Ep. 92: Build a Business, Not a Job: Lessons from Brian Calvert

Episode Links:

LinkedIn: Brian Calvert - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-calvert-31aa3a49/

Website: Business Health Market - https://businesshealthmarket.com/

Book Mentioned: Quit by Annie Duke - https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Knowing-When-Walk/dp/0593422996

Summary:

In this episode of The Corvus Effect, I sit down with Brian Calvert, owner of Business Health Market, who discovered his true calling through disruption. After 20 years managing shopping centers across New York and Massachusetts, Brian pivoted to health insurance brokerage when the Amazon effect reduced Buffalo's malls from five to two. He now leads a team of over 20 agents nationwide and freely admits he's a better manager than a salesperson, which allows him to run a business rather than have a job.

Brian shares his three-phase approach to building a business from day one, his philosophy of treating clients like family in a transactional industry, and the three critical questions he asks anyone considering a career pivot. He also opens up about watching his son go from horrible first-year golfer to number one in high school, and how that challenged his own assumptions about the path to success.

Chapters:

00:32 Guest Introduction

02:24 Seeing the Amazon Effect Coming

04:18 Helping Mom and Pop Businesses

06:01 Build a Business, Not a Job

07:56 Sales Through Empathy

11:15 Balancing Empathy and Tough Love

19:47 Redefining Success

23:00 Three Questions Before You Pivot

27:09 Growth Through Acquisition

Transcript

Intro

Scott Raven: Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we explore what it takes to succeed professionally and truly enhance all parts of your life. I'm Scott Raven, Fractional COO and your host. Each episode we go behind the scenes with leaders who've mastered the delicate harmony of growing their professional endeavors while protecting what matters most. Ready to transform from Chief Everything Officer to achieving integration in all facets of your life? Let's soar!

Guest Introduction

Scott Raven: And hello everyone. Welcome back to The Corvus Effect. I'm Scott. Today I am joined by Brian Calvert, owner of Business Health Market, and he discovered his true calling through disruption.

After spending 20 years managing shopping centers across New York and Massachusetts, he took to entrepreneurship when the Amazon effect helped reduce Buffalo's malls from five down to two. He jumped into health insurance brokerage in 2017 and in 2024 made the strategic acquisition of Business Health Market, strengthening his position in the space.

He now leads a team of over 20 agents nationwide and freely admits that he is a better manager than a salesperson, and that allows him to play to his strengths and run a business, not have a job. He understands that his passion isn't closing deals. It's watching his first agent buy two houses and have a baby with the environment that he helped create.

So Brian, welcome to the podcast, man.

Brian Calvert: Thanks for having me.

Scott Raven: Absolutely. And let's just dig right in here, right? As I said, you had a very long career being in the shopping center management space. And then this little company called Amazon came along. I heard they did books back in the day, and then they decided to kind of get big.

But take me back to that moment when you realized that Amazon was going to have a significant impact on your industry and that you needed to adapt and change with it. What were you thinking?

Seeing the Amazon Effect Coming

Brian Calvert: You know, to be honest, what I was thinking was I saw it coming from far ahead, to be honest with you. And what I was really thinking was, boy, I think I have an opportunity here to do something different. I had already been an entrepreneur by heart, so I think I took it not as an "oh my gosh" moment. I took it as an "all right, now's the time for me to maybe do something else with my career and pivot to something new."

So I kind of saw it coming, to be honest with you, and I was ready for it. It took quite a few years of planning and timing to get it right, to be honest.

Scott Raven: Yeah. I can imagine in the Buffalo area, and particularly the smaller cities that are more along that US-Canadian border, that the impact was significant in terms of going from five malls down to two and the collapse to the local economy and to the people was very significant for the area.

Brian Calvert: Absolutely. The people that I dealt with mostly in my job, other than the big national stores because they could handle their own, were all local mom and pop stores that relied on local people to come into the mall and shop. And they just didn't have to anymore. People were comfortable at home and just ordering it right to their house.

