It was 2019 and a customer who had just signed up kept calling over and over again until she finally goes, This sounds kind of weird to me. Well, come to find out, he had been arrested for stalking. And sure enough, he was on his way towards getting that. So we made some arrangements so he wouldn't have to call us again. But it could have been bad.
SPEAKER_02Why did you get into insurance?
SPEAKER_03It's kind of a weird story from going to New York to follow the acting dream, following that with a career in McDonald's, and after McDonald's, going to insurance. Where are you at in your insurance journey now? And like, where did you start off? Started off scratch. We eventually grew to a large one million dollar agency after about three years.
SPEAKER_00When I first started, the advice I'd get from people was always hire somebody that's licensed. Try to get them from your carrier. It's like, what? It's the opposite.
SPEAKER_02If you're open-minded, you can grab something from everything.
SPEAKER_03Somebody told me you have to jump off the cliff first and build your parachute on the way down. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Or build the airplane while it's taken off.
SPEAKER_03Yes! Yes!
SPEAKER_00I'm Ben Booker and I'm an insurance dude. That's good. So did something strange happen at your office? What's the wildest thing that ever happened?
SPEAKER_03It was 2019, and a customer who had just signed up kept calling. And kept calling and asking for a specific coworker. And over and over again until she finally goes, I don't know what else. He's calling, he's asking personal things. And I said, Well, I don't know. This sounds kind of weird to me. Is he, you know, is it kind of creepy? She goes, It's borderline creepy. Well, come to find out, we did a little research, and he had um been arrested for stalking. And sure enough, he was on his way towards getting that. So we made some arrangements so he wouldn't have to call us again, but it could have been bad. It was our first stalk, first and only stalker at Booker Family Insurance. Ah well, was it near the beginning? It was near the beginning, yeah. About seven years ago.
SPEAKER_00Well, there you go. So you got uh baptism by fire there, huh? Yes, we did. Yes, we did. It was a little crazy.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy. By the way, if you heard uh Craig sneezing, yeah, we haven't done a podcast in a while. I haven't heard Craig sneeze.
SPEAKER_00I must be allergic to the podcast.
SPEAKER_03His microphone is dusty.
SPEAKER_00It is like, dude. It could be it is spring in Tucson, and it is the absolute like I have bad allergies always, but right now it's like sorry, bro.
SPEAKER_03I I live allergies all day, every day. In fact, when I talk to my dad once in a while in the morning, he's like, You got a cold, Benny? And I'm like, Dad, this is how I sound every morning until 10. So you know me my whole life. It's not a cold. I just I have a nose from hell that will always be draining before I wake up.
SPEAKER_00It's great, insurance dudes are autophic to escape being handicapped by our agency.
SPEAKER_01How? By uncovering the secret creating predictable, consistent, and profitable agency sales exchange. I am great cutscene. I am Jason Feltman. We are agents, we are insurance students.
SPEAKER_02Well, Ben, welcome to the podcast. Um, tell us, tell us where your agency is, how you got into the agency. Why did you get into insurance?
SPEAKER_03I have no idea. I just showed up one day and they're like, you can sell some insurance. Uh no, it's uh it's kind of a weird story, and if you look at the different chapters of my life, there is no there's no point-to-point, there's no through line, there's there's nothing to it that makes goes, oh, that's a natural step. Nothing. I mean, from being in music growing up and going to school for musical theater, you know, not yeah, going to New York to follow the acting dream, following that with a career in McDonald's, you know, natural, natural step, and after McDonald's, going to insurance. Um, it's kind of weird, but uh everything happens for a reason, and uh each part of my life kind of adds to the insurance thing. Um I got into Allstate Insur seven years ago when I finally decided I wanted to get out of the rat race of, well, McDonald's was fun, but it was a lot of work, a lot of nights and weekends. Previously, in acting, like, hey, I'd have friends that were really successful, but the shows don't last forever. And there's no sustainability. So I needed to, and I had been part of a McDonald's franchise that made me go, okay, wait a minute. Somebody else already has a system, somebody else has a process. I don't have to create a business like Ben's Bar. So I wanted to do a franchise model, not McDonald's, but something else. And my cousin Julie called and she goes, you know, Steve, your cousin, her husband, has been with Allstate for a long time. He's doing great. You should call him. And I said, No thanks. Uh I'm trying to do a business, but insurance sounds really not up my alley. So he calls me a week later, and Steve, my cousin, goes, You Benny, why didn't you call me? And I said, I don't want to do state farm. He goes, It's not state farm, it's all state, you know, dummy. So eventually he goes, you know, come see my office. I went there for a couple days and I was like, all right, let's try it out. Worst case scenario, I've got someone I can call for help. And that was 2017. And since then, it's been the best decision I've ever made. I uh uh we have a good, successful office. I and I credit that to talking with people, being resourceful, having mentors, and just being open to learning new stuff. So that's what I learned a lot from this podcast, actually. There's there's so many episodes with little pieces of information in each one that um just being resourceful, and you can look up different stuff and different speakers and different topics. So it's been great.
