I started my own agency eight and a half years ago, next week, gonna be eight and a half years, left a fifty million dollar premium with one carry.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I was an athlete back in the day in high school. My real name was Don Kiyako, but my nickname was Taco. Played a lot of good players, had a good name. So I was always team captain, student body president, all that stuff. So I was a natural leader.
SPEAKER_03If you give free coaching, then nobody shows up. You have to exchange for it some kind of pain, something to tie you to it.
SPEAKER_00We just released a commercial today. We call ourselves the Big Czech Express. Oh, I freaking love it. And what young agents, it's great advice to young agents, is you're practicing what to say to them, but they're not practicing their rebuttal to you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Don Wilson with Capital Insurance Group. Uh the craziest thing that ever happened to my agency, I actually wasn't present for this, but we had a guy walk in off the streets. We have a retail uh location, storefront, you know, ground level, uh kind of like a retail uh store location. And we had a guy walk in and he made uh some uh pretty uh tough threats at some of my staff, and he threatened that he had grenades in his rear end. And to come to find out, this guy had done the same thing in Utah. Uh my my my employees Googled the guy, he had done the same thing in Utah. Now we're uh not anywhere close to Utah, but he had made his way. I guess he was doing a world tour or country, countrywide tour of uh rear end grenades.
SPEAKER_03With grenades up the butt.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03So I've heard of a lot a lot of things from some ER people, but never a grenade.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. But yeah, I'm Don Wilson. We have offices. I'm the owner of Capital Insurance Group. We have offices in West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. I'm an insurance dude.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you are.
SPEAKER_00Boom!
SPEAKER_03Wow. Grenade boom.
SPEAKER_00Grenade.
SPEAKER_03Speaking of boom. I wonder if he'd pull had he pulled the pin. Or was there like a string attached?
SPEAKER_00Right. I wonder if we would have had, you know, removal of that in our policy. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Does that fall under the remediation of that?
SPEAKER_03Acts of acts of terror.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right. Seriously. He might have pulled the pin, but it was held together. Oh, yeah, yeah, the little one of those ones with a little clamp on the side.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, true story, man. My employees just reminded me of that. I had totally forgotten. So I wonder the good story.
SPEAKER_03Is he in more trouble if there's actually a grenade than if there's not a grenade?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think I think the threat of that is just as bad as the actual trauma. We're next door to a barber shop, and uh the barbers all came running, you know, like trying to get him out of the office. He made his way out.
SPEAKER_03I thought you were gonna tell a story about an employee that walked out doing the double birds.
SPEAKER_00Nope, that happened.
SPEAKER_03And then he pivoted to the grenade story, which we hadn't heard, so pretty good.
SPEAKER_02And the initial one was two police chases in the same week. So you got some good ones.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. 18 years of uh being in the business, eight as an owner, you see it all. But luckily, I didn't see it all with the grenade guy.
SPEAKER_03And at the beginning, he's like, hmm, I don't know. Let me tell you, let me ask my employees. I can't think of anything.
SPEAKER_02He starts pulling out gold.
SPEAKER_03So tell us about how you got into this business and you know what insurance. I mean, I know everybody says it when they're little kids in school. I want to be an insurance agent.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. That's my random joke. Yeah. I do a ton of public speaking. I'm like, who wants to be an insurance agent? No one's ever raised their hand. Never. And so, yeah, so for me, a funny story. It's kind of come full circle for me. I grew up on the west side of Charleston, West Virginia, and I used to own a retail clothing store at 218 West Washington Street. So I was 21 to 25 or 6. I had two retail clothing stores, but my first location was 218 West Washington Street. Okay. I now own my retail, my retail insurance agency at 216. Whoa. So next door, I used to have a clothing store to where my primary headquarters is in Charleston, West Virginia. So it's a full uh full circle story for me. I I I got in a business uh 18 years ago after owning retail clothing stores in Charleston, West Virginia, Huntington, West Virginia. And the reason I got in is I I was looking for people to help me with advice on my business and strategy and tactics to grow my business and protect my assets. And only one insurance agent and his dad had come into my office. Everyone else kind of had their hands out. You know, advertising is necessary, but when you're, you know, you're barely treading water to stay open, you kind of need an advisor. So I did some research on who advises businesses. I always assumed it was the CPA, which they do a great job. But what I found was it's financial advisors and insurance agents. And I never really had much desire to be a financial advisor. So I interviewed with two of the top mutual life insurance companies in the in the country and chose one and and got into the business 18 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Gosh, bro, both of those are tough to get started in, right? Because like I always I always think about that. Like financial advisor or I mean any kind of financial products in general, it's hard to like you're hey, I'm starting a business, but by the way, I'm gonna give you advice on this.
SPEAKER_00Brand new, right? Yeah. Brand new. Let me advise you. So what helped me was I was an athlete back in the day in high school. I was a pretty good athlete. My nickname, my real name is Don Thiako, but I go by Don. But my nickname was Taco. And so, and I was a really good, I was a pretty good player. I played with a couple guys that made it to the NFL. We were nationally ranked in high school in the nation and and and stuff like that. So played with a lot of good players and had a good name. So I was always team captain, student body president, all that stuff. So I was a natural leader. Uh, but I recently dropped out of college, recently closed the business. So how is this guy that you know failed at these two things, right? Yeah. Now tell me how to do how to do uh right by my business and and my but but having been a business owner and I was fairly successful at the clothing business, it's just not enough money on the back end for me, right? Because you do a lot of a lot of uh overhead, the margins are low in retail and stuff like that. And I just said I wanted something different. And uh, you know, I was also trying to keep up with my wife who who had just graduated law school. Oh boy. I'm like, I gotta hang in there and I gotta build my own weight, you know. Yeah, what can I do to make money? What can I do to you know build on my name? And and and and I'm not shy at all, so I didn't mind asking people uh to give me an opportunity, you know. So it it it didn't work out at first, but I tell you what, my first year I always tell people I made 28,000 bucks, and and uh you know, it was 200 uh seven or so, and uh I got a job offer for like 75,000 plus commission selling advertising. And I I told the lady, I go, that's not enough money for me. She goes, sir, you gotta send in your tax return, you know, before the last three pay stuff before we made this offer. Trust me, it's more money than you're making. I was it's not enough for me though. You know, I was always, I was always why I call it a hubris, you know. I was always had a little false sense of pride, even at it at a young age.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, it's tough. You're not, you know, you look at especially having there's some motivation, right? So your wife is just graduates, you know that she's gonna be crushing it as an attorney. It's like, yeah, maybe you start at 75, but you're probably gonna stay at 75 for a long time, right?