And even the national retailers, they used to have say five stores in each mall, right? One each mall would have a store. And now they didn't need it. They could go into one store, try it on, and then have it shipped to their house later. And once that started taking effect, it became pretty profound, pretty quickly.

Scott Raven: We mentioned it at the top that your true passion is being able to build people through the environments that you create. And part of this before we get into your pivot was, as you said, the mom and pop entrepreneurs who use the malls as the vehicle and the catalyst for what they wanted to build up to be.

I can presume that you have a lot of good stories in terms of those people back before the Amazon effect in terms of how you were able to assist them.

Helping Mom and Pop Businesses

Brian Calvert: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I loved most about my job was when those small companies came to me and they wanted to lease a space, but they didn't even know how to start. They didn't know how to get a business license. They didn't know how to even have a business plan or how to source out some things.

And I really spent a lot of time with them to do that, to spend some good quality time trying to help them build their business. And I really enjoyed that. And sometimes I probably spent, to be honest, a little too much time doing that. But the other big companies in the world were okay without me, so I was able to do that.

Scott Raven: Absolutely. So you have this wonderful legacy that you've built up through the mall scene that is now under threat and you realize that what got you to where you were is not going to get you further. What led you to think about the health insurance area as where to pivot?

Brian Calvert: Well, I had a really good friend, a high school friend who was already in the business and he had told me about what he was doing. And I just thought being able to work for myself and help people, help agents come under me and grow, the whole thing just was very attractive to me.

There's a little risk, of course, like any self-employed person when they own their own business, but I wasn't afraid of the risk. I just saw it as an opportunity to help people grow and myself as well, of course. It was really attractive to me.

Scott Raven: Entrepreneurship will definitely help you grow in many respects. But one thing that I'm fond of saying is if you're going to go into entrepreneurship, your goal is to build a business. It is not to build a job for yourself. So how, from your prior experience, did you approach it in terms of I am building myself a business, I am not building myself a new job and staying as a solopreneur?

Build a Business, Not a Job

Brian Calvert: Right. So from the very beginning, I took the invested funds I had available to me and went straight for growth acquisition, which was hiring agents to work under me, helping them grow so that I have residual income, right? Because it's not just about me selling, it's about other people selling as well, and showing them that they can come down that same path with me as well.

So that was from the very beginning. It was very strategic and I always sort of compartmentalize how I would grow. First, I would sell myself to make sure I build my book of business, learn the business, and show people how it's done. Second would be to bring people on, help them grow within the business, and help show them how it's done.

And the third would be, how do I grow after that? You can grow by getting clients or you can grow by acquisition, which is one of the paths I took that we're here to talk about.

Scott Raven: Yes, absolutely. Now, before we get there, like you said, you don't fancy yourself as a salesperson, or at least you say that you're a better manager than a salesperson, but you chose to go into an industry which is a heavily sales-driven industry. And like you just mentioned, you had to do it yourself first.

That must have been a very scary experience, at least at the jump.

Brian Calvert: It was definitely interesting going from a corporate world to being a salesperson again and relying on yourself, but it was great. I absolutely loved it. It taught me a lot. It taught me about the way I wanted to approach sales, which we talked about briefly previously, but I approach sales differently than many salespeople do.

I take it from a caring and an empathy side, which is not something you hear a lot of in certain sales industries, right? They just want to sell you and move on. Where we really want to push that. We listen to your client and care about them, and that sort of leads the golden path for us down the sales path.

Scott Raven: Yeah, particularly when you're talking about insurance markets in general, right? The perception, right, wrong, or indifferent, is that it's a very transactional space and can be a little bit commoditized. So how do you bring a sense of warm relationships into a space that can be sometimes lacking?

