Hey Craig. Let's get into some coffee talk. Hey, I love it. I love doing some coffee twalk. Well, you know, talk about what? Tugs, daughters, whatever. It's coffee tok. Coffee tok.
SPEAKER_02Coffee talk. Oh, we don't do we boom? Boom. Boom. Coffee talk. It's a coffee talk. You're not gonna believe this. But I'm not. Somebody broke my coffee twark mug that is here at my house. It was now thrown in the trash. I have to order a new one from the uh Teespring.
SPEAKER_00I bet it was your wife.
SPEAKER_02Probably. Well, guess what? I already have another three or four at the office I can grab. I have uh the new ones. I have the red one. I think I'm gonna get a yellow one. I want a yellow one. Bright and cheery.
SPEAKER_00So I got, dude, I ordered the the the coffee twalk uh or no no just the insurance dude's blanket as a kind of a joke. Yes, I did the same. My well, the funny thing is, my wife obviously hated it. Um but my daughter loves it because it's so soft that she uses it all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my son has it on his like that's what he uses to sleep with. He's like, it's so soft. I'm like, it is. I I kind of wanted it, but it's not gonna be allowed in my room. So um it is super comfortable. I I mean I was really, really surprised, but that's not what this is about. So so uh on home day we had Brad Zood. He was exuding an attitude, a dude attitude, this is a dude attitude. Um and I thought that it was remarkable that he has eight kids. Like that takes it up to the whole new level because you said I asked you the other day, going from three to four, that big of a difference? And what was your one?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's 100%. It's like the uh the seismograph. Well, I mean, at least for me, because my my kids are um a young and uh challenging, just like their dad.
SPEAKER_02Well, see, not young, and at home challenging at home, I think it's really challenging to create a framework, right? You don't have a framework for like the day, it's it's tough to structure a day, especially with little kids. But yeah, I think that you could run into the same kind of challenges in an office as you grow if you don't have your processes and procedures really tightened up when you go from say two producers to three and three to four, because it it it'd be it's a different game, it's a different game. I mean, I have nine producers that's and and we all know that producers are very similar to little kids, right? So a lot of competing attitudes, everybody's alpha, everybody wants my mind mine, right? And so uh managing that is tough is tricky if you don't have rules in place.
SPEAKER_00Totally, and that's I think that's the difference when you start getting up to like four kids and stuff like that. You have to have routines, you have to do things like an assembly line, like it does become you can't just you know, one or two kids sandwich. You can yeah, you can just yeah, you can just go off the uh on a whim, like you know what I mean, like you can do whatever you want, but when you start getting up to the the bigger numbers, and I think that's what Zood was saying, is that it's just very shh like you have to have that, you have to have a process for everything. When it's when it's time to do baths, it's a process. So you don't guess at it.
SPEAKER_02Same thing every day. You got that process, yeah. You got it down, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Not every day. I mean, that's the other thing with kids too, is like the more that you have, like, it's like ah, food falls on the ground. Yeah, you you can eat it. No rule. The length of the length, no rule now. After fours, no rule.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Love it. But it is it is a process. I mean, same with um at home, like we've always talked about, like, you know, with with uh you know, having that business family and uh all that stuff in line, it's the same thing with uh being married, right? Like you have to make the date nights, like you have to have a process to keep that running well. Because Craig, if that's not running well, is everything how does everything else do?
SPEAKER_02The wheels all fall off. The wheels all fall off, there's sparks flying, oil shooting out of the engine. I mean, yeah that has that has to come first and foremost. Because if that doesn't, and it happens, it happens to me in waves too, where it's um I'm balanced perfectly, then you start slipping towards a little bit more work, and all of a sudden you're way over here. Yeah, and then you it's like I don't know why, why it isn't just that, hey, you know, I noticed it's starting to get a little later. Could we just that would be great? I'd love the warning, but it's not until we get way over, way over on the other end and it's unbalanced, and then I'm it's like you never, you know, you never want to do this or never. It's like I got here again, you know, and then you gotta prove it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Never, not even close. Really? Well, it's just because it's like remember the old uh thing with the with the guy that spins the yeah, the plates on Letterman spins the plates on the sticks, 10 plates don't feel like I'm spinning and then I have to grab the other pole and then and then I'm cut me doing that, right? Yeah, well, but I those frameworks do help. Like if I the more I put stuff into a constant pattern, the better it works. But uh let's be honest, this year was a big change. Like, so I mean, whatever was working before we got thrown off, you know, and then now with kids having to be home and can't like you know, the whole we we we homeschool, so it's like there's that element, and then um resume school, yeah, and a lot of so I like I empathize so much with with my staff because there's some some of them that have kids that are working from home with their kids because and um it's just crazy. So it's like it sucks, like it's it's a constant. So now it's a lot of you know, you gotta understand that people are in weird situations that's pushing their boundaries. So um you can hear it on the phone when you talk to people. Yeah, it's so everybody, it's it's not just it's people on the phone, it's families and everything, everything's getting pushed. So even if you had the greatest structure before, you're still like it's it's thrown out of whack, you know what I mean? You gotta you gotta pivot and uh create new frameworks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you