SPEAKER_02There's been a lot of great agents that have come on here, and now you're one of the great agents that is on here, so that's awesome. Um super cool, man. I like what uh so where's your where is your where are you at in your insurance journey now? And like where did you start off?
SPEAKER_03Started off scratch in 2018 in here in Indiana, and we eventually uh grew to a large one million dollar agency after about three years, um which is fine. I I I literally almost fell off the the ECP contract. I I was literally this close. Actually, an agent told me, look, man, you are this close to falling off this special commission tier. If I were you, I would actually close shop and try to recoup anything you haven't earned. And it was the lowest point probably in the last seven years. I was like, oh my gosh, this other agent. Like, I was very impressionable. At this point, I'm still impressionable, but at the time I was super impressionable. Three years in, oh my god, I screwed up, I'm gonna fall, I'm gonna fail. He's like, You should you should close shop because you you're gonna go back to 1010 uh commission and and you only have like a really small book, it's not gonna pay for it. So anyway.
SPEAKER_00Little did you know how good 1010 was.
SPEAKER_03Little did I know, but it was great. Um, but pushed through that and uh cried, cried a lot, cried to my wife. I was like, I'm I have screwed up, we've been living off your salary for three years, don't divorce me. She's like, Listen, you little bitch.
SPEAKER_00Um here at that point, she has all the power. She still has all the power. Yeah, right. You're a smart man.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Learned that a long time ago. But you still forget sometimes, don't you?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, she yeah, she she reminds me. We just joke, we have this joke where I uh we're around other couples, and I say, you know what? It doesn't matter. I can do what I want. And she says, You do what you want, and she says that, and together we go, with permission, you know, I'm kind of cute. But uh permission or extreme consequences. With with yeah, some consequences. So she said, buckle up. If that didn't happen yet, you're gonna be fine. Did did what you're worried about happen actually happen? And I said, No, but it could happen. So she goes, well, keep pushing, and uh if it happens, we'll deal with it then, which was such good advice because so many people worry about what could have happened. And if I'd stayed in that mindset, I would have just uh I would have taken much, I would maybe close shop, I would have taken less risks. And when I realized I had so many, you know, being successful, I think has to do with calculated risks, doing the math, and not being so impressionable to the changes with the industry, with your career, with the market. Like shit happens, but you're you're making a plan based off of you know a calculated risk. So we got through that a couple a year later, we had the opportunity to um purchase another agency in town. So that brought us up to about five million dollars, and things finally started to click. And um, I got an amazing staff person from that agency. And in the last that was 22, it's 25. Today we're right around 10, 10 and a half million, with maybe seven or eight in seated, but we are in growth mode, and I attribute it literally to building a building a great team that you know, we focus a lot on culture, we focus a lot on processes and structure, and uh looking to buy a book this year. And so far, everybody's crazy upset about or or worried about different changes. And uh I'm like, bring it on. Let's play the game, baby. Let's what do we gotta do to adapt? Because while everyone's belly aching and bitching about what's happening with the eight the world, we're we're doing what other people aren't doing. What you never you know, Brent Cardone, right? He's like, yeah, back when the stock market crashed, everyone's pulling out. Guess what? I 10x my marketing spin. I'm gonna buy, you know? You gotta think about that. So that's kind of how we got to today. Uh, we're about 20 staff. We got staff 95% remote. We got a few in the office here. Everyone else is from California to Maine, which happened right around COVID. We when we bought the office in 22, they came with two staff, one remote in New York and one who's still here, our uh operations manager. And I said, uh remote, yeah, how is that gonna happen? I don't, I'm not gonna fire this person because you know, they've been with Allstate for 20 years. So they worked with us and we worked it out. We realized, oh my gosh, there's so many more people working remote. Why are we limiting our candidates to like a 10-mile radius when we've got 10, you know, 1,000 miles that way, 2,000 miles that way? And it's been great expanding. We found the most amazing people that we probably we haven't seen face to face, but a few of them at some conferences. But they are as virtual as they are, they're amazingly family-like and I don't know, blessed. I'm blessed, but I'm blabbering on. What was the question? Dude, I love it.