Sales Through Empathy

Brian Calvert: It definitely can be lacking. And it's interesting because it is transactional, but at the same time you have to ask very personal questions. Health questions, talk about things in their life that maybe they don't want to talk about. So it's really challenging and I've always taken the path, and I've taught my staff to do this, that we're going to give advice and treat people like they're family.

Like it's my mother, my brother, or my father. If I can't give the same advice to my client that I would give to them, then I'm not doing my job, in my opinion. And that's always been how we structured it within my group.

Scott Raven: So now let's get into the team building area. Like you said, you've been able to build up to a team of 20 plus agents and one of the biggest elements is being able to find and attract the right people which fit the personality that you want for your business entity. What do you feel have been the things that have allowed you to do that over these years?

Brian Calvert: Well, there's definitely a little bit of luck, there's no doubt about that. Trying to find the right—

Scott Raven: Oh, always. Always a little bit.

Brian Calvert: Yeah, there's a little bit of luck, but I've always asked very strategic questions when I meet someone. And one of the things I've always asked people is I want them to tell me what their definition of success is, where they fall in the world of what they want. And it's very different when you ask these questions.

I'm going to be honest, a young guy wants a Ferrari and a middle-aged person wants a lakehouse and an older person wants security for his grandkids, right? Depending on where they are.

But I think it's really important that we don't put someone in a hole in regards to their success and how they define it. My goal is to see what they want and help them get there. And if that Ferrari is what they want, hey, it's not for me, but I'm glad to see them drive off if they get there.

So that's kind of how I've always structured my hiring practices when trying to find agents. I mean, other than personalities and those sort of things that come into play, of course. But that's always been my number one question I ask people when we first talk.

Scott Raven: Now you carry this forward, not just to the team that you have directly working for you, but in many respects the clients that you're working with. As you have a large part of your business of businesses with 50 or less employees, do you seek that in terms of the business clients that you work with?

It's more than just the "hey, here are the packages and whatnot that we can now put together," but I want to understand how you are helping your employees achieve what they want to achieve.

Brian Calvert: 100%. I take a path with my clients, especially group clients like you mentioned, or small employers where I don't want to just sell them insurance. I want them to see what their goal is, what their hiring practices are, how many employees they want to build upon, what the struggles have been to keep employees.

Because benefits is definitely a question that employees have when they're being hired. So I really want to see the vision that they have and where they're going and how I can help them get there. Because if we're partners, we're going to do it together. And that sounds corny, but the truth is that's what small businesses need. They absolutely need it. There's no question.

Scott Raven: They do. They do. Now, one of the things which a lot of people gravitate to in terms of small business is that empathy has got a better place in its architecture versus large environments. But empathy can be a double-edged sword, right? Too much empathy can also be problematic. How do you balance in terms of the use of empathy effectively for your business?

Balancing Empathy and Tough Love

Brian Calvert: Well, you're right. It is a double-edged sword and I tend to just go with my gut feeling and sort of lead down that path when I have conversations with people. We all have soft spots. I tend to have soft spots when it comes to children and things like that.

Scott Raven: Right, right, right.

Brian Calvert: But I think just, obviously, it's just that true gut feeling on where you think the line is crossed. But from a manager perspective, you just have to know, learning your personalities and understanding what their stressors are in life is really important because my stress is not the same as someone else's stress.

And if you recognize that, even when I was in the mall business, it was very important to kind of just sort of see what was out there. And I've always stressed to people, work at your own pace and just get it done. That's always been my golden rule. As long as you're getting the work done and if you need to spend time with your family because that's important too, do it. Because you're not going to get that time back.

Scott Raven: Got it. I know that's a big part of your leadership methodology. You colloquially hope to be the best boss that somebody ever had. When they say that, and another person were to ask why, why was he the best boss? What do you hope your staff would say about you?

Brian Calvert: That I cared and that I understood that life isn't just black and white because it's just not. And that's basically it. There's value in being able to have flexibility for your family. There's value in chatting with your employees at the water cooler. There's value in being left to make decisions within your department so that you feel compelled to be a part of the team and not just told what to do.