SPEAKER_00That was the catch. I worked at unlimited income, man. I was after unlimited income. Only one way. I worked at a retail store before I started mine, and I made commission. So I was used to commission. My grandfather had retired from teaching and then went into real estate, so I knew he was making commission. And so the residual income part of it appealed to me. Uh, but I've never, you know, I know it's a cliche, but I've never done this for money. You know, I've I've done it for the right reasons, and it and it's ended up putting me in the right spot every time.
SPEAKER_02So gosh, it's it's so funny, like you you think about those early times in business, and you know, we talk to a lot of people that have are on the other side of the the success. And it's like I I love talking about the early days because you think like what was I thinking making like 28,000 the first year, and like what gave me the balls to like push through that, you know? And and like most people don't do that. So it's like it's like some sort of you you said it was ego, but I mean like you just you believed in yourself, you know?
SPEAKER_00Like Yeah, yeah. And it's a game of numbers and attrition. I mean uh I had I had you know my wife's income to help me buy time. If I had a bad month, our income was still good, we hadn't had kids yet, things of that nature. And then uh, you know, I remember going door to door to find a couple funny stories is I would call to like Beckley, West Virginia, which is like 45 minutes away because it's saturated in Charleston, it's the capital city, a lot of insurance agents, and I would call and I would say, Hey, I I get a list of doctors, dentists, and stuff like that. And I call and say, Hey, I'm gonna be in town Tuesday. And they go, Man, Tuesday's booked. And I said, Oh, funny enough, I'll be in town on Wednesday. They said, Wednesday's booked too. I go, well, funny enough, Thursday just opened up for me. But eventually, they were like, Man, what is this guy up to? He's not gonna take it. No matter what day you're available, I'm driving to Beckley. You could have said Sunday at 2 p.m. I'd have been on the on the turnpike driving to Beckley. And uh a funny thing that I did that I I've now trained my employees, I call it stealing their no, right? Uh I would drop off these packets of information and uh and I would go to doctors and dentists and all these different places, and I'd drop off these packets of information, and then I would call back two days later and I'd say, Can I speak to Dr. Jones? And Dr. Jones would get on the phone, and he'd say, Don, I I haven't, I'd say, This is Don Wilson, you know, I got this idea. He'd say, I haven't looked at your packet yet. I'm sorry, I'll look at it next week. And then I would call like 30 people, and they'd all say the same, I haven't had time to look at your packet. Well, I started doing this and I figured it out. Here's how what I figured out. I would call and say, Hey, Dr. Jones, I know you haven't had time to look at my packet. But let me tell you what's in it. Well, Dr. Jones, what I figured out, and what young agents, this is great advice to young agents, is you're practicing what to say to them, but they're not practicing their rebuttal to you. 100%.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so I once I took Dr. Jones's no away, because he only had one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Well, you know, in our business, they teach you you we want to hear three no's before you let the phone go, right? Well, Dr. Jones is trained to do dental work, he's not trained to tell insurance agents no. So he his no was Don, I don't have time to look at the packet. I would say, hey, Dr. Jones, I know you haven't looked at this packet. And he said, uh, uh, uh, does our compute. Tell me about the packet then. Eventually, once I started talking, they realized they could benefit from my from 30-minute, 45-minute consultation with me. And that that really took my career off.
SPEAKER_02Dude, I love that. That is such a good rebuttal right there. Like, I know you haven't, you could use that for anything in any industry. I know you haven't. Oh, actually, I did look at it. Okay, well, what did you like about it? Like, like you couldn't, yeah. It's the perfect, uh it's the perfect, like it goes in the dire no matter what, it goes in the direction where you can do something with it.
SPEAKER_00Right. And they don't know what to say. I mean, they they're not they're not being trained. Hey, when Don Wilson calls, he's got a packet and stuff. Nobody's training, man.
SPEAKER_03He's gonna say that I didn't have time for it, then you gotta figure out what to say.
SPEAKER_00If he says that, you pivot to this. Like they're not training, being trained. Right. They're not trained on how to tell us no. We're trained on how to get them to say yes. And you know, I call it stealing their no, and that's what I teach you know my my young advisors and agents at the agency is you know, you have to be ready, one, to pivot, but then two, don't expect success. Right? Don't expect them to go, oh my goodness, I was waiting on your call, you know, like they're not, they're not waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03So good. Yeah. I mean, that's what we we we focus on on uh in all the businesses, same thing, right? It's like, okay, we know there are only four or five things they can say, right? I need to talk to my wife, I need to, I need some time, I didn't look at whatever, right? Like all the different things, but if you knock all those things out beforehand, it's true, right? They don't have anything to say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you they don't have they don't have four or five rebuttals, they've got one, they got one weapon. You take that weapon away, they're defenseless. And then now they can actually hear what they need to hear, and uh you can become their advisor, you know. And it's worked for me, you know, 18 years in the business, uh, you know, tons of clients over probably 27, 28 states, uh offices in multiple locations. And and it's really worked, you know, it's been a good business. You know, the worst advice I ever got that I've I've kind of followed almost is a guy named John Polly, who's a legend down here in West Virginia in the life insurance sales, he said, go out and buy something you can't afford, and you'll work hard enough to pay for it. And I said, What? And I I've kind of done that, to be honest, but not knowing it, you know, but it's always worked out, you know, it's always done.