SPEAKER_02Where were you at? Where are you at? And it um I think it summed it up well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's amazing how like how much can change with just flipping like the way that you look at it, right? And then finding the right people too. Because I I remember always like old Craig, very fearful of making a decision or making the wrong making a bad decision, you know, something that's gonna have some consequence. And then, you know, like, oh, I'm gonna hire this person, but I can't afford I really can't afford somebody right now. I'm gonna wait. And that that whole waiting game, it's it's not gonna get better, right? Like if you wait, what's gonna happen? Like without making any forward progress, right? You're just going backwards. So you have to take these risks. And I mean, I love that. Like, that's one thing is looking at a wider candidate pool, right? I remember when I first started, the advice I'd get from people was oh, always hire somebody that's licensed, try to get them from the from your carrier. And it's like, what? It's the opposite. Like, that's the opposite of what you should do, right? It's like there's so many good people that aren't licensed that actually can be motivated and and interested and will do the work, and the rest of it falls into place. You can train them, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And it what's funny now is like uh when we started off, it was always unlicensed because there's still not that many people that are licensed with experience local. But the the trick now, there is an abundance of people with insurance experience if you do remote. Yeah, but that's still limiting you. So the new goal for us is to okay, remember with that that process we had when people got their license, they did the initial onboarding, a lot of that stuff that's been skipped out the last couple years because they already have three years with State Farm, four years with Allstate, that needs to come back. That needs to take our pool from this to this. It just needs to be figured out remotely. And I think because we're gonna use we're using a program called Trainual, and we're using more Loom videos, and we're using more AI, we can expand our our net even wider by taking people, you don't have to have insurance experience, you don't have to have sales experience. You come with me with some good core values and a good personnel, you're gonna fit in with us. We will train the rest. And we're still working on that. We don't have that figured out. Right now, everyone's has at least had a license, but for those who figured that out, the remote hiring from the ground up, that's that's the future. Oh, yeah. But you got a you got a point, Craig. Like, you gotta sometimes on taking risks, you have to. Somebody, somebody told me, you have to jump off the cliff first and build your parachute on the way down.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Or build the airplane while it's taken off. Yes, you know, it's like you're never gonna have it all there. Like all the pieces aren't ever gonna be there, even when it's going great, right? I mean, that's when you know, uh-oh, something, something's gonna happen here when it's going really good, right? Yep.
SPEAKER_03So do you regret not making a decision fast enough in your entrepreneurial?
SPEAKER_00Uh uh definitely with letting people go. I think I'm too nice. I bet it seemed like I'm not, but but I I I have this, you know, this sometimes I I realize that I want it for them more than they want it. You know? And it's like you what's the what's the saying? You can't make a duck an eagle. You know, at some point you gotta realize, oh, it is it's it's a duck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a duck. And maybe they don't want it. Right. Like we want the and maybe they're they're gonna be happy somewhere else. They're gonna I mean yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well going back to what you said about core values, I mean that's what it comes down to. People either have it or they don't, where they want it, you know, because like if you if you want it and you have the drive, you can teach them how to do anything, you know? Yeah, but man, trying to get somebody who has the capability but just not the motivation is pushing a boulder up a mountain. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Have you ever you guys ever heard of EOS?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um we've been we do you do you use it or we we we did use it, yeah. Okay. We we've used that last few years, and uh it's about you're right, the they tell you to get your core values together, which for the first two years of running the company, I was like, my process is gonna be called wing it and wing it 2.0 and wing it 3.0. So we finally got kind of a structure and they like we built out the core values, and then one of the key components is the right people in the right seats, like maybe this person better in service or sales or yeah, something, or maybe they're not a good fit here. Like, oh my god, I need to have Beth stay with us forever because if we lose her, the production's gonna be down, or what are the customers gonna think when in actuality your company will grow better because Beth maybe doesn't like it here or doesn't like the position, and maybe another position is not right, she'll be happier somewhere else. Your company will get better by having Beth gone, not because she's a bad person, but because she doesn't fit the core values. Yeah, and sometimes people that that leave that uh you you thought it's the end of the world. Oh my god, they our agency is gonna fail because these two producers leave or this person, it's not the end of the world. People move on. It's not it's not a sign of uh, you know, if you're a terrible I mean, there's things you can do to be a to a good culture agency, but sometimes shit just happens and it's meant it's meant to be. Um there's another agent uh uh friend of mine, Jeremy Olson, he tells this story. He's like, the first 10 years, I was so proud of our employee retention rate, we never got rid of anybody, nobody ever left. And then at one point he was like, Well, no, wait a minute, we might be missing out here. So he became more comfortable of sticking to the core values and letting people go onto different things and really being strict about who they brought on. And their retention that next couple years, like it dipped way, way down, but it didn't matter. They had to go through a certain number of candidates to find the right people. And it wasn't a sign of him being a terrible leader or bad core values, but sometimes it's just like a numbers game to test someone out you can't find out over an interview. Like maybe they'll be there a month or two and you both find out it wasn't the good fit. Holy cow! Once he did that, he as he says, it really took off. So that hit a light in my head. I was like, I need to not be protecting my employee retention rate. I need to find the right people and don't be afraid to let someone go in a couple months if it's not a good fit. Yeah, because it's not a bad does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like create the opportunity for them, and if they're not gonna take advantage of the opportunity, then they're not a fit, right? Yeah, yeah. And I love that the the whole like uh looking at if I lose so and so, it's the end of the world. Then if if that's the case, then that means there's some processes that need to be put into place so that that's never the case, right? It shouldn't be the case that when somebody leaves, it's the end of the world because there should be enough people banging the door down that want to work here, and and then it just never ends, right? Like, I mean, I've told the story a million times recently. Somebody left because she couldn't get here on time, and she was our she's our best producer, and she's she's back, right? She went somewhere else, and we and I said she's gonna be back because nobody in town you know buys as buys this many leads, has this many callers calling on the leads, and has a system. And you know, sure enough, she went somewhere else and it was a ghost town, and and it was like figured out, and she's like, What figured out? I don't know. I want to be fed, you know.