And if you can stick to those, probably those three core principles, I think most employees are really happy to work for you. I mean, there's always an outlier, right? But certainly that's guided me. And I have been told by one specific person, I was the best boss he ever had, and that was a wonderful moment that I was able to share with him. And he worked for a lot of different companies, so.

Scott Raven: Obviously now, one of the big things that we have as a six dimensions of liberation within Corvus is time sovereignty. The ability to control your schedule and not feel like you're moving towards burnout, regardless of industry, regardless of size. These days, a lot of people are experiencing feelings of burnout and exhaustion, and you would be the first to tell them your downtime matters as well.

The ability to recuperate is critically important to long-term sustainability.

Brian Calvert: Absolutely. There's no question about it. And in my industry specifically, maybe you know this, right now we're in the middle of open enrollment and we're plugging along with 10, 12 hour days because we're trying to get to everyone and listen to everyone and not rush them off the phone. So it's very hard.

And even myself, I find myself struggling with that time management right now. But we know it's a couple months so we can manage it, but it's just something that we have to remind ourselves. And I keep reminding my agents every day that, you know, take that time. Sometimes I'll sit down and I'll look up and it's four hours later and I can't believe it. We've all been there. I think so.

Scott Raven: Now a lot of people have struggles when it comes to this. When they are in the throes of an extended battle or extended time period where they are going to have to work harder, where there isn't as much flexibility to get that recovery. What are some specific techniques that you incorporate to make sure that you are gaining that recovery back, even though you realize this is a high effort period in your industry?

Brian Calvert: Right. So I specifically work with my agents to do some time blocking, which is really important. Do some time blocking. So they set the schedule for the day, that they have key markers to move on with, and then build a plan from there. But in the short-term specifics, I tell them, make sure you build in lunch.

Make sure you build in a 15-minute window between certain appointments to cool down and take some notes so that way you can move on to the next. So in the long term, the goal is where do you want to be and how many sales do you need to get, and how many top people do you need to talk to, and all those things like that to get them to the long-term goal.

So we have two specific ways to chat about it, short term and long term. Right now we're in the throes of the short term with open enrollment.

Scott Raven: Right. Exactly. Now as we think about that long term, and specifically the people who have been blessed enough to work for you, one of the other things that you try to push them is to move beyond "I am only a byproduct of my efforts." They get to a certain level of success and they feel like they can't go any harder. How do you get them to realize where do you need to bring extra help in, in order to grow further than what you already are?

Brian Calvert: Right. Yeah. I've had specific conversations with agents that when they get to that point and they're just too successful, it's time to hire an assistant. And they've sometimes looked at me like I was crazy. Like, what do you mean an assistant? I'm like, well, you're at that point if you want to continue to grow and service your clients. You need someone to help you service those clients.

And it's an interesting conversation because it's scary for them to hire someone and be responsible for staff and suddenly be a manager that has people that need to take care of like I have. But at the same time, I have to show them this is what you're going to need to do if you want to be able to keep growing.

But sometimes people say to me, I don't want to do that. I'm happy where I'm at, and that's okay. Happy where you're at. It's a good thing.

Scott Raven: Now those people who do decide to go that path, another thing that they have to overcome is that the actions which gave them a little bit of intrinsic self-worth, if you will, because it was direct action which contributed to their success. Now they don't have that action or they're trying to let go of that action, which every entrepreneur will tell you, it's easier said than done at the end of the day. How do you aid them in terms of that ability to let go?

Brian Calvert: Well, yeah, that is a challenge. Many of them want to control everything. An entrepreneur has had no choice but to do that often in the beginning, right? So I try to sit them down and really just talk about the items that we know can be done by other people and let them know that it gets harder before it gets better, right?

