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Correct. Like, you know, the console of your vehicle, you know, your your truck console, where you'll always remember in case you find yourself in the store, then you'll have them with you. And yet I go to the store all the time and I forget the gift cards and I still buy the stuff. So this is how I accumulate that over time.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, so so Shane shared with us that he just bought a new workout wardrobe.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Yeah. Golf, workout, kind of all together, right? Because I'm trying to start trying to pick up golf. Um, again, been a long time. It's not terrible. Like, you know, I'm I'm kind of in that stage where I'm learning how to play old man golf. Anybody know what old man golf is? Is that ring a bell? No, so was that so no driver? Three wood. It's basically seven iron, pitching wedge, and putter, right? Like, there's no reason. I mean, obviously, probably three wood. Leave the driver in the bag, leave the uh the long irons in the bag, and you basically can play the entire course with like four clubs, maybe. And I know what old man golf is because many years ago now, um back when I was a young whipper snapper, I guess, uh, to get some phrases out there early on in this podcast. Here we go. I uh my dad, who was not a golfer, you know, and uh wanted to go play golf one day. And um the the you know, of course, me, I'm like absolutely this is an opportunity to just really get him. And in my younger days, you know, I'm hitting it a long ways, I'm I'm doing a lot of things. And my dad, um, who was probably in hindsight about my age now, when this occurred, it's kind of the reality of it, uh, he played out of my bag. He didn't have clubs of his own, and he beat me up and down the course with basically three clubs. I think literally he hit a seven-iron, an eight-iron, and a putter. I don't even know that he used a pitching wedge at all. And so if he was within 20 feet of the green, it didn't matter how thick the grass was. He was putting. Like he was, he was, he was pulling out the putter, it didn't matter, and then he would put it within two feet of the hole and you know, tap in, right? It's like, okay, he literally played bogey golf out of my bag for the first time in like 20 years and whipped me all up and down the course. And so I am learning how to play old man golf because I don't want to be frustrated when I play golf. And it's really hard because the first thing I want to do is get the driver out and hit it as hard as I can, as far as I can, and that isn't helpful to me.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

So I don't golf, but I did work at a golf course a long time ago when I was still in college, and I was just wondering if this trend is still continuing. So I would work there for starting in high school, so probably a total of five or six years. And I remember when I was first there, the head of a driver was probably a little bit bigger than a baseball. And then by the time I left, it was probably just a little bit smaller than the spare tire of your vehicle. Is that still are we still trending in that direction?

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Pretty close. I think it's kind of I think it's kind of maybe like settled in, but it's it's definitely bigger than a softball, right? I mean, like drivers are pretty large, which is kind of the whole thing, right? It's like how can how come I can hit a 90 mile an hour fastball or can or could? I I didn't catch. How come I used to be able to hit 90 mile an hour uh a 95 mile an hour fastball and an 88 mile an hour slider? How how could I have done that? And I can't hit this little ball on the ground, sitting still, not moving with a gigantic club head. Like, why cannot not hit it and make it go fairly straight forward? Why does it take a hard right sometimes? Why does it take a hard left sometimes? Like what's going on all the time?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Better what I swear I can go, I can be standing sideways and it's still gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Well, and then you play that hook, right? And then you hit it as straight as can be. Like you line up for the hook. This is what I do. Oh, I'm hooking it today. I'll line up for the hook, and then I'll I'll hit it straight every time.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So we live right down the road from Bubba Watson's driving range. And so Bubba Watson is for Etsy Cola, for those of you that don't know that. And he does really, really incredible things here. He is the partial owner of our Meyer League baseball team and is just does really fantastic things from a um a philanthropy perspective. And he has this drive-in range that is in the middle of these residential neighborhoods, right? And so you'll go down after work and you'll see your doctor and your dentist and all of the people that you interact with on a um on a semi-regular basis. And I bring this up because Shane said something a second ago that uh I found fascinating. And if he can achieve this, then we're going to write a book and um all be millionaires. And that is how that he wants to be able to golf without getting frustrated. And I see the people at the driving range that are already frustrated with what they do in everyday life, then they go to the range, and then they are even more frustrated when they're there, and even more frustrated when they leave, um, all in the name of relaxation. So, Shane, when you figure out how to do this without getting frustrated, like we're gonna give up on this insurance thing and we're gonna teach people how to be calm and relaxed at play golf.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Well, I I've figured it out. Okay, it's done.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