got you have to be able to understand that the only constant is impermanence, and permanence, right? Like nothing is permanent. Yes, it's fluid. The world is fluid, things are gonna happen. Um, there's gonna be some years where it it doesn't throttle back and forth as much. This year was obviously a pretty significant throttle, maybe the biggest one that we'll ever see. Maybe not. Maybe maybe this is just a blip, and we're gonna the next one is the aliens, you know. Who knows what what is gonna happen. But regardless, that's the only thing left. Yeah, I mean it is. They actually brought it up in the middle, but it got kind of lost in the in all the hustle bustle. But at the end of the day, if if you don't have the systems in place, and I know we we hammer this over and over and over again, then everything can fall apart when something unexpected happens, right? Imagine if if if you didn't have all of the the telemarketers over here, the people that that followed a certain script and ran quotes a certain way. If all of that assembly line wasn't set up that way, what would have happened when they had to go home because California shut down? You're in trouble, right? They went home and you didn't miss a beat. Um, that actually was for for us, everybody went home. We had one of our biggest months, and and I stopped looking so much at their numbers. I knew that they weren't gonna technically be as productive, like there was gonna be less some stuff we're gonna drop, but but for all intents and purposes, they still were grabbing transfers, they were still doing all the things they needed to do. It was the the machine was still humming along. Um yeah, I mean it just it it fell into place, and that's I think the reason why we've you know, all those nights we were up talking about these things and and on the phone discussing this stuff, it was so we would have these systems in place when things like that happen, and it makes it easier. It can't scale without the systems, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and now you can't have any kind of constant without the systems with with all the crazy changes coming up and stuff, right? Or passing or coming up, but who knows?
SPEAKER_02But also those systems, but those systems can't be complicated, right? It has to be basics, but basics that you can look to that provide that foundation. So, like um, here's a real a real-time example. I get a call when I was gone. I was gone last week when I went out to to visit you. Um, and uh, so I'm in California and I I get a call at the end when I was driving home, and they said, Oh, there was a big thing about somebody taking somebody else's lead. And I go, Oh, okay, well, how did it work? And and they ran through and I said, Well, it's so-and-so's. I mean, there's rules. We have a rule in place. It doesn't matter who closed it, right? Did anybody have it? Was it a quoted hot or was it quoted? It was status quoted. That's it, it's anybody's, right? So there's there's no argument, nobody can get upset. And it and the role will be flipped at some point, but at the end of the day, who cares? When this many leads are coming in to this many people setting up appointments, to this many people being able to be quoted every day. Why does it even matter?
SPEAKER_00Right. You know, well, it it's funny that you say the the making things simple. It reminds me of that uh Leonardo da Vinci quote, uh, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like that's what marketers and everything do, right? They the more the the more they simplify stuff and just make stuff easier, or at least seem easier on us. We're like, okay, I gotta get this. Like, yeah, it's gonna be so much easier than whatever I have now, right?
SPEAKER_02Because it's yeah, you create some elaborate flow chart that and then then all of a sudden one thing changes, and it yeah, you either don't do it, or one thing changes and the whole thing's busted. So keep it simple. Kiss.
SPEAKER_00And then what we're talking about keeping the the the plates, yeah, you know, with all this stuff with family and everything else, it's like keep it simple, just be kind, be helpful to everybody. And and I think that you know, every it's it sounds hokey pokey, but everything works out, right? I mean, it really does. Like like helping others, the uh other people help you back. It's like super simple. Guys, recharge. Recharge over this weekend.
SPEAKER_02The weekend, don't go in there and make dials.
SPEAKER_00Be good. Well, or do if that's your your process, but maybe recharge. Recharge. Give your family a hug.
SPEAKER_02Give them a little hugsy hugsy. That's all I got, Mr. Jason. That's it. All right, coffee talk.
SPEAKER_00It's a coffee talk. Have a good weekend.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good weekend to you. Oh, Mr. Jason. That would that's like the good old days. The old Bell days. Times were so much simpler back then.
SPEAKER_00And how many? We've had over like 200 interviews. Right? It's nuts. It is nuts. So we put together a little webinar from all the things that we've learned.
SPEAKER_02Right? Yeah, totally. I love it. It was a lot of fun um doing it, putting it together, and there's some really good stuff in there.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00What did we learn? We learned how to sell hundreds of thousands of premium a month using any internet leads, and this is based on a whole bunch of big dudes selling ton and ton of premium a month, like over a million.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it it it eliminates that turnover, right? The staff doesn't get burned out.
SPEAKER_00It does, it creates predictable sales, like whoa.
SPEAKER_02Right? Well, and we also learned how we can copy the processes of the big, giant, fastest growing PNC carriers and the big local agents.
SPEAKER_00Yep. That was a lot of fun. So it was fun. We put it together. We it's on a website. Go to love.teledudes.com. That's l-o-v-e.t-e-l-ed-u-d-e-s.com. How do you spell like that on the fly, Mr. Jason? Well, it took me some practice, but it's love.t e-ledudes.com.
SPEAKER_01You are good at that.
SPEAKER_02So let me get this straight. It's lovel.teledudes.com. Love.teledudes.com.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I love it too. I surprised you too, Mr. Craig. You didn't know. You tricked me.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, I'll see you later. Okay. Bye.