You've got to train that person. You've got to get them into place. But once you get there and they're in the groove and they're doing the things that you ask them, it moves along. So for me, it's just within our industry, we have specific things that we know can be done by other people, and I just make sure they understand those are the things.

But also in a world of health insurance, we have HIPAA compliance and things like that, they also have to know what can't be done by other people. So it's a little bit of a challenge, but I love doing it. I love helping people grow. I love seeing them succeed beyond me and that's great. I really enjoy that.

Scott Raven: Right. Now, one of the biggest things that I think you impart in terms of the way that you build up the people that you work with is the bevy of leadership lessons that you have learned along the way. What is the biggest leadership lesson that you try to impart on your team?

Brian Calvert: Well, from a personal level, I just try to tell people not to take life so seriously and really do some of those things that are important to you. But from the leadership side, specifically in the job, it's just you have to listen. You have to listen to your employees, and you have to listen to your clients the same way.

Because if you do, you'll hear the things that are their pain points and you can try to help resolve them. You can't always, but you can try. And that's really the two things that I would say would be most important.

Scott Raven: Now part of listening, you would tell us, is laying your preconceived notions at the door and not going in with your own self biases towards the conversations or the perceptions of what should or should not be done.

Brian Calvert: Absolutely, and that goes back to just listening to what people have to say and knowing that their path forward is not the same path as you. Certain people just have certain things they want and that's okay. You just gotta, like you said, not put your own biases on that.

It can be a challenge, I'm not going to lie. Especially as we get older, I feel like all of us tend to be stuck in our ways. So that can be a challenge, but quite frankly, the younger people that see some of the more seasoned salespeople that are really successful, they're a little easier to push because they see this thing that they think is not achievable.

But once they start to taste a little bit of that success, it very quickly escalates. Someone that comes to me that's been in the sales industry for 20 years, they have their own preconceived notions about what they think is right, and it's maybe a little more challenging at times.

Scott Raven: Yes, yes, yes. How often do you find yourself struggling between what you wish you could have told your younger self in terms of the definition of success versus what you're hearing from your younger employees in terms of what they believe is their definition of success?

Redefining Success

Brian Calvert: Well, that's a funny question. So for me, I don't necessarily say I struggle, but I'm one of those types that plans everything out and plans ahead down to a T, and that's what made me a great manager. But when I see someone come in that's just like, "Hey, I made 10 grand last month. I'm going to Hawaii for four weeks." I'm like, it blows my mind. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? You just made all this money. You're going to spend it?

But then again, I wish I had done some of that more. So I don't want to say I struggle with it, but I definitely sometimes I'm just like, wow, I wish I had a little bit of that in me, you know, sometimes that little bit of "let it go" type situation.

Kind of like when you watch a comedian on TV, like I say, a Will Ferrell, and you think, I wish I had that sense of "I don't care." Like it's not built into me. But some people have it, some people don't, right?

Scott Raven: Right, right, right. You actually had an experience of this firsthand within your own household, regarding your son who was being a baseball catcher, right. And then the world shut down with COVID and he changed directions in terms of becoming a golfer and is now striving for a professional golfer, which I assume that you looking at this back during the day is like, why are you doing this? You just invested all of this time in order to play baseball and you're doing what? Why?

Brian Calvert: Absolutely. It was really interesting. As you mentioned, during COVID the world shut down, so there's very few sports in high school that they allowed to do. So he decided to pick up golf and he had never picked up a golf club and assumed that he would be good at it. And he was horrible the first year, but he worked hard.

And he ended up being the number one golfer in his high school. And like you mentioned, he's now working in the PGA affiliate program to become a course pro, not a tour pro, but a course pro. And it broke a lot of, not misconceptions, but a lot of the thoughts that I had about what the path you should take, that we were ingrained with at our age.