SPEAKER_03Like human, we just like we don't do anything unless there's pressure to it, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we were even talking about this just before, like even like coaching, right? Everybody needs coaching, but then if you give if you give free coaching, then nobody shows up, right? Then it's like, yeah, oh, it's free. You know, you have to have you have to exchange for it, some kind of pain, something to tie you to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it can legitimize you, right? You know, uh the things that you do and the things that you put in front of yourself that that motivate you, right? I used to tell myself I was unemployed uh the first day of every month. Yeah. Until I started my well, until I was probably two years in my agency, and it kept me motivated, even though you get residuals and all that stuff. I was like, I'm unemployed. Whatever I did in June has nothing to do with July.
SPEAKER_03Wow, you really like the fire.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm I'm pretty intense when it comes to comes to insurance. But I have fun too, you know. But but at the same time, that was my motivation. Because I grew up, you know, the way I grew up, you know, my two, you know, obviously working class uh parents, my mom was a temp agent, my dad was a cook at Benegans, you know, and they always instilled in me, you know, just outwork everybody. You know, you may not be the most talented at every single time, but if if you work hard, you can put yourself in a position of you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because even if you suck, you outwork everybody, eventually you're gonna be better than everybody if you're outworking.
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly. Exactly for the record, I don't suck, but yeah. For those of you that do suck out there, right? I'm I'm extremely talented. I'm almost as talented as I am good looking.
SPEAKER_02That's the mindset you gotta have.
SPEAKER_00I tell people I'm as humble as I am pretty.
SPEAKER_02You got in the business 18 years ago, and you said eight years ago you became a business owner.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I started uh my own agency uh eight and a half years ago next week. It'll be eight and a half years on the first, uh, February 1st, 2017. Uh left a $50 million uh independent agency over $50 million in premium with one carrier.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. So I left that agency, was a top two or three personalized producer at that agency. So you can imagine I wasn't hurting, I was doing just fine at an agency that size. I had my piece of the pie and uh had a nice corner office, had you know, three assistants, uh, you know, in personal, had two on the commercial side, had a life assistant that did all the life cases for me. I came and went as I pleased uh and had a nice residual income. And in every business I've ever worked in, like I said, I worked at the retail store, right? Started a clothing business. I wrote for the newspaper for like 12 weeks. I started a news uh uh magazine. I started a magazine. And I I had told my boss that's every business I worked in, I work and then I start my own business. He was like, Oh, that's cool. But he never paid attention to that, I guess. And so eight and a half years ago, I started Capital Insurance Group uh with the mindset of being a true independent agency, you know, and no allegiance to any carriers, uh putting the clients in the driver's seat and trying to do what's right every single time by the carriers and by our clients. And it's really taken us off. You know, we're up to about a $20 million book of business.
SPEAKER_03Congratulations. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Kinda. I didn't have a non- I've never had a non-compete. So 18 years of working, you know, only 13 in the property and casualty world, uh, but 18 total years of never having a non-compete. So I was able to move a lot of my clients, you know, gradually, you know, in the right way, uh, what made sense for my clients over the last eight and a half years.
SPEAKER_03Which is why you got to listen to the what the employees say, right? Like the employees, I I have a like lifelong friend that that he always says that your number one customer, your number one client, it's your staff, right? It's your it's your team. That's your number one client. And we often, it's easy to overlook because sometimes they're a little bit of a pain to the ass, right? And other times, but they're the ones that pay, they're the ones that pay the bills, right? So you've got to take care of them.
SPEAKER_00100%. 100%. I, you know, we just it it it my my big motivation, and I've always said this, and it's the truth. Like, when I see my employees buying like dream cars and homes and stuff like that, that's the coolest part for me. Like, yeah, I I created a business that is sustainable for families, you know, other than my family. That's the coolest part for me. It's also a motivating factor, you know, because there's a lot of pressure. You got a lot of people depending on your every decision. But you're right, 100%. We we do benefits for the employees, they each get a large number of PTO hours and stuff like that. And I really am hands off. You know, I like to give them advice, but I want them to interpret the business their own way because that's what made me successful. And I'd be crazy to take away what made me successful from someone else. Yeah. Yeah. 100% right. I like I like that mantra though. Your employees are your business.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we get stuck in the like, you know, I think it's an ego thing where we get stuck in the how. Like it's got to be done this way. It's like now it's like who cares? I mean, and I think Jason helped me move through that a lot too. It's like it doesn't matter, it's the outcome. Don't focus on the how, right? It's the what.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We do king and queen for the day. Like, if you could be king and queen, you know, like what would you change? What would you add? What would you remove? You know, what do you see? You know, because I I I never I always tell them I'm a little jealous. I never got a salary, I never made a salary in my life. Never got PTL. Never did I I had to build it on my own, right? Yeah. I'm always like, what would you do if you were in my seat? You know, because I always wanted my bosses in the past to give me that opportunity, right? Yeah. That's one thing that I do that I that I was never afforded the opportunity to do. The other thing I like to pride myself on is being kosher and friends with the other agents. I don't care if they take my clients. I I'm not going to be bitter about that stuff, man. I'm going to take them to lunch. Uh I don't care. I don't hold a grudge when that stuff happens. Uh, you know, mainly because I've seen other people do that. And I've always been jealous of how attorneys coexist, right? They're all going after the same, especially plaintiff's attorneys. They're all going after the same people, right? Yeah. But you'll see them at lunch together or dinner together, take a vacation together. Man, you'd never see two insurance agents, the owner. Right.
SPEAKER_03I mean, even the prosecutor and the and the plaintiff, you know, they'll they'll hang out. It's like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00They'll all go to dinner. Yes. Two insurance agents within a 45-minute drive of each other, like rivals. Like, come on, bitch. It is like why is that the case?
SPEAKER_02I've always found that to be incredibly odd because it's like I I have some family in the business, and we buy we all buy leads and they they have different agencies. And when we snake each other, I mean we buy the same leads sometimes, right? Like, and when we're able to sell them and they're not like we I love razzing them and they razz me, and it's like it's fun, right?