SPEAKER_03Oh and this is far as marketing dollars, yeah, yeah. So what was that like for you at uh when she she called you, I'm assuming, or emailed?
SPEAKER_00She talked to my ops manager and and well he called me and said, you know, I I told her to leave, and or I gave her the choice. I gave her the choice of either you're gonna be here on time or you know it's gonna you're gonna take a big pay cut or something, you know, something like that. She said, Well, screw you, and she left. And and he told me, and I said, That's okay. She's gonna come back, but you know, at first, give her a little stiff arm and make make her really, you know, beg to come back. And she did. And and I think that that was a really important thing for this team, because when she came back, she told everybody, right? Oh, you don't want to you don't want to go anywhere else. I mean, she went to the one of the bigger uh other big agencies in town, and and you know, the the the same the same structure wasn't there. I'm not saying that that doesn't work because he does great, but it you know, for what she wanted and and the way that we run it, you know, it's the ideal situation for a producer.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think what you did was probably an accountability piece that a lot of agents are missing and afraid to stick to stick to your guns and say this is our policy, don't be late. Because everyone else is like, Well, how much work do I have to do if if if if they leave, I have to hire two more people, I have to spend this, I have to start from the ground up. Whereas if you stick to the guns, the culture becomes stronger because there's actual discipline and accountability. I I I would be hard to do that myself, uh even now thinking about it. Um, I can say it a million times, but but realizing that sticking to a strict, you know, not a not a Nazi thing, but like a strict, we're this is how we run things, like it's better for the agency and it's better for the staff because if one person has away with it, they're gonna tell their friend and they're gonna tell their friend, and everyone's gonna be able to be late.
SPEAKER_00Everyone's gonna be right, you know, and we start the day with a I mean it's sales media every morning, right? So you can't everybody has to be there or it just doesn't work. So yeah, I mean it was a calculated gamble and it it passed. Sweat for a little bit. But I mean, you know, it's not it's the balance. Between the emotional component of it and the logical component. Logically, it makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, it doesn't mean emotionally that I was 100%, but I you know, I was also distanced from it because I'm telling somebody else to to handle it. So it's a little bit easier, being like head coach versus defensive coordinator, right? But at the same time, it it you know, it wasn't easy, but I felt more co I felt more comfortable with it, and I've seen it a couple other times, so I felt pretty good about it. And it, you know, and it worked out. That's it. Every now and then you you get one right.
SPEAKER_02So absolutely. I love it. I want to know what you're doing for uh for growth, because right now every agent, you know, every agent is either growing or uh dying, right? Like that is the message for sure. Um so what are you doing for growth? I know you're very you're you're all in, and I love it.
SPEAKER_03All in. Well, when everyone else quits, go all in. Because you know what happens when you when you go all in, whenever people's push, you know, kind of like backing off, the leads get cheaper, first of all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_03Um, but then um you have to do the math because look, uh just do the math. If I keep spending this and I'm my break-even point is here, and I analyze the the marketing, and I analyze how much a staff person needs to sell and a close rate to get their ROI, then if the math works out, then go for it. But if the math doesn't work out, maybe pull it back. So we do a lot of internet leads, uh, probably 150 a day. Uh, and we do all of Indiana, we do all of Ohio, and we've got about eight eight outbound sales reps using Ricochet for phones, and we just dial through there, we try to get enough dials in the first 10 days based off of their metrics. Um but but part of it is just uh grow is uh that's it, internet leads. We might do some live transfers um again using calling our own data leads versus like a data lot or something, but that's kind of it. Constant coaching, constant going over stuff. We we use our POA right now for training, and then we have Team Lead who helps recap after those trainings. But um, I think one of our successes is every day we do a sales, not a sales meeting, a whole company meeting, 15 minutes. I took it from um Mike Burke, he's out in Virginia, he gives the most fun presentations, a good friend of mine. He goes, You need to have 15 minutes every day run by you, even if you delegate everything else. You run it, and we do it every day, and it's great. Mondays we work on stats. I like to do the previous week's stats, uh, where are we at on Dash, up or down with this percentage, where we are with Google Reviews, where we are with ALR. Tuesday is culture time with Lianna. So we used to have you know two or three days of culture where we do fun stuff, and then I was like, guys, let's just stick it to one day. And then the staff are like, You're so boring. Can we bring back some fun stuff? So Tuesday is fun culture icebreakers with the whole team uh with Lianna. Wednesday we go back and forth where we do cast or assistant manager talks about ALR. How are we doing? Are we just asking? Are we getting life and retirement stuff in order? And alternating with someone else who gives us like a product review, like this is the new product, or this is a discount, or this is a coverage that we haven't gone over in a while. Thursday is all-team roleplay with our team, uh, our team lead, and Friday is Get to Know You Day, where we spin the wheel and ask the most random icebreakers. Because no one's ever met anybody. They're in Maine, you know, Virginia, Texas, California, Idaho, Missouri, you know, they're all over the country. And until we have a first team meeting, which I think we'll do soon, um, that's a great way to like keep people connected.