You know, you go to high school, you finish high school, you go to college, those things. Where he said, I don't want to go to college. I want to take this path. And right now he is down in Naples, Florida and he is working at a country club and enjoying his life. He's not incurring student loan debt, and he's on a path that he's really happy about. And even though he makes a little less money, he's really enjoying it. And it took me a minute to be like, wait a second. Maybe he's onto something here.

Scott Raven: That's a good thing.

Brian Calvert: Yeah. Right.

Scott Raven: I mean, there's the old parable of the businessman and the fisherman, right, which speaks exactly to that in terms of the fisherman being quite content with the life that he has. And as much as the businessman tries to get him to do different things, it always leads back to "I'll be right back at the life that I have."

And it's your own definition of content, and I want to use that in terms of describing this concept of pivoting because we've talked about your pivot, we've talked about your son's pivot, and the people who are coming to you and expressing an interest in pivoting what they do professionally.

How do you leverage your experience to get them to understand what a successful pivot looks like?

Three Questions Before You Pivot

Brian Calvert: Right. So that's a challenge and there's no doubt about it. The first thing that I want people to know is that it's not easy. When someone comes to me and says, "Oh, it's just, I'm just going to do this," it's never that easy. There's going to be some sleepless nights.

But the core is I tell people, are you mentally prepared to make this change? And it's going to be challenging. The second is that a lot of people don't think about, are you financially stable to make this investment, to ride out the storm? Because things don't just turn around in a month or two. And then third is, do you have a plan?

What's your plan? Whatever that plan is, we need to look at that plan together and figure it out. Because you can't just rely on me to give you business. People have to have a plan of how they're going to help grow themselves. And some people aren't cut out for it and they learn that quickly. But many people are, and those are the ones that certainly thrive down the road.

Scott Raven: Right. Well, this is where I'll go back to the fact that empathy can be a bit of a double-edged sword, right? I imagine somewhere along the way you may have to have a tough love conversation with people who crossed your path in terms of either you're not ready, you are not in the position to do so, maybe financially, or that you're just not committed enough in order to see this pivot through.

Brian Calvert: Yeah, I think most people are ready in their mind. But financially it's 50/50. But more of the hard conversations come from the commitment side. Coming from working for someone else and not having the—I don't want to say it's care because I don't think people don't care, but they don't feel it the way an owner would feel it, or an independent entrepreneur would feel it.

So that's usually the commitment side. And I have had those tough conversations and they usually go pretty well. I think people, to be honest with you, when they get to that point, they know. Like it's pretty clear, after a certain time, they just get that it maybe isn't the right path for them, but they may have lost some money or they might have set themselves back.

But I try to tell people, just like in sales, a no is as good as a yes. You know the path you're going, whether it's one direction or the other, at least you've made a decision about where you want to head, whether it's entrepreneurship or not.

Scott Raven: Yeah. There's a beautiful book on this concept called Quit by Annie Duke, who was a former professional poker player, right? And now has gotten into, amongst other things, business consulting and how to take life lessons from the poker table into real life. We often equate the word quit as a bad thing, that "never quit" mentality, for lack of a better term. But it sounds like you are of the opinion that it's the appropriate action when you are doing it with the right reasons and the right wisdom behind it.

Brian Calvert: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. Like I mentioned just a minute ago, in the sales world, a no is as good as a yes. The "I don't know" or "maybe" is limbo. So you just gotta make that decision with the information that's in front of you and take a path. And if that path changes, that's okay.

But go down that path with commitment until you get to that roadblock and then you decide how you want to move from there. And that's pretty common practice. I think I'm not making up new ideas here, but it's hard.

Scott Raven: But easier said than done.

It's easier said than done because people get so emotionally attached to the path that they are on, right? That they don't want to feel like they left it at the one yard line. Sometimes it is very hard to step back and make rational decisions on something that they've emotionally invested in.