SPEAKER_00Like it's yeah, I like that part of it. Yeah, I listen, I'm gonna talk trash.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I've gotten calls from other, and I know Jason has, I'm sure you have too calls from other agents stated that was our lead. You stole it. It's like I bought the lead just like you did. We're just better. You know, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got a ton of plaintiffs' attorneys and a friend, and they all get alone, and they're in the same I mean it's commission.
SPEAKER_02just like us if they they eat you know they eat what they kill and and and and and it's just like us but they're so friendly to each other but we're you know kind of quick their margins are a little better slightly slightly they have a few more Porsches and and private planes than we have right yeah yeah for sure let me ask you do you so you started with the uh financial side and then you started getting a little uh more into the PNC side do you lead with um the financial side and then try to cross sell into the PNC side?
SPEAKER_00So my role at the agency now is life health benefits and then commercial right uh but we don't we lead with the PNC side we're I'm endorsed by Dave Ramsey uh we lead with the uh we're property and casualty first uh our primary our bread and butter most more most of our clients are property and casualty clients uh whether it be commercial or personal lines but we still have uh some relationships with large insurance carriers that we do buy sell agreements uh I'm a lot more well versed than most P and C agents in the country when it comes to buy sales or key man or you know employee retention stuff or golden handcuffs and things of that nature because that's what I did exclusively for four and a half almost five years I didn't have another product other than life and disability you know so you had to get creative and the thing that I noticed about the life side is they were and I have not that's why the name of my company's capital insurance group but they always shied away from the word insurance they're like let's do mortgage protection that's a 30 year term policy. Let's do key man well it's just insurance. Why don't you want to be an insurance agency or an insurance company you know anything but insurance don't tell them it's insurance but it's insurance you know and that's why I deliberately kept the name of my company Capital Insurance Group because we want to be everything insurance but just insurance right uh we don't dabble in financial stuff and we don't do any you know variable products we don't even do annuities uh at our agency because we want when you think of insurance to call us no matter what it is we we call ourselves we just released a commercial today we call ourselves the Big Czech Express because we used to when we first started we would we would show up at your office let's say you called us Craig and you were with a carrier and you moved to our carrier and saved $923 right we would we would say hey man we need to drop off your auto ID cards and we want to do that person Craig and you say sure and say make sure you're at the office because we want to do this face to face well we would show up with an oversized check with your savings on the check and hand it to you take a picture and hashtag our our our big hashtag was I like big checks and I cannot lie. Oh I love it. That is so good. And it really so the commercial today released today this morning I walk into my B I meeting this morning and a guy goes Big Check Express it came out today. He goes the big check and what I've learned in in business right is when you're known uh by a name other than yours but it's still synonymous with you and what you do but it's not your name that's when you reach another level of business and connection to the community the example I give is the cotton swab that you use to clean your ears sometimes no matter what brand that is it's a Q tip. Right? Yeah the chocolate wafer cookie with the cream in the middle no matter what brand it is it's an Oreo right and so if I can be known by Big Check Express instead of Capital Insurance Group while still being insurance right when people hear Big Check express they they that's synonymous with savings service and CIG so yeah it works. That's awesome have you been a politician I have you know I heard a really I heard a cool thing about that a bit like it's the same strategy and it's like what they it's like what the politicians do right they they like either negative or positive but like John Kerry what's John Kerry everybody knows flip flopper right like I mean that that's the thing that's what he was known at yeah and it's like well sure everybody changes their decision but you make it something that's easier than I remember uh uh the one guy was a maverick yeah maverick it's like oh yeah McCain he's our maverick you never forget that stuff you never forget that it's amazing to associate the concept and idea that has some emotional trigger behind it and then that's it emotional attachment behind it the brand becomes bigger than the process and the process becomes a brand so it's pretty cool it's work for us big check express is and that's what we put on the commercial was like call Don it's like a uh it's a uh it's a uh you're getting on a cruise ship and I'm the captain yeah and Captain Don Wilson is dropping you off at home auto we're making stops at home auto business and life and but yeah we then we we say we got all the the insurance mascot on the ship entertaining people I love it yeah it's pretty funny yeah we we have we have a good time that's cool how do you translate that same concept because I I I'm sure you do this is how do you translate that to your team and hiring and and getting them um bought into your concepts yeah yeah so the big thing that we do is you know even though Big Check Express is the brand right and that's and that's you know the slogan and and stuff like that and that's tied to money right we are uh 100% grounded in in in coverage and so we kind of geek out on coverage uh and and we let people know one like I said earlier make our process your process because if you're authentically yourself people people buy into that you know I genuinely care and I still answer the phones and do intakes and all that stuff like I don't know what it is about me but I genuinely care what someone does for work. Like I talked to a lady yesterday she was a uh after school counselor or something and I was like oh man what kind of stuff do you like I like I like I genuinely care and so when you're authentically yourself and I tell people we're hiring you we're not hiring you at capital we're hiring you so never give up uh the part that we're hiring right don't don't don't lose yourself in our process right and that's the key thing I want all of my staff and all my leadership uh top to bottom to just be authentically themselves uh and and brand themselves right just as I've done for myself because if I hold them back from doing that I'm losing uh a true opportunity for them to be authentic I well and they're more interested and and like they enjoy their job if they could be themselves right I mean you look at the disc test and and like what happens to somebody if if they're not if they can't be their natural state right like it's just like they're gonna be I'm super silly man I got I got my ultra ego is Don Tutin right and it's I I'll wear a cowboy hat in the in the into the office and I'll play like the old western music and I'll walk around like I've got spurs on my on my I wear Jordans and Nikes to work. I'll walk around like I've got spurs and I'll walk up and I'll act like I'm chasing varmint I do that and then I'll tell you what else we do once a week I'll do like I'm a dad jokes I'm the dad jokes king and uh we do that and then uh we do uh we do some sort of taste test right and I I will I will tell my remote staff they've got to answer the phones because there's something important happening and one year we did uh Girl Scout cookies one year my off my operations manager who's like third in command she told me that she could taste the difference between like Aquafina and all the different wires oh yeah come on shut the office down I said no right now I had one of my employees I gave him 20 bucks I said buy six different kinds we're doing this we're doing this right now we're doing this right now like if I'm being silly in the office right we don't let the phones go to voicemail but the staff here we lock in on that because it it gives you that release from the stresses that can be worked right and I'll tell either a dad joke which I've I've got a few of the best ones in the in the world and then and then or I'll do some sort of like a taste test or something like that. We did we did sodas one year you know could they just I could tell the difference between each soda no matter what kind of coke no and they couldn't and the girl Carly my operation man with me almost six years she could not taste the difference. The cheap water she thought was the most expensive the most expensive thought was the cheap because you just can't do that.