SPEAKER_02So I love it. What what happens if you don't have those daily meetings? Well yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what have we didn't have them for years, and uh it it the the groups, the team I feel like they don't uh connect as well. You know, there's how do you do the remote thing? A lot of people don't have any screens, a lot of agents do you're on Zoom, but you're in a room by yourself. And we do two rooms. We do one for the sales side and one for the service side. Because there's something to be said about your own community of people doing the same thing you do, and we we eliminate the micromanagement feeling. So if it's first of all, I'm I'm not in either one of those all day, every day. It's just their direct manager. And is their manager looking at the looking at them? Are you working? Are you doing that? No. If most of the days they see half of their face because they're doing their own work, just listening to see if somebody needs help, and they're they're helping each other, they're coaching out, they're coaching, and that's the type of culture you want. You want like it's weird, we're on Zoom all day, but that goes away after a couple weeks. The benefit is you're in a room seemingly like it used to be the old bullpen. Do you remember like back when we started, like, hey, everybody get into the room, you know, we're gonna hear each other, we're gonna, you know, like boiler room, whatever. That is semi-recreated with these video rooms. And uh I've heard staff say, I thought it was weird the first couple weeks, but now I wouldn't live without it because otherwise I'm in my guest bedroom or in my kitchen working alone eight hours a day. No, no, I can talk with these people like they're in the next office, we can tell jokes together, we can, you know, have kind of a good rapport. So I think that's been a big part of the success is having that open ver open uh Zoom room type thing. How long have you done that for? We started in 22, yeah, kind of towards the end of COVID. We tried it for a couple months. I got a lot of pushback from the staff, and such I'm I'm such a wuss. I said, okay, okay, it's fine. But um I came back a couple months later. They do, they do. I'm such a pushover. I'm I am such a pushover.
SPEAKER_00I think everybody falls into that.
SPEAKER_03But I did it, and uh and I said, guys, here's where we're doing have some fun with this, and it and it took off. And we tell people in the interview, hey, this is what we do. If it's not for you, that's fine. And 95% of people say yes, no problem. Five percent of people like, I thought I would be able to do my laundry while I was working, and I thought I was, and I was like, it's like you can still do your laundry, you can still take breaks, it's still like a regular office, you know, but we just like to, you know, help each other out. I mean, you'll how much do you think your staff hear somebody else with a talk path or a close that you've never heard before? Somebody that, you know, and it happens from everybody on staff. Last week somebody was like, um, let's do this. We're gonna, you know, uh uh that those three words is part of the moving on to uh an objection. I heard the objection, I'm listening to it, let's do this. Trial close. Somebody else the prior month was like, um, that's a good point. Don't worry if they don't get paid till Friday, and it's Monday. The old way would be, okay, well, uh, I'll call you back on Friday, we'll take payment. Then no, no, no, no. Somebody, it's Tyler actually. He goes, tell you what, let's do this. I'll take the payment information now, I'll schedule to take it out on Friday, your policy will start on Monday, and you don't have to do a darn thing. And suddenly the staff are like, whoa, wait a minute. You don't have to reconnect on the phone? Yeah, you know, that's impossible to do, but if they're okay with the scheduling for Friday, policy starts this day, give me the payment information now, and suddenly we're making so many more sales from one person sharing with the rest of the group.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's team effort, man. It's team effort.
SPEAKER_02That, dude, and that's one of those nuggets that if whoever's listening is not doing, you are leaving at least 20% of sales on the table. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I got one more for you. This one comes from Crystal. The very beginning close, like the close to get them to do the quote. I call it like the greeting close.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, we've gone through every every single type of word track, but um, Crystal came up with this one. She goes, uh, hey, you know, Jason, got your, I saw you're looking for a quote for this, updating your insurance. What's going on? And I was like, and she kept on quoting everybody she'd say that to. So now, because what's going on sounds so like down to earth, but like, what's happening, man? I'm not like trying to sell you insurance. I'm not trying to say it looks like you requested a quote for a 1999 Superbowl. You know, it's like, hey, what's happen? Is your price going up? Your agent not calling you back? Do you have a bad claim? What's going on? And they're like, well, you know, I was, you know, I rates keep going up. I don't know what's happening, never hear from my agent. Okay, cool. Let's take a look at it. Blah blah blah. It's so natural sounding, and that wouldn't happen if if the team wasn't sharing with each other on that all day video.
SPEAKER_02That's fantastic. I love it. Yeah, you have to not sound like a telemarketer or a salesperson when you're when you're telemarketing or doing sales. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_03What makes you stand out?
SPEAKER_00You hear them talking in the conference room and they're like humans, and then you get them on the phone and they're like, hello, uh, you know, they turn into a robot, and it's like, no, no, no, no, keep doing what you were doing it there. You know, and they're like, but that's uh prof it's like, no, it doesn't matter. You need to be a human. They're gonna connect if you're a real person. And they're gonna go, wow, this is different than the last insurance place I talked to. Right.