Brian Calvert: Yeah, no doubt. Putting it into action is the challenging part. There's no question. And also, knowing your lane as you go through this journey is important, right? Too many people get into too many things, they spread themselves thin. I've very strategically stayed in my lane, specifically within my world, because I don't want to deviate and bring in too many distractors, so to speak.

Scott Raven: Yep. Absolutely. Now, let's talk about you and your mission forward, right? Because as you are building up this wonderful practice, all of these success stories that you've built up along the way, not just for yourself, but for your clients, the employees that have been working for you, what is your bigger mission that you want from all of this?

Growth Through Acquisition

Brian Calvert: Well, I mean, we all want to make a little more money to pay our bills. That's the easy path. But I've come to the point where I know that I need to grow through multiple channels, and one of them is through acquisition of other companies like I've done. The other one is just straight out hiring more agents, which we can do, because I want to build a team that gets bigger and bigger.

But also one of the things through acquisition that I've been doing is not just buying a book of business, but also looking at bringing on teams of people. So finding another agency that wants to pair up with me that already has a structure in place and just kind of helping them to mold it into a more profitable profit center, so to speak. So those are the three ways I'm kind of looking forward to grow.

Scott Raven: Right. When you talk about the due diligence behind an acquisition, and one of the biggest things I could surmise from your perspective is that you want to be able to feel comfortable that they will be able to adopt to this culture that you have created. How do you test for that?

Brian Calvert: Multiple conversations really is the only way to do it, especially if you're talking about merging with another agency that already has their ways. It's a lot easier when you're buying a book of business, you're just bringing on the clients and I can put them through me. It's a lot easier when I'm hiring an agent that I have, I can tell their personalities or those things.

But the challenge really is in those multiple conversations with another agency owner, if you want to merge together, to see if our personalities match. And sometimes you just don't know. You've got to wing it, right? Unfortunately.

Scott Raven: How often do you flip back and forth between allowing the culture to come to fruition, organically letting it happen, versus taking direct action, making it happen to get the culture to where you want it to be?

Brian Calvert: I'm more of the, let's take some action ahead of time to kind of nip it in the bud, to lay out the expectations of everyone in a kind way. So I'd probably say 75% of the time I'm going and taking action and 25% of the time I'm sort of letting it come to fruition. And even when it's coming to fruition, I would say that's after I've already put some action in place. But then it's sort of seeing how it goes from there.

Scott Raven: Right, right. Now, when you talk about the M&A space and you are, like you said, having to interface with somebody who has a business and maybe is looking for the exit, maybe whatever their life goal is, but they've also put a lot of emotional investment into what they have built up, and you have to get them to trust their baby, for lack of better term. How does that come across in terms of the discussions that you have, the prospective discussions that you have?

Brian Calvert: Well, that full circle is right back to the empathy side of those things. Those clients, a lot of them in this space, especially in say Medicare or some sort of space where you have clients that have been with you a long time, they want to make sure that those clients are taken care of by someone who cares and they will.

And I have seen people do a sale or an acquisition at a lower cost to someone that they liked better. So really it's just talking about what I feel, how I treat people in life. And if that works out, it does. I'm not one of these forceful acquisition people. I'm more of a "Hey, let's see, is this the right fit for everybody?" type acquisition.

Scott Raven: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that I have a lot of respect for you is you're not a jealous type either. Your first agent, right? Ended up buying a couple of houses, had a baby, was very highly successful. That didn't bother you, did it?

Brian Calvert: Nope. Doesn't bother me at all. And that's something that I've learned as I got older. It's really gratifying to see people reach their goals no matter what it is. Whether you want to be a professional singer, a golfer like my son, or buy that home and be financially stable.

It's really gratifying. So I'm just not one of those people. Luckily, I don't have that built into me to worry about that. If someone surpasses me, good for them. I say, let's go and let's figure out a way for you to continue to grow and we can all be happy together.

Scott Raven: What's the one thing as a very successful long-term business owner that you feel you do different and really gives you that comparative advantage in terms of how to be successful in this arena, in an arena where a lot of people are ultimately not successful?