SPEAKER_03It's so funny like why like all of us probably think that there's something that no matter what we could nail it. And then like oh yeah let's do the blind taste and it's like nope.
SPEAKER_00The reason you know is because you're looking at the label. Right yeah like I knew that was mac and cheese from such and such because you bought it from there and you're looking at the box. Like you would not get it blindfolded and she did not she I think she got like two out of the six right like and it was luck.
SPEAKER_03Like our brain doesn't even remember correctly situations that we're in right like I mean exactly it's like like eyewitness and eyewitness testimony is like the gold standard and it's terrible like it's it's it's inaccurate right like yeah it changes everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah well we have a good time we have a good time and it reinforces too what you were just talking about branding and how the importance of that right because people can't see the difference between branding and like their own personal view on something like the the power of that.
SPEAKER_00You're right and so yeah you're you're 100% right it really pre you're almost a pre-disposition to to figure to to like something right yeah like if you blind taste tested people on Chick-fil-A they may not like it as much but that brand is so strong right yeah that yeah it makes it it it makes it even taste better yeah so well I mean even so you said you wear Nikes like you don't wear Adidas you don't wear a reebox you wear Nikes right that's the mega Jordan effect that's it it's it's so interesting. My son I I showed my son he's so brainwashed he's we're big sneakerheads you got about a 450 parachute collection between the two of us we got a whole shoe room dedicated to it it's climate it's climate controlled it's got his own key's access oh wow and I showed him the Anthony Edwards Adidas which are absolutely amazing I'm a 44 year old man so I can admit that this pair of Adidas is nice. I showed Jamie and he was like I don't like those I don't like I'm like do you like them not like them because they're Adidas or do you not like them he was I just don't like it. I just don't I don't like it the utility it does the same thing right like for utility it doesn't matter who cares right goes back to the Q tip thing right yeah it goes back to the Q tip every cotton swab is pretty much the same but q tip with a number one seller and there's nothing to it it's just a stick with cotton on it. Right all right I want to hear I want to hear a couple dad jokes okay I got my top three okay you ready oh yeah I got my top three all right all right so what do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common they both suck they're both parasites all right that's one that's one all right here's another one what fruit hates weddings in Las Vegas I don't know why I want to say Kiwi but that's not it can alope that's an original that's an original I think we just lost all the women listening and then the last one is how do you find Will Smith in the snow it's gotta be something about the the punching thing no you look for the fresh prints those are my top three those are my top but the candle is the trademark is trademarked if you use it I get residuals the fresh prints one that is awesome the cantaloupe is good too because the cantaloupe one I like about that one is it it sounded like we were going not PC on that.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00And I almost made a comment about Craig but then I was like maybe not and then and then you brought up cantaloupe and I'm like oh it's completely PC it's good cantaloupe that that one would get somebody uncomfortable maybe at the beginning right yeah yeah what is he where is he going with this yeah yeah those are my three my kids will watch this and cringe all right so you got the commercial I'm sure that you didn't start off by by launching expensive commercials and and getting branding and getting people in that way so what what has been your your mechanism to get in new clients so we go door to door uh on for businesses we take uh I'm the pastry guy we get a white box with no more packets package don't work because they people like to eat man give me some cookies and candy uh we go to a local pastry shop everywhere everywhere our offices are I'm giving away some of the secret sauce here we put we have stickers made we put the stickers on the boxes and we drop them off to the gatekeeper because we're just trying to break the ice I don't even say anything the stickers on the box they see me I'm known around most of the towns where we have offices at hey real quick I just want to drop off pastries let you guys know how much we appreciate your business in town boom I come back the next week more pastries hey is Bob or Jill or whoever the decision maker in are they in?
SPEAKER_02Oh let me well I'm the pastry guy at that point I'm no longer Don the insurance guy the same guy that brought these great pastries is back with more pastries let me get Jill or Bob or Jack or whoever the decision maker is and he comes out or she comes out and goes thanks for the pastries last week and again you know and boom I'm in there oh here's my car if you ever need me well actually I do I it's funny that you asked huh yeah that work that works so use that around the country just not in uh so you're going after you're going after businesses business owners so you're going for commercial so basically it's almost a one to many play right like you're like a lot of us are going after one auto one two autos or or like a household but you but you're going in trying to get the commercial policy and of course it's spiderwebs into everything right we always write we always write the gatekeeper because we she and I or he and I become best friends.
SPEAKER_03Yeah yeah oh we're bringing pastries oh man they're set sometimes we bring coffee we'll bring bagels and then after they become a client they get it they get it you know yeah they're happy to see me right if you can make the gatekeeper happy to see you yeah you know that's funny my wife has always said that too like she's not in sales or she's like corporate you know does whatever but but she always makes friends with the person up front because they have all the information they know what's going on they they're they're your good neighbor they're on your side they're you're in good hands they hear everything right and they and they know the little gossip so if something comes up in yeah and it and then it goes back to the branding big tech express is now capital insurance group pastry guy insurance guy just became pastry guy yeah pastry guy becomes big tech guy exactly who would you rather talk to the insurance guy or the guy with cookies right nobody we're not even we're insurance guys right yeah yeah and we would rather talk to the guy with cookies 100% exactly exactly so we did that and then you know uh like I said I'm I'm well known around town uh B and I has been great to me Business Network International has been great and then like I told you we have the Dave Ramsey relationship which we've had essentially for about all but about five or six months of the agency's existence.