I did it, I did it a couple of weeks ago, and I accidentally figured it out. Like um, everybody was gone, and I was gonna go to the driving range, like you say, right? I was gonna go to the driving range and I was just gonna hit. And now keep in mind, uh, a year ago, I played golf for the first time in like 17 years because I've been in travel club sports for that long with both of my children. And um my now son-in-law, as of this recording, uh, you know, wanted to play golf. And I played golf with him. And so, okay, now I'm I've played for the first time. Then I played again in January. That was six months later. And now I've played three or four more times since January. So I'm kind of okay, maybe I do like this sport, maybe I do want to go play this sport. And I found myself the other day where I was like, you know, I I I'm overcommitted to everything I do, like I overdo it. I can't just do anything a little bit. And so part of that is is when I go play golf, this mindset that I have to play, I must play 18 holes every time. Like, I gotta play 18 holes. And I went and played because I didn't have enough time in the evening before the sun went down, and I played nine holes, and not only did I play nine holes, which obviously people do all the time, but it was like new information to me for some reason. Um, I I played by myself. Now, my wife probably would say that's like going and eating dinner by yourself or lunch by yourself, which I also kind of enjoy from time to time. And um I went and played golf by myself, and I didn't go the driving range. I just went and played nine. I got on the course, and the first hole was extremely frustrating. Like I was not, obviously, I hadn't really warmed up, I hadn't hit any balls, and I'm firing balls off, you know, shanking them, I'm doing all kinds of things. And it hit me about halfway through that hole. You know what? I don't care, and I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play two balls. I'm gonna basically play two balls by myself, right? So I'm gonna play 18 holes, I'm gonna play nine holes, but I'm gonna get 18 hole equivalency. And um for the next seven holes until the last hole of the day, I played the best seven holes of golf that I've ever played. I was super relaxed, I was so having fun, I was just really enjoying the world, and then for whatever reason, on the last hole of the day, I decided to let old Shane golfer come back. And I nearly slung my driver. Number one mistake. I think I'll try the driver. Why? Why am I trying the driver? I should leave the driver at home, right? I'd been hitting the three wood, I'd been hitting a wedge. I I'm I'm having a good day. I pulled the driver out. I still don't know where the ball went. It's in somebody's yard, somewhere. And Carl. Yeah, yeah. So there was this window of incredible golfing bliss that I I found. I made it, right? I made it to this relaxing golfing pinnacle. Okay, but the pen moment didn't even last the entire nine holes. It didn't, but I I tapped into it exactly, lowered expectations 100%, and I was simply trying to uh my goal was bogey golf, and I played a little less than bogey golf for seven holes. I think I was like three over. I parred like four holes, or maybe I parred three and bogey double bogeyed or something like that. So, whatever it was, it was the best very small glimpse of golf that I've ever played in my life.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

I just don't ever foresee myself getting to a spot where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna drive 20, 30, 40 minutes, whatever it is, to go somewhere. I'm gonna take 15 minutes to stretch and hit golf balls to get ready to play. I'm gonna play for four hours, then I'm gonna drive another 40 minutes home, and I'm gonna say to myself, that's time well spent, and be irritated the vast majority of the time I'm there.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