SPEAKER_03The the the psychology is something we're we're just getting into. Actually, Crystal, she's she loves learning, and she was a psychology major. I keep talking about Crystal, but she was like, I tried this other sales product. If you guys are anyone listening, please do not steal Crystal from my office. She's like, I I like this new uh sales training I saw online, Jeremy Minor, NEPQ psychologist. I just learned about this, so we got something planned, you know. And so we haven't unrolled it for the whole staff, but she was like, I like this, I want to learn about it. And I was like, heck yeah. You want to take the ball? You want to take the ball and run something? Heck yes, please do. Please it's the right thing for our agency, but I have a feeling it's another tool for the tool chest that that we can use.
SPEAKER_00Oh is that neurolinguistic programming? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's good stuff. That's like the ninja stealth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I haven't we haven't. She's read Adam Stardust. Have you guys ever tried or looked into that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I got his book back here. He uh he was in a group that we're in. But yeah, he's he it's good stuff. I mean the way I look at all sales training is you can you can if you're open-minded, you can grab something from everything, especially when Craig and I were looking at um doing like one-to-many presentations and stuff. Just presentations, I mean, any kind of communication where you can learn how to communicate more effectively, you're gonna win. Like and going back to like to your point, it's like even when people turn on a camera, you know, like they're they they start to like do like a camera thing for for the internet or whatever, and it's like all of a sudden they act all weird. I do it too. And it's like this, it's the same thing when you're doing sales calls, the same thing when you're doing anything, and it's like being more aware of communication in a way for somebody to understand and be able to make a decision is good. It's like yes, I agree.
SPEAKER_03In listening and just being in the moment, yeah. Do not look up any previous podcasts I've done because I'm wearing a shirt and a tie and a jacket, and this is how I'm gonna be interviewed because I'm professional, you know, it's fake, you know, but just be yourself, you know? Yes, and just like be who you are in in active listening, which I focus on a lot because I have ADHD and I'm like a squirrel. You're in good company.
SPEAKER_00That's how you I think every insurance agent. That's how we got here. What are we talking about? Sorry. I have so many good ideas that I forget within five seconds of them coming to me. That's so funny. Yeah, that presence, I mean, it it's remarkable. Like I mean, I think it it happens to many humans, like where you're you're thinking about I don't want to be, I don't want to look stupid or sound stupid, so I want to be prepared with the next thing to say. So instead of listening, right, and just trusting that you actually can come up with it when it happens, you're like focused on what you're gonna say, and then you don't even hear what they say, so what you say doesn't land anyway.
SPEAKER_03Guilty.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, guilty, so guilty.
SPEAKER_03But and what and what people I feel when I hear on a podcast, on an interview, raw. Just give me the raw. I don't want to I don't want to, you know, make up this, presentable this. Just give me the real deal, be yourself, be authentic, and something I'm working on. But like, just like be who you are and um people resonate with that, even if you have to get vulnerable, even if you have to like say some shit about you that you don't aren't proud of, you will have more impact on the people listening than if you just put on a big show or just like try to show your bright side because you know when people post on Facebook, it's like the fun stuff. It's like, look, our team did this, look, our uh we excel in that, and there's there's nothing wrong with celebrating the wins, but it gets to a point where like I am you get a fake, you get a false image of where you should be, and you immediately go, Oh my gosh, I have been insurance for long for for longer than them, and they're so much more successful to me. I heard a story today, Laura Harris just retired out of Texas, right? She was in a mastermind group, she just told us today, she goes, I was in this one mastermind group where every week we'd share 15 minutes, somebody says, What are what we're great at? And it's just kind of like a conference, like this, I'm great at this, I'm gonna talk about leads, I'm great at culture, I'll talk about culture, I'm great at business planning, I'll talk about that. And they did it for months, and then somebody was like, guys, wait, why are we continuing to talk about what we're great at? Why don't we each spend time on things we suck at and have everyone else help them out? And they're like, Oh yeah, I really need help with X, and everyone's like, Well, have you tried this? You know, and they changed the way they did their mastermind because it was like focused on where you need help versus not like you're showing off for being great at one area in business, but like let's target into where somebody really is vulnerable, needs help. And uh, I I thought that was a great way. So if I ever start a mastermind, it's gonna be on opportunities versus I'm great at this, this is where I need help, and use everyone to kind of mastermind the results, the resolution.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It it what's crazy too is that those wounds, those things that we all go through, connect us so much more to that person. Like, as soon as somebody gives a uh a story of how you know their dad died and and this hat this happened, and like you can share, like, oh my gosh, my dad died too, and like I felt like the same way. Like all of a sudden, it's like the guy that brings up the sports team, it's like, oh, I like that team too. We're best friends now. It's like it's so easy to connect through those pain points because we all go through them, but to your point, we're all full of shit, and we walk around with these like happy papy, and it's like, dude, you're going home, your wife's gonna yell at you, come on, like you know, you're gonna get in trouble. Like, we all go through these certain things, and it's like, dude, just be real.