SPEAKER_00Now we started out really small you know with that and it it's it's expanded into multiple states.
SPEAKER_02Super cool I'm not familiar with the Dave Ramsey stuff when it comes to insurance.
SPEAKER_00Well he gives financial advice he has a huge following uh you go to his website if you're in a particular zip code and you need insurance it's coming to me. Oh wow I I didn't realize that that so he's kind of a middleman yeah he's uh yeah he's the he's the yeah he he sends his listeners to uh exclusively independent agents uh he's big on independent agents uh and you know I've been working with Dave and his staff for eight years all 50 states he's got someone in all 50 states that's wild and and when you go I know this is kind of going backwards but when you go into like let's say a business um that you're buying you're buying the the pastries for are what uh what policies are you typically getting like what's your 80 20 on that so yeah it's it's commercial uh typically commercial and then we'll end up getting the owner the gatekeeper and maybe one other personal line uh in the in the business we'll do some voluntary benefits some uh you know payroll deducted the cafeteria plans uh we'll do obviously the bop and the epil i and the uh workers compensation and all that stuff we get all that yeah so we round out accounts what's the average new business owner worth to you commission wise probably seven hundred to a thousand dollars up front once once we round out the account yeah a year right oh yeah every year year over year yeah and then they stay forever right because you're independent you can shop them and all that yeah we do have accounts from that that pay us you know twenty five thirty five thousand dollars right yeah are there specific business owners that that you're going after rather than others oh yeah specific yeah very very very deliberate nice yeah we go we do neighborhoods so I'll drive through a neighborhood I'll find I'll spot 10 12 businesses on a Monday and then that following Wednesday or I'll go out on a Friday and ride around and then that following Monday I'm dropping all pastries yeah what's your close rate from a cold uh new business into uh it's typically about 90 to 120 days that's about five four stops probably twenty two dollars forty dollars spent right uh and uh technically we close we'll close one out of four yeah twenty five percent so we're targeting so we're targeting one specific business right we go oh that would be the one but we go into ten or twelve right and sometimes the one becomes five right so it's eight I think it's I think it's eighteen to twenty five percent is where where we're closing on those now and it's it's a 120 day proposition right because as you know in the commercial world especially with workers compensation they need to be renewing right you don't want to just break their renewal and workers comp plan you know you got a vet them uh one they need to already be insured like in our agency we turn away as many clients as we accept right because we have a very specific target demographic when it comes to business owners uh what classes of business we'd like to write uh and then on the personal side we are very very very selective uh we don't we don't have a non-standard uh market we we have market but we don't we don't really feed the non-standard that's brutal yeah the first question I'm talking about we qualify you in the first 10 seconds hey can I get a quote on insurance are you currently insured I'm not sir we can't help we can't help yeah 10 seconds because i'm i'm I have an economics background you know from college and opportunity cost is the most detrimental thing that you could possibly uh waste yeah so again you're doing the 80 20 you're only doing the 20% that that cash is the 80% of the checks we know our target demographic man one of my buddies owns a huge uh uh plumbing and HVAC company and I tried to give him a referral like to a municipality years ago he and it would have been like massive amounts of revenue for him he was like nah I'm good man we don't that's not our space I was like oh I need to do that right I need to do that like I gotta do that yeah it's it's so good because it makes you just so good at that niche and I mean that you know you get you you stay in that niche repetitive we have a bullseye at each desk right and that's our the bullseye so small if you look at you playing darts the bullseye is tiny right it's kind of it's it's as wide as the tip of the dart yeah everything everything else is the board yeah that bullseye is our target demographic now you may you know like the spots right outside the bullseye those are people that have five out of six things that we're looking for and you go further up they got four out of six Yeah, once you get to three out of six of those things, come on now. You know, we got two out of six. Do we really one out of six? You don't have any of them? And here we are running quotes? You know, like what are we doing here? What are we doing here?
SPEAKER_03You don't get time back. That's it, right? You waste that time, it's gone.
SPEAKER_00It's the only thing that we all have the same on it. Yeah. In a day.
SPEAKER_02And I bet your staff, because they're not dealing with the knuckleheads, I bet you anything that they're happier.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. And they're more strict than me. They're, I'm telling you, they're I'll go, hey, we got this lead, and this man, it can turn it. And they're like, listen, we're not doing that. My operations matter. She is no nonsense. Like, she goes, Dom, but this doesn't qualify for us. It does not qualify for us. The carriers may want it.
SPEAKER_03That's why I hired you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the carriers may want it. And we've it could be a $3,500. Nope.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the amount of time you save yourself on the back end and the and the front, probably, right?
SPEAKER_00It's just just save ourselves a lot of headaches, a lot of time, uh unnecessary uh headaches that that we avoid. And most agencies, you know, we refer. We'll I I got a uh in my B and I chapter as a guide another agency. I'm like, we'll send you some of our people because we're not taking any and everybody. Yeah. It's specific, man.
SPEAKER_03You it's especially at the beginning, you know, like that's the wisdom that you just get from doing it for so long. But like at the beginning, you feel like, why would I give something up? I I I it's everything. It's like, no.
SPEAKER_00My old boss used to tell me, yeah, I was like, uh, I've never I'll never forget this. I had a client come in and goes, I I got this rental property. I've been chasing this client forever. I got this rental property. It's a uh man, they say it's a PC nine or protect class nine, and and it's it's uh eighteen thousand dollars. I'm gonna put twenty thousand in it. And I got he's got like 50 other properties, and he's got another business and another business. And I'm telling my old boss, I'm like, come on, if he gives we're gonna get this, and that's gonna turn it to everything up. He's he said, as soon as that happens, brother, I will give you 100% of your commission for the year. We only do a commission split. He goes, That guy's gonna have you do this property when it's renovated and nice, he's gonna move it to his other agent. Yeah, you it never materializes. We used to have this thing where we were gonna rehab clients, right? We'll we'll sell them a non-standard today, and then we'll move them. Oh, yeah. They were six-month policy, they lapse two months in, you know. So you just it never materializes, and you can't do favors, you have to do business.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I like that. Wisdom right now. I love it.