Well, that was the other beauty. I did have to drive 25 minutes because that's how far it is to get to the golf course, but uh, and I had to drive 25-30 minutes back, so that's that's an hour of driving. So I'll give you that. I played nine holes by myself in an hour and like 20 minutes. Like I was maybe playing too fast, I don't know, but I I didn't care. It's just me. And it was it was it was fun. I'm I'm gonna do it more. That's that's gonna be a more of my you just said it wasn't fun. You said it was fun for like 45 minutes. It was way more fun than it was frustrating. Way more fun than it was frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

This is the difference in going on a cruise by yourself or going on a cruise with you and your significant other type human and four other couples, right? When you go on a cruise by yourself, it is just delightful. But when other people get involved, not so much. Yeah, same thing. Yeah, same thing.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Sure. Well, I mean, I don't know about leaving Julie at home. You mean by yourself and with your significant motherfucker?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I enjoy cruising with the cute boy, I enjoy going totally by myself. Um, but I don't enjoy doing it with a bunch of other couples.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah, now other people's agenda I can't do that. I can't. We don't do the like multi-family vacation thing. So that's just us. I know there are those people we're offending them right now. Like they, Mike, are you multifamily? Are you just you have y'all just yeah? Our last cruises with three other couples, all baseball families. Yeah. I mean, you know, if y'all have the same kind of world and y'all enjoy each other, it can be good. Kids are all even kids, kids are all over, you know, similar ages. I mean, I kind of get that, but we we've always we've always been the loner vacation family, our four our unit that we're adding more to, by the way, you know, as of now. But uh but that's kind of maybe uh maybe we just like to do our stuff and not worry about it. Other people, maybe. I don't know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

So our podcast topic today, which uh we've already told Shane this, but he does not remember. Uh this goes back to a leadership meeting that we had recently at Integral Partner Network. And we were talking about the podcast, and Julie, who is Shane's amazing bride, uh said this quote during the during the leadership team and during the meeting, and I and I wrote it down because I I thought it was pretty impactful. And what she said was, we do we do not do everything y'all talk about on the podcast. I don't listen, but I listen enough to know this is not a perfect world.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Well, there's a lot to unpack there. First of all, she doesn't listen. Well, come on now. I mean, you know, I think wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. First let me say this. I actually I'm gonna defend her right now. She hears a lot of words from you. So to go and get more words is probably not something she's interested in having occur.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

So this is the problem with working with your spouse, okay? Um, she hears it as I'm thinking out loud, she hears it maybe a couple of more times, and then she hears it in a leadership meeting. And you know, by the time she hears it in a leadership meeting, she's heard it three or four times, and so I'm not gonna I I I think maybe misinterpreted maybe the way to go here, um, because I know she listens to me because I will get the I thought you were going to do X. And I'm like, no, we just talked about that, which is kind of your point, right? Of your, you know, just because we talk about it doesn't mean we're executing on it, right? It doesn't mean we're that we're gonna implement on it. And uh there's a lot of, I think you phrased Tanya, uh, you know, the same mouth, uh out of the same mouth that comes good ideas also sometimes comes bad ideas. Um and and so there's a lot of talking going on around the Shane Tatum universe, uh, as anyone around me knows, that I I do think out loud, maybe more than the average human being. Uh, I do a lot of thinking out loud. I do a lot of um, I mean, this is kind of embarrassing, but I'll I'll go ahead and throw it out there because that's just how we roll. I mean, I just um uh I just gave you know a speech or whatever at my oldest daughter's wedding, uh, gave the uh a toast on the wedding day. Um everyone else had done the the rehearsal dinner toast. And so uh I did a welcome and kind of a little thing and told a few stories. And I I, you know, I don't write down what I'm gonna talk about. I either do, if I'm doing a presentation, I either do object type slides to kind of trigger what I'm gonna talk about, or this is the embarrassing part, as I'm driving along by myself, I actually give the speech, right? Like I actually talk about what I'm gonna talk about out loud. And uh on the day of the wedding, I had to pick up a lot of things. And I was about three hours back and forth all over the place, and I gave my welcome speech toast in the car like three times before I actually gave it in front of people. Um, very helpful, by the way. If you want a tip on how to speak in public better, uh speak privately with yourself for a while, and you know, you'll be amazed at what that does for you. But um, you know, I do a lot of thinking out loud, and unfortunately for Julie, she has to hear it a lot. And so I don't know if I go with the she doesn't listen to everything.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I think what she was saying is she doesn't sit down and listen to the podcast weekly as it comes out, she doesn't go to YouTube and watch it, she doesn't go necessarily to um to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. But to me, the point she was making is yes, we can get on the podcast and we talk about the perfect world and we talk about this is what an agency should do or not do, or don't um don't chase the shiny object. But we still do those things, right? I mean, a lot of times when we're saying do this, don't do this, it's because we've done that recently, or we've thought about doing that recently, or we've made a mistake that we've made for the fourth or fifth time. Um, we don't live in a perfect world uh just because we know we know what to do, we don't always do it.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