Brian Calvert: Yeah, I think it's just got to go back to my mindset of treating people like I would my family. That's really been my guiding light all along. Whether it's someone in the mall space that's an employee for me, or someone that's an agent that works for me, or a client that needs advice.

I think if I always go back to that guiding light, which is how to treat these people, well, make sure you treat them like a family member. And it's just been the easiest way for me to do it. Bar none. There's no question about that.

Scott Raven: As you think towards your own plans going forward, and I'm not putting a time on it, five years, 10 years, 20 years, et cetera, when you get to the point that you are ready to let the next generation take over what you've built, what do you hope they will do with what you have created?

Brian Calvert: Well, of course I want the legacy of the way I've treated people to move on. And quite frankly, I've thought a lot about this and I've talked to my key agents that I brought up under me, and the goal would be to move that business onto someone that's been with me for multiple years along the way.

And instead of being acquired by someone else, let it get taken over from within, so to speak, and the culture we've already created.

Scott Raven: Excellent. Excellent.

The Last Lecture

Scott Raven: Well, I always close my episodes with a tip of the cap to Randy Pausch's book, The Last Lecture, beautiful book, which ends with that the book was written for his kids. So your son is now listening to this episode down in Naples, right? If I were to ask him, what is the biggest lesson from this episode that he lives every single day?

What would he say?

Brian Calvert: Oh, well, for him, there's no question it would be don't be so tight with your money and follow your dreams and have a little fun. There's no question he's different from me in that way. He's willing to spend the money to have those experiences and the fun at a young age, which I wish I had done a little bit.

And he and I have talked about that a little bit personally because he knows I'm a little tight with the money the way I was growing up. But now he sees a balance there. So I think that's what he would say most likely.

Scott Raven: Well, that's a beautiful message. And let's get some beautiful messages from you in terms of how people can find out more about Business Health Market, how people can get in contact with you. Give us some details, man.

Brian Calvert: So they can find me on LinkedIn. It's Brian Calvert. Also my LinkedIn page for my business is Business Health Market. My website is businesshealthmarket.com and they can email me at brian@businesshealthmarket.com as well.

Scott Raven: And you have a special offer for small businesses in terms of a complimentary benefits consultation. Is that right?

Brian Calvert: Of course. Yeah. All brokers should, and I do as well, offer consultation services for free to really see where your business is at, where it's going, and how we can help. So there's no fees for that of course. It's just a conversation about life and business and seeing how we can work together.

Final Thoughts

Scott Raven: Excellent. Excellent. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation about business, life, and everything in between. This has been phenomenal. Brian, any final thoughts before we close down this episode?

Brian Calvert: You know, just keep working hard, but have some fun and be kind. That's really what it's going to be. Be kind. I think that's the way.

Scott Raven: I love that message. I love that message. Hope we all do that as we go forward with the day. So Brian, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Appreciate you, man.

Brian Calvert: All right. Thanks so much. Nice seeing you.

Scott Raven: Yeah, absolutely. For my listening audience, thank you for spending the time listening to this. Take the wisdom here and apply it in your life. That's how we create the impact that we want from this. As always, subscribe and share, and leave us feedback in terms of how we could be doing better. Until next time, I'm Scott. We'll see you on The Corvus Effect. Take care.

Outro

Scott Raven: Thank you for joining me on The Corvus Effect. If today's conversation sparked ideas about how to free yourself from overwhelm, visit TheCorvusEffect.com for show notes, resources, and our free Sixth Dimensions Assessment, showing you exactly where you're trapped and how to architect your freedom. While you're there, check out the Corvus Learning Platform, where we turn insights into implementation. If this episode helped you see a new path forward, please subscribe and share it with others who are ready to pursue their definition of professional freedom. Join me next time as we continue exploring how to enhance your life through what you do professionally. It's time to make that your reality!