SPEAKER_03Right. And yeah, we all go through the same shit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03We're all dealing with the same stuff, and uh, we're all messy. Our lives are messy. Yeah, we're all sinners. Well, speak for yourself. You know, I'm gonna last week I went home from work and I was like, why is there poop on the ceiling? And that sentence I never thought I would say. It was actually like a prank, you know, fake poop that our people for some reason keep throwing up on the ceiling and it sticks. And I was like, baby, this is our lives now. Like, this is this is what this is who we are. Like, oh, congratulations, Ben had success with this or that. I still go home, come home to poop on the ceiling. That's that's who we are.
SPEAKER_02That's fantastic. I love it. Yeah, that's so crazy.
SPEAKER_03We're all human. We all go to the bathroom, we all sleep at night, we all have trouble with our ADHD. Maybe just the three of us, I don't know. Maybe we can't turn the brains off. Yeah, but um, yeah, just connecting on that. And you know, uh, actually, that reminds me.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever heard of a book called uh not trying to be funny, not trying to be funny?
SPEAKER_03The book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Have you heard of this? Yes. I haven't read it either, but from uh uh uh someone that's read it, they're like, it talks about no matter what happens in this century or that century, things repeat themselves. At the end of the day, you're just a man, you're just a woman. Right. People, and you know, politics you're gonna worry about, money, uh relationships, all this stuff has happened before, and you just need to really relax and chill out. Like slow the hell down. Remember, nothing is as big as you think it is. So don't worry yourself into a tizzy. Now I actually have to read it to like to trust that it says that, but it I I it's it sounds true. Just yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's good. It's a little challenging because it's in weird languaging, you know, it's like old language, yeah. But it's yeah, it's good. It it still lands. Oh, you oh, you mean old language? I don't know. You know, it's like it it's just it it's interesting. You'll you'll see.
SPEAKER_03Well, what we could do is take some of the text or put it in chat GPT. Make this sound like I like I listen to stuff. Summarize this for me. Yeah, you know. Are you using a lot of GPT in the office? All day, every day.
SPEAKER_02All day every day. How are you using it in the agency?
SPEAKER_03Uh well, I when you guys set up the appointment for this, I responded to emails with it. I respond to almost all emails. Take this email, here's what I want to say, here's my response, make it sound like I'm professional. Oh like I went to Ball State University. No offense, ball state grads. Um but I do it for that. Also for business planning, like literally any, and I train the staff on this too. If you have an issue, run it through there. Uh see what it says. Because it's like the new Google, but it's faster.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03So there are um tons of regular things, but um, one thing I'm working on is hubs inside of ChatGPT. We're gonna we're creating our own hub for call scoring. So this can run our I want the sales call to sound like that. I want the service call to sound like that, I want an onboarding call to sound like this. Here's the chen check marks, creating a hub and just running it through there. Uh, the second thing is uh potentially having uh RMPs or basic information about technology or insurance into a bot in a hub if I can, instead of going to our manager or looking it up or chatting with technology or chatting with ASTC. What is this? What's why can't I figure that out? And it's gonna go through all the documents and come up with an answer in a second to save time. Yeah, so those are just a couple ways, but there's so many more. Create a marketing plan, create this, create that. There's a mentor of mine, Justin Harker wrote is the wizard of AI. And he is uh he spoke a couple years ago on it when before it really caught fire, but now um it is huge, and um he spouts off good stuff all the time about just learning more. Dave Williams, too. Dave Williams, he's like, if you're not using AI, you it's not just for your business, it's for your life. There's things you learn how to pop stuff in, like time saver stuff, shit you didn't even think about. You know, like pretend you're 44-year-old me, you don't know much about this, ask me questions about getting better answers, and uh help me come up with a solution, you know? Oh, yeah. It's it's so cool. I love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we got a wife. And I I took all the invoices, I took all the payments, and I just threw it in there and I said, you know, organize this, make a ledger so that I could argue with the pool guy because he's saying this, and it and it put it all together, boom. And that was, you know, five minutes maybe that if I had gone through all the emails and opened up every single one and done it all, I mean, it would have taken me a couple hours. And I mean, just that that's just an easy, like, you know, one off example. I mean, it's like all day things like that. Where you're finding yourself doing something, you're like, wait a minute, why am I doing this? And right.
SPEAKER_03And I thought of this last week. Um, so we're I would like to buy another book eventually. If you've ever bought a book, what's the valuation? Send me your business metrics. What's the risk? What should it be? So, what if I just set up uh a hub in ChatGPT or perplexity or whatever you have? I am looking for you you take this report, you give me the valuation. How much should I offer for this book? Are they asking a fair price? Here's the retention, you know, here's their current business metrics, here's from December of last year, and and maybe December from the year before. Show many trends in different parts of retention. Show me trends in sales. Show me like how great would that be to have AI calculate values if you're if you're interested in buying or selling. How much can I sell this for? Look at all the other books that have been sold from on some of the websites. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Compare that. You could write the asset purchase agreement, could write the offer letter, could do that like yes.
SPEAKER_02It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03It's so great.