So I mean, I don't know what agency y'all are running, but I mean, I think we're running a pretty perfect agency when it's all said and done. Sarcasm intended. Um no, that's right. Like we do talk a lot from the place of mistakes. Like we, I mean, that's really all we talk about. Like, you know, why is this why is this way better or why is this way of doing things better? Well, because we tried it 16 other ways and failed. Um, and and it's not that we're just talking about it from a our personal opinion standpoint, right? We're a lot of times we're talking about it from trial and error. Most of the time we're talking about it from trial and error. And so, yeah, I think she's I think you're right about your interpretation of what Julie means. And um, you know, it doesn't always play out perfectly in the real world. Uh, we do talk a lot about some concepts, and then we go and apply those concepts, and the concepts don't work, and we come back and say, Yeah, that was not a good idea. We'll do it a different way. Let's talk about a better way to do that. And so that's very much a reality. And I think listeners should know that. Like listeners need to understand that I think agents a lot of times are are too focused on trying to find the perfect solution. And a lot of times the perfect solution doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I think sometimes trying to find the perfect solution creates that perfection paralysis that uh that Shane absolutely loves talking about. Um, but it it's almost like it gives us that that way of saying, well, if I would have done it, if I could have waited and figured this out and done it this way, then it would have been better.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for you, you have to try something. You cannot just be stagnant and let things continue to ride and kind of rest on, well, the the solution will present itself eventually. We we do that sometimes, like Shane. I know we've had conversations where we've been like, you know, let's just wait this one out, and you know, eventually the right answer presents itself, and that doesn't happen from time to time, for sure. But sometimes you have to try something, and I think the most important part is try something and then have a strategy in place for either outcome, a strategy for if it works, and a strategy for if it does not work, and then go from there.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Shane, what do you think is our percentage of work sources doesn't work, she doesn't work when we put things in place.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Whose idea was it originally? Yeah. Um, yeah, my ideas always work somehow. I don't know. Um we force them, we force those square pegs into the round hole, right? Because Shane came up with it. Uh we know that's not true. We know that's not true. Um, you know, I I don't I I would guess no more than 50-50. Um, it's probably more like a batting average. You know, we probably fail more than we succeed uh over the if you go back over the the course of of time, especially within our partner network environment, trying to get the right model. I'm going back to you know all the different models we've tried until we landed. And then, and then the really frustrating part is forgetting. Like that's kind of my new thing. Like we've it's really easy to forget. This is kind of an insurance industry thing. Maybe it's just a business thing, but we forget something that something didn't work, and then we polish it up, maybe even rename it, rebrand it, and then we put it back out there again, thinking we're gonna get a different result, and then it doesn't work again. And um, some of that is a little bit wrapped in my leadership style to always want to maybe see if maybe I missed something, maybe someone else will come up with a better way of doing it, and maybe I missed it. So uh I can come in like with the wrecking ball, so to speak, on it and go, that's not gonna work, that doesn't work, we're not touching that, don't do it, etc. You know, all of that. And then everybody's like, oh, okay. And it doesn't feel good when you are sitting there telling your leadership team constantly that doesn't work, right? I should probably do more of that, really, in hindsight, because I do have 31 years experience in this industry, and we have failed a lot, and I have created a lot of that failure. Now, that is called experience, and we should probably do a little bit more. I should probably do a little bit more of, yeah, we did that before, that doesn't work. Um realistically, on take twos, yeah, we're not hitting much over 200. No, on take twos, we're definitely below uh the Mendoza line on the batting average side. So, you know, I think I think there's a little bit of learning there from my own, you know, learning leadership style-wise. But then there's always that chance too that somebody's gonna revitalize something that we did try before, but it's got a little bit of a difference to it. And maybe it maybe it did work this next time, right? Like we've kind of got a few of those, you know, hanging around uh as well. And so most of it's through learning, uh, through failure, learning through failure. And you just want to get better, so you it it costs a lot to fail, right? Like, and you have to be okay with it. Um, but it it the goal obviously should be better and better at the failure, right? We should not continue to fail at the same things multiple times. I think that's kind of where we find ourselves sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