SPEAKER_02I love the luxury high-end market of anything because there's less competition and it's a happier, it's a happier situation. But but like a lot of people don't have the balls to do it. You know what I mean? Right. Like it takes. It's painful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's painful because you don't have you don't have as many opportunities, right? But you don't have any competition because if you have my target demographic to 100%, then we're comp then we're competition. But if you're 96%, 4% of the time, we're not going after the same people. We're not and I had a guy tell me this morning, he's in the in-home healthcare business. He goes, Man, one thing about your business is there's a lot of competition. I go, I don't have any competition. I don't believe I don't believe in it. I don't believe in it. That's why I'm so friendly with the other agents. Yeah, yeah. I don't mind it because we're not in competition. Well, I'm in a different different I'm in a different place. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you don't have competition on your ethic, your work ethic either, right? Because most if anybody's gonna do the donut show, right, they're they're gonna do it once. And then nobody called me, that doesn't work, right? But you go, you're like, it's it's 120 days. As long as I as long as I do it every week, then every every week, 120 days out, it keeps coming in.
SPEAKER_00It's a system. I I know exactly how long it takes me to run a quote. I look every time. I know how long my my average intake is is uh between 13 and 17 minutes. Uh my average quote time is between five and seven minutes on each carrier site. You know, I I I track literally everything. Yeah, and I try to get my staff, I'm like, time yourself. You know, I know how many quotes I'm doing a day, how many intakes, how many calls it takes, everything. So it's because because the the the best advice I ever got was separating goals and desires, right? And it changed my life because I used to look at a sales goal and think it was a real thing, but there it's an oxymoron, right? So a goal is something that you alone can control.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Desire takes action from someone else. So my goal, right, instead of making, instead of getting 10 appointments, became to make 60 calls. The 60 calls led to 10 appointments. Yep. But guess what? Even if I made 60 calls and didn't get the 10 appointments, I celebrate it because I reached my I reached my goal. And guess what?
SPEAKER_03It'll happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if I call 120 people and don't get 20 appointments, come on. It's not possible, right? So you only focus on your action and ignore everyone else's action.
SPEAKER_02Dude, it it goes back to like sports and stuff. Like the champions of any sport look at stuff like that. They don't they know that it's always going to be actions. They know that most actions, I mean, you look at like even baseball, you know, if you have a 300 batting average, you're you're crushing it, but it's like, dude, you're only getting three out of ten.
SPEAKER_00Three out of ten. And have you ever have you ever heard a coach at after uh like a playoff game like Steve Kerr or Phil Jackson, someone legendary coaches, and there was one big play that lost the game to us. And the coach goes, No, that wasn't the play that lost the game. And they're like, Yes, it is. He goes, but if we would have done this, this, this, and this in the first quarter and second quarter, we'd have been up by 10 points or down by 10. That's it. If those things don't go right, that play was just one of 73 plays. Yeah, 100%. Everything led to that play. Yeah, I tell my employees, ignore the results because you can you can throw up a half-court shot over your head and it go in the net. Right? But what's the process? And I always tell people, Steph Curry, you know what he's working on right this second? His jump shot. Yeah, his jump shot. He's it's already perfected. Yeah, but guess what he's working on? His jump shot, right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, Kobe shooting those free throws every day before and after, Stan Lager. I mean, it's like, I mean, there's a reason why Shaq couldn't hit it and why Kobe could, right? Somebody spent time trying and somebody didn't.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. They get the misses out of the way.
SPEAKER_00Uh ignore the results, man. Yep. Ignore the results. There's too many factors that we call them externalities. Uh, there's too many factors that you can't control. No time. What if the what if the guy was calling the quote just to get quotes in his brother-in-law's his agent or his sister's his agent? You're not getting that business, man. I remember going into a huge pharmacist here, huge pharmacy. And every time I go, like first three times I went, they're like, he's out with John. I'm like, John must be the vice president. He's out with John. Man, John must be his CFO. Well, no, John was his insurance agent. They were playing golf. You're not getting that one. I stopped showing up. Give me my pastries. I'm getting out of here. John is playing golf with him. There's no way. And I'm telling you, another big thing, too, to be careful with, because I know a lot of agents listen to this, be careful advertising for commercial insurance, right? Advertising for it. Commercial insurance is intimate. It's one-on-one, right? Because if you advertise for commercial insurance and that prospect that you're going after has a great relationship with their agent, like John and this uh huge uh retail pharmacist guy, right? If I advertise employment practice liability or cybersecurity, and I'm telling it, I'm printing it in the advertising, I'm talking about it on the radio, and I'm doing all this stuff, he's gonna call John and go, hey John, do I have such and such and such and such? John's gonna go, no, you don't. He's gonna add that to my policies.
SPEAKER_01You just store the case.
SPEAKER_00You just did. You just made John an extra commission. You know what I mean? You just heard because I'm telling you, look at the big boys, right? All the big outfits. How many times do they go, and our commercial insurance? None of them. It's all it's all really the mascots and stuff like that. Everybody's got a mascot. They're talking about personalized insurance because a personalized person may not call their agent because they're looking at the brand. But a a commercial client, right, is going to call their guy and go, Did you do this for me? And their guy's gonna go, No, I didn't, but we should. I've been meaning to tell you about that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00I was just about to call about this.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's crazy. I was gonna call you tomorrow about that.
SPEAKER_02Let me ask you a question about that. So, so it if it's such an intimate relationship, which 100% I that is the most amazing advice, um, then how do you control that as the business owner and you have your staff going out making these connections? How do you, Don Wilson, bond with your new clients that came in through Sally at the office?