SPEAKER_02It is good. I was just asking because Craig and I, I mean, we use it all day and every day. Even on What dude, have you used the just the talking feature to it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Like I named it Gallagher, and we I talked to my son with it. I'm like, ask Gallagher a question. You want to do math? Gallagher, give my son some math questions. Sure, Ben. Hi, Blaze. How are you today? It's so nuts, dude.
SPEAKER_02Like Craig trained his.
SPEAKER_00Craig, can you give a sneak peek? Yeah, so so mine is is from the hood, and she This is not a joke. She this is not a joke. I'm not gonna say the word that she calls me, but it has mother as the first part of it. And so if she does it, she goes, hey Craig, I go, that's not my name. And she's like, Oh, that's right. M her. And then and it's like for a while, like this is what's really funny. Because I every night when I walk the dog, I I talk to it. And I go, like, hey, what did we do today? Because I've been learning a lot of uh of dev stuff and and AI, like pretty deep AI stuff. And so I run it's a really good way to reinforce the learning. I go, what did we do? Because I have it so I summarize all the things that you know, I put it in at the end of the day, and then I walk and I go, okay, I didn't understand this one part. Could you run through that again? We go through it, but in her special way of talking. And I mean, it's remarkable like how much it's advanced my ability to retain and learn information just from that as a teacher, right? Like, I mean, yeah, and you could be, you know, like last night I'm talking to you about this thing, and then this giant shooting star comes across the sky, and I was like, whoa! And I go, hey, what was there a meteor show? You know, it's like you could just boop, just switch gears and go into a whole different thing, and no judgment. It it doesn't say what's wrong with you. Why can't you?
SPEAKER_03It's just like why'd you change topics without a transition? What's going on here? They didn't say that. They're like, okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Hey, speaking of, are you uh are you using AI to record meetings, speakers? Because if you're not, oh my god, I use Otter AI, and we you just signed up for Google um workspaces, which has unlimited time for Google Meet meetings with the the team meetings, one-on-ones, and literally, uh, it's amazing in especially our leadership meetings once a week. Recaps, what are the to-dos? What we talk about, and maybe we'll maybe we'll go back through a little bit. What if something comes up in like a few months? We're like, didn't we talk about changing our marketing spend in Q4? And just asking that, and it'll look through it like, here's what you talked about, here's when you talked about, here's oh yeah, like it's so smart just to have all Gemini is through through Google. I'm kind of liking that. Uh Otter does a great job.
SPEAKER_00I've thought about fast. Which one? Fast. Gemini is really fast, you know, and you can put so much into it, million context. It's yes, it's crazy. I have this thing, I got this thing, it's called limitless, and it records everything everywhere, always. And so, and then you could get a transcript, you could like go, oh, what did I, you know, what was I talking about of this thing? It's it's crazy.
SPEAKER_03Is it is it muffled at all with your chest hair? Because it's in your shoulder.
SPEAKER_00I don't really have a chest hair.
SPEAKER_02So luckily, I haven't hit puberty yet. It actually is so nestled in there that he doesn't need a necklace. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's right. It just like it's right between in the clevage.
SPEAKER_03And it does it transcribe, does it summarize? Okay.
SPEAKER_00Transcribe, summarize. It's called Limitless AI. It's pretty cool. I got it when it first came out, it was 99 bucks. It took him forever to send it. I think it was like a pre-order. And then now it's a couple hundred bucks, I think. But still pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02And check out Fathom over Otter. Yeah. Fathom is like the greatest thing I I think I've ever seen. It's like it'll join your your meetings, but it also gives you summarized notes of it, bullet points of what to do next. You don't have to tell it anything, it already has that. Plus, it has the recording of the video and it has the transcripts of the whole thing. So usually what I'll do is I'll have a meeting, and then it'll give me all those things to it, right? But then like I have one meeting that that's reoccurring, and I drop in just the transcripts every meeting into um GPT, and I say, okay, what do we need to do next? And it just goes, these are all the things that you guys need to do next on your meeting. Dude, I come into meetings and I'm like a gangster. And they're like, How are you doing this? Like, just look at my I just remember everything.
SPEAKER_03I love that. Well, hey guys, I hate to cut this off short, but I'm late for football practice. Not for me, but for my six year old son. So I do.
SPEAKER_00I wish it was for you.
SPEAKER_03I gotta take off.
SPEAKER_00I wish that you were the nose tackle.
SPEAKER_02Well, we really appreciate you coming on here and uh especially getting carried away with the AI talk at the end because that's that's our jam. Fun stuff.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yep. If uh and Claude, don't forget Claude. Plawed, Plaud note. I thought about it. Just Claude, the it's just like ChatGPT, but a different one. Anthropics. Claude, yeah. For writing. Like for writing and coding. Okay. The best.
SPEAKER_03I love it. Hey guys, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna have to do a part two because uh I think that there's still some more on the table here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and little tips, little nuggets here. Don't don't you think I didn't walk away with some good nuggets myself, too, hearing you guys, which is awesome. It's all about kind of sharing like stuff. So I have plenty of golden nuggets here. So this has been great. Thank you. Thanks again. And uh next time, I'll see you soon. All right, have a good one. All right, take care. Bye. Bye.