When you say it cost a lot to fail, you're talking about more than financially, right? I mean, finances are one thing, but when you look at the emotional cost of failure and the time costs, which is the only thing we can't buy, right? Uh, there's so many layers to that failure.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Yeah, there it's definitely more than financial. I mean, there's there's I think maybe sometimes the financial is the late least expensive thing. Like you invest X number of dollars, it doesn't work, you've got a finite number, okay, on that. Like, you know, I'm just gonna pick a number. You you invest $30,000 on a campaign, a marketing campaign or something like that, and you decide it doesn't work, and you pull the plug, that's $30,000 gone, right? But you know what it is, like you know how much that is. Uh, some of the things that you do take so long, you know, on the failure side, might take so long to unwind and redo that you may have a reputation failure, right? Like you may have personnel failure, reputation failure. Those are those are bigger, like those are more expensive, you know, to me. Um the bigger you get, um it's also harder, it's more expensive to fail, really. You know, that you know, it was a whole lot less expensive to fail when we had three people or four people. Um, we could just say, hey, that's not working, let's go over here. You know, now, you know, you a lot more people, 10, 12 times the number of people. Uh, you know, the agency network isn't 30 anymore, you know, it's 140 and and growing. And so now you do something that affects 140 agents and all of their people and all your internal people, well, then it's just a lot. So I tend to spend a whole lot more time thinking about what's the down, you know, what's the risk here, right? Like what's the downside risk? And uh it can cause you to to be a little bit paralyzed in your thinking. Um, because you just you don't want to get that wrong if you can help it. Still do. We still do. Let me be clear, but you just try not to, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Well, that's the super interesting part about this topic to me, is you want to mitigate failure, of course, but you are never going to get away from failure. Like I got a quote up here on the wall from Babe Ruth never let the fear of striking out get in your way. You are going to fail. There will be failures. It's the recovery, right? It's how quick you get out of it. You cannot go in thinking I'm going to do everything perfectly right on the first try, and I'm going to succeed, and there's just going to be no bumps in the road. That's crazy talk.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Yeah, I mean, baseball's, I we lean on baseball a lot with the failure talk. And I mean, I there's countless numbers of examples of 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, 0 for 4 with four strikeouts. But you come up in the tied ball game and extra innings in the 10th and and have a chance to win the game on a walk-off. And we've seen that happen. Like the mental toughness to be 0 for 3, 0 for 4, not even really touching the ball, and then getting the hit in the bottom of the ninth to walk off and win the game, the mental toughness to do that is incredible. I mean, really, really incredible. And that is the mental toughness that I think business owners, agency owners should be striving for, which is what Mike's talking about. It's the recovery period. Can you recover in the game? Like making in-game adjustments, making adjustments within the at-bat, swing to swing or pitch to pitch. You know, what does the equivalent of that look like within your agency? That's that's where I want agency owners to think, right? That's where I want them to go with their mindset around failure. And that's just something that has always been our approach.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