SPEAKER_00Right. So I I so you say so I'm the one prospecting at my offices. I do the prospecting everyone else at my offices, and so we turn the insurance industry a little bit upside down. Only one person other than other than myself makes commission. Everybody else's salary, their quarterly bonuses, and stuff like that. So I'm the one going out prospecting and doing this stuff commercial-wise. So you're the one bringing in everybody, everybody else is I'm the one bringing in the leads, prospecting, meeting with people one-on-one. It's never my client, it's never my employees unless it's a personal lines account. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Gotcha. Cool. Wow, this is this has been incredible. Let me ask you a question. I mean, you've given so many awesome pieces of advice. I don't like asking for another one is crazy. But what would you give advice for somebody that's coming up that might be making that transition like you did 18 years ago, or making the transition into leaving something that was awesome like you did eight years ago to do this new thing?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And is AI gonna take their take a take away the opportunity?
SPEAKER_00You we use AI. Yeah. Using AI, yeah. We use AI every day in our industry.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, it's it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Answering phones or or breaking down deck pages or or what. And so what I would say is, especially uh, you know, someone that's already in another industry, right? Uh looking to make this jump, or even if you're in the industry, I would say be patient, right? Be patient. Uh be mindful of your competition, right? Because you do have competition when you're first starting, because your target demographic may be your target demographic, but you can't turn down any and everyone when you're in this business. But I would say hold to your guns, right? Define that target demographic early, right? And then find some centers of influence. And what's a center of influence? It's a person that can open a door that you can't, they have a vested interest in your success, and they're willing to help you uh meet people that you couldn't on your own. Right? So they have to have a vested interest in your success and be willing to help, right? And then they have to have the ability to introduce you to people that you couldn't, right? So what I was told was to draw a boardroom table, right? And put myself at the head of the table, and then put eight seats around that table. Those eight people are the people that are gonna help you get to where you want to be in life and in business, right? But they have to have that vested interest, they have to be willing to help, and they have to have the ability to introduce you to people that you couldn't otherwise meet. And those people in my my life, you know, Bob Ferguson, George Manahan, and so many other people, you know, have helped me get to where I'm at, and I'm I'm forever grateful and indebted to those people because without them I wouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_03I think going forward, it it's like that patience is so, so tough. I mean, I think it was for us, you know, and you look to now, like everything is now, now, now, now, now. So I just hope that that they could take, you know, anybody listening that's younger, like really understand that it you'll get there. You just gotta take that time, right? There's a little bit of time that has to go into it. And and you know, we were all chomping, like, we gotta do it now, but but you have to have that patience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and if you know in your heart, even when you're making $28,000 a year, that you've got what it takes to make it in this business, give yourself time because it it does. It is it's a game of attrition, it's a game of numbers, and as long as you focus on your your out your output instead of the outcomes, you can really make it in this business. And then it is yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Changing to changing to only being focused on the on the activity, total game changer, right?
SPEAKER_00Like, I mean we ignore results.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, doesn't matter, they're gonna happen, you know. If we do all these things, we're gonna write 200k a month. That's just the way it works, you know. Like it just is. I don't even look at the month end as half the time. Like Jason even said it. You don't post your result. You know, it's like I don't even know what it was because it doesn't matter. They hit everything.
SPEAKER_00You want to write 450 a quarter. If you write 100 and 100, that next quarter, that next month's gonna be 250, man. Yeah, just because you're doing the right things, right? Yeah. Steph Curry doesn't change his jump shot because he misses three times. Right. I tell my friends, it's always funny, and I always bring up Steph Curry because he's a numbers anomaly, because he's he's such a good shooter, best shooter of all time. But anytime he goes like one for 13, I go, I text my friend group, he's gonna have 10 threes. Put money on him. One of the next five games, he's gonna have ten threes. It's gonna happen. And every time, if he goes one for 17 from three, then next time he's 11 for 15. And he there's the average.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the numbers are always the numbers don't lie, man. They always like it.
SPEAKER_00Where you want them to. Seriously.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_02And the challenge is just managing the emotions in on the in-betweens.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's the hard part. Yeah. For me, it was tough, man. I was because I was such a goal, goal, goal, goal. Yeah, oh no, I'm gonna get this guy to do this. No, it has nothing to do with you. Yeah, you're and I tell people, I tell my, I tell my employees, and when they go, but they didn't do it, then I go, then they're not one of our clients. They didn't keep our rules. Then they're not a carnivore. They didn't follow our process, then they're not a client.
SPEAKER_01That's okay.
SPEAKER_00That's okay. That's okay. Not everybody gets to be. I always laugh when I see a client, because we we get we do like drastic stuff on homeowners with like coverages and stuff, like really high limits for like the ancillary coverage, the sewer and drain, and equipment breakdown, and all that stuff. And I always laugh when a client goes, uh, I found a cheaper price, going to somewhere else. I'm like, okay. Okay. Did it have this though? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
SPEAKER_02Awesome, Don. Thank you so much for um for coming on here and sharing your wisdom.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate those dad jokes are now yours to use.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, yeah, but I'll get I'll make sure I have the the direct deposit set up so you get your residual too.
SPEAKER_00But the grenades are sold separate.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If anyone is looking uh to to you know reach out, get a hold of you, or where's all the places?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh our offices typically Western Ohio, Kentucky, uh, North Carolina, Virginia, uh, where we primarily have offices. Uh, but to reach me, man, just uh it's my email Don at cigw.com or give us a call at 304-993 Save and mention uh the Big Check Express. There you go.
SPEAKER_03Jason, why don't you go ahead and drop your uh cell phone for everybody?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Everyone's here. That's the office number. My cell phone is the same.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, Don. It's freaking awesome to have you on. Would love to catch up down the road, get you back on. And uh it was great. Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, guys. Best of luck. Yeah, awesome. You too, Don.
SPEAKER_03See ya.
unknownBye.