So let me ask you this when we're when we're talking about sole proprietors or you know, someone who has a single employee, two employees, but they they're certainly decision-making on their own. Like, how do you feel about the unilateral decision-making process? Because to me, one of the great advantages of being part of a group is that there's other people in your same position that you can kind of lean on a little bit and talk through things. But what about that person that's just you know, sole proprietor and I gotta make these decisions? Who do I talk to?

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Yeah. Um, so it's a vacuum and it's very lonely. And yeah, I think the the thing about being in a group is a great thing, you know, an agency network, you know, peer group. I think there's also, though, a way to spin swing that too far. Um I think a smaller circle is important because making that making that that decision by yourself is hard and you're in a vacuum and you don't have that thinking out loud group unless it's your spouse. Um, but it's nice to have some of that going on. But then if you let that circle get too big and you start asking instead of two or three people, you start asking 15 to 20 people what you should do. Well, a surefire way to confuse yourself is to ask more people, right? Like that is also something. So it's somewhere in that middle ground, uh, where as agency owners, it's really hard for us to be disciplined. Because really, once you get past about two or three people, now you're just wanting other people to make the decision for you. Like you're just trying to, you're trying to transfer decision making to someone else. And you're just really trying to get validation. You don't really want to know what what people think, you want validation for this the decision that you really want to make. Well, just go ahead and make it right. Like take the risk, right? Like go.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

So Tanya's life tip number five is advice is what you ask for when you already know the answer, but wish you didn't. Because if you think about it, if you feel really good about something, you're probably gonna do it. And if you're on the fence there and you think you should do it, or you think you want to do it, or it's something that you're wanting to do, but you know you shouldn't do it, that's when you really start asking for advice. And I think like Shane said, at the point that you've talked to more than two or three people, at the point that you get that person that says, Yeah, that's a fantastic idea, then you're gonna grab a hold of that, even when your closest mentors have said, you know, don't do it, or ask you why you're wanting to do it, or and and to me, that's the key is when people start telling you what to do, you're gonna grab a hold of that, but it also gives your mind this thing of, well, if it fails, well, then I can blame them because I really didn't listen to myself. And we try to find these internal excuses before we do things. So find that person that if you're trying to figure out if you should do something or not do something, have somebody poke holes and ask questions. And when you could find somebody that will ask you questions instead of giving their hand, that's really going to give you the answers that you need.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, that's a good point. Don't go looking for someone that's just going to give you the answer you're looking for. If that's what you're doing, you're just wasting your turn and the time of those people. Don't don't do that.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Yeah. A lot of people have a hard time being honest with themselves on that, right? And um, you know, we I we used to have a uh a CSR, we call them account managers now, but and uh they they were really good, but they had zero confidence, and we worked on that confidence for a long time. They every time they had a decision to make on something, they would bring it to someone else. They would bring it to a supervisor, they would maybe even bring it to me. This this goes back 20 years ago. And what we all figured out was that this CSR just didn't want to be responsible, to Tanya's point. Like she wanted to be able to say, Well, Shane told me it was okay. Well, you know, Holly said it was okay, or Tara said it was okay. Um, so she was really just trying to transfer the responsibility of the decision onto someone else. And we had to sit that person down and say, Hey, this is not how we're gonna do business. And a lot of times we get into that that trap too, right? Um, as business owners. More times than not, though, it is about validation. And uh it's hard. Like you want your idea to work because it's your idea and you came up with it, and you're the risk taker. And when somebody starts poking holes in it, you don't love it. Like it's really hard to take that. There's an ego hit there, yes. There is, and there's a time it's hard to take that feedback, right? Now, sometimes that feedback is also wrong. And in your gut, you know what you want to do, you're going to do it anyway, to Tanya's point. Well, that's why you get the return because you you get the chance to take that that risk and make that decision. Uh, and I think both of both of those things are okay. And I've been on both sides of that coin multiple times. Um, I've tried to transfer, not necessarily transfer the responsibility, but try to get the validation. Uh, I've also gotten feedback that I didn't necessarily think was was accurate or good because I didn't think the person had enough information to give me the feedback that they were giving me. And I decided not to take that feedback and apply it. That's okay too, right? Like both both of those things are okay, in my opinion. Uh, and so I think that's just being an agency owner, right? I think that's just part of what it looks like. Uh it it's it's very lonely at times, um, back to the agency network, uh, having a peer group to talk to. I just caution you to not make that too big of a peer group, right? Like we have we have an agency consultant environment, we have uh a you know a single mentor environment. Doesn't mean that you can't get another opinion or two or another person that you build a relationship with that kind of understands your business, but you know, we don't give our agents um, you know, two or three agency consultants, we give them one, right? We give them one a consultant that aligns with them. Um, if it goes beyond that consultant, you're kind of getting into our leadership group, uh, which is not gonna get you to more than one or two people, including myself. And so just thinking about how that works, we're limiting that in practice for that same purpose because we've recognized that 15 different opinions is not gonna lead you anywhere good.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah. What Shane is saying is don't go on X and say, This is what I'm thinking about doing. Yes, no, leave comments below.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

Yeah. Get off, stay off of social media with that, with major decisions for sure.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yes, or or you know, talk about X, talk about Insta. Or what I've seen is when people go into uh groups, massive, massive groups, uh insurance groups, and they'll say, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? Well, you may be getting an opinion from someone in California and you're in Arkansas, or someone in New York and you're in Mississippi, or somebody that lives in a major metro market and you're in a suburban market somewhere in Louisiana, right outside of New Orleans. So when you're putting things out there, make sure that the people that you're talking with align with where you are in your business and align with where you are geographically. Because yes, there are things about all of our agencies that are similar. We sell similar products, we uh we have similar carrier offerings, but there are external, there are external things that causes those answers to be different. And just because it worked for someone else five years ago doesn't mean it's gonna work for you now.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, don't get your coastal insurance advice from someone in South Dakota. Very tip of the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Yeah, I you know, this is kind of a little bit different, but um it it kind of falls into this to me. I I saw a a post, you know, marketing post um the other day from an agent that is in another organization. Um, and you know, I think because that agent is in a big franchise organization, um, maybe there's a little bit of, well, you know, is that is that agent trained? You know, you kind of have this thing going on out there in the marketplace, like some of the franchise organizations, um, sell, sell, sell, no servicing, you know, don't be risk managers. Um, there's a lot of things that are going on there. And then you have the the old school true blue independent agency, and let's call them the blue bloods, you know, so to speak. And they're not even in a network at all, maybe, or or are they in a network that's just maybe maybe just for profit sharing purposes only. Uh, and and there's There's actually friction out there in the marketplace right now between those types of differences within within agent the agent spectrum. And I I was uh I was I was noticing this particular agent put out a post about the cost, the real cost of uh roadside assistance and uh buying roadside assistance through your insurance company and you know, versus just paying for the tow, right? Not having roadside assistance. In other words, uh so he was actually pushing this as a way to save money uh long term, which I thought was actually pretty smart of him from a marketing standpoint to the consumer, uh to his customer base or prospect base. I felt like it was a really good educational post that kind of I'm just sitting here going, yeah, that that would raise your notch within your consumer base. Like I was impressed, all right. I was impressed by the post. So I noticed it had a lot of comments, and so I went in and I looked at the comments. Um, it was nothing but other insurance agents bashing his post. A lot of rage baby, right? And I was kind of disgusted, like, you know, this is why people don't, you know, put themselves out there. This was a this happened to be a young guy, uh, probably hasn't been in the industry that long, a few couple of years maybe, um, that wants to be in the insurance business, which we need in our industry. And he put himself out there and I thought he made a great post. And uh I sent him a message and said, Hey, you know, don't quit putting yourself out there, right? Because um the reality of it is is that those individuals they're just opinions, right? They're just a bunch of different people's opinions, and really it doesn't matter because they're not your customers. Number one, they're your competitors. I I don't even know that I'd even call them your peer, right? Because some of the people making the comments were all over the place, right? And just different parts of the industry. And I just thought it was unfortunate. And um I think it this is it's it's a little bit different than the thing we've been talking about, but it kind of is the same. Like if this particular agent allows this situation, the fact that he's getting blasted on his own post, um, if he allows that to stop him from doing what he's doing and carrying on, then that'll be a shame and that'll be unfortunate for his for his customer base, for his consumer target. Uh, and it'll be unfortunate for his agency. And so that's also kind of that vacuum that you live in. Sometimes as an agency owner, you gotta, you gotta sh you gotta just ignore the noise. You gotta just say, that doesn't matter, right? Um, I don't care what those people are saying.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yeah, the the Hoosman brothers that was that were one of the very first Integra partner uh partner network agents, that's very much what they did, right? They came out of a world where insurance looked very different than what they wanted to do. And who would have ever thought that uh using a milk truck for insurance advertising would would turn into what their agency has turned into, right? And that's one of the things that they do really well is they didn't put ideas out there and say, hey, this is what we want to do. What do you think about it? And asked 50 different people, they quietly did it and it grew.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Yeah, the the reality that agents need to hear is that you know, the fear of being ridiculed by your peers is probably what prevents people from really doing the thing that they really, really want to do, right? And that might even be like leaving the captive system and going independent. Like that could be that could be the same type of thing. Oh, I can't believe you're gonna do that. Like I that you know how risky that is. That's crazy. Um, it's not risky, number one. Uh, but the just ridicule by peer pressure fear, the fear of that keeps a lot of agents from being set successful in a lot of different ideas that they have. And I I think that's un that's terrible, number one. It's unfortunate because there is no perfect one-way, just like we started this thing. You know, it's not a perfect world. There's not just one way to do this. Uh, there's a lot of different ways to be successful in the independent agency space. And the first thing you gotta let go of is worrying about what your peers think about you, or worrying about what the people that you don't target, you're not, you know, and you're not targeting other agencies unless you're like us and you know, trying to grow an agency network. You're targeting customers, consumers. Tanya and I talk about this all the time. Um they don't know insurance, like they don't, they don't know any different, right? They don't know if you're right or wrong. They don't, they're not gonna ridicule you. Um it's no different than you know somebody wants to explain quantum physics to me. They can say whatever they want, and I'm okay, sounds good, because I have no idea. You know, I mean, insurance is is not that far off of that and to a lot of people, and it's very confusing and it's very legal ease, and you know, um, I'm not saying just put anything out there, I'm saying the stuff you're going to put out there is good enough. All right. It's going to be good enough because you're the licensed expert and you're not going to put bad stuff out there. And so forget about what your peers are going to nitpick and just go do it.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

I'm going to leave us today with this quote from Nick Saban. The greatest mistake is trying to win someone else's game. Champions know their strengths, trust their training, and run their own race.

SPEAKER_03 50:49

Attitudes of choice. Make a great y'all.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

At the Integra Partner Network, we understand that carrier access is the key to your agency's success. That's why Integra offers direct access to top-rated personal and commercial carriers, ensuring your agency thrives in today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing, and bonus opportunities, technology, and peer support, all of you retain 100% of your books with no families to exit. Integra is ready to empower you and your agency to find sustained growth. Find your way to Integra. Visit IntegraPartner Network.com today. That's IntegraPartner Network.com.