Knights Of The Insurance Hiring Roundtable Deep Dive With Dave Williams And Kat Ternes

The World Famous Insurance Dudes chat with Dave Williams & Kat Ternes

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Who's Dave & Kat?

• Dave Williams is no stranger to this show!  His story of struggle to transformation is a strong one, as strong as the million dollar check he wrote to himself at the beginning of his journey to become one of the best agents in the country.
  
  
• Kat Ternes is Vice President of Sales of Agency Zoom, the Agency Owner's BEST friend for New Business Tracking, Commission Calculation, and HR/Employee Management.

Transcript

spk_1:   0:02
Uh oh. Mr Jason. Oh, Mr. I would like to introduce the Knights of the Insurance Hiring Roundtable deep. So, Dave Williams and Cat, it sounds like we're gonna learn a lot today. I will slap that cat and throw it over the wall. Really? Buckle up. It's the insurance dudes podcast.

spk_2:   0:32
Well, well, awesome. I guess this is not a typical one of our podcast, huh? Jason? Is it? No, it is not. This is different way. Have cat turns from from agency Zoom who were coerced into working with Tolga. Dave Williams. Ah, friend of the show That's been on before, so welcome. Yeah, I was going off. Hey, How you doing? Good. Well, well, yeah. So actually, the agency Zoom reached out to organize this and just kind of have a frank conversation about hiring. And who better to bring on to help facilitate that than Dave Williams, one of the co founders of team hired?

spk_0:   1:28
Yeah. No, we appreciate the opportunity. Thio coming on, joining you guys talking about

spk_2:   1:32
it. Yeah, I love it. Thank you.

spk_1:   1:36
So? So Dave lets a lot of people know you as an agent and let's let's kind of go. How did you start? Team hired. And can you take us kind of through that process?

spk_0:   1:50
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've always had a passion for working with people staffing and recruiting. That's kind of been my forte. Even before all state before Allstate worked at Circuit City is a store manager is in charge of $20 million. Superstore had a staff of 60 people, and we're constantly in recruiting. So when I came in tow Allstate, you know, we took a lot of the basic fundamentals that I did it Circuit City and I did in retail is an executive. They're implemented him in the state. I would say a big part of our success over the years and 10 years being in business, you know, we started as a scratch agency. We grew to nearly $20 million in premium, mostly organically over time over the 10 years. But a big part of that success was really having a dynamic hiring process and always having the mentality to always be hiring. So we're never in a situation where we would lose one of our best people, or we would be reactive where we maybe had to make a bad hiring decision or a rush hiring decision to get somebody in the full position. So we're always know, just always in the process of hiring. And honestly, that's probably one of my favorite parts of the job is getting an interactive people and that hiring process. And I feel that there was something we mastered over time in looking out just in the insurance vertical and even outside of that other business is the one thing I think is like the most difficult thing for the average business is finding good people, and I got I just wanted to take my passion t be able to do that in our process, to help others. And we've been blessed to have a lot of success around the country so far. They were in the triple digits of how many positions that we've that we've filled for. Agents are on the country and we basically we dissected the hiring process of, you know, really what gets in the way. And you know, one of the biggest things is is especially for agency owners, business owners. Out there's there's so many different hats, the average business owners wearing that there's not a lot of time to be, in that mentality of always be hiring and always staffing. And when you break it down, like all the things that are involved in finding the right people and you're putting up job, you're hosting resumes your vetting, those people. But to make the right hiring decision what we've found almost statistically, it takes about 9 to 10 bodies 9 to 10 live people in front of you during an interview to find that one rock star. So I thought to myself, and we thought that I saw my partner, Tom Bianco, like, How do we show over that for everybody out there? And we really took a process that was working really well for us in order to do that. And that was hosting career events and hiring events for businesses and agency owners, you know? So basically, what that looks like is, you know what put ads up all over the area. Look, when we're even recruiting for ourselves internally, we'll put ads up all over the area, one of our last recruiting events that we did for ourselves. Internally, we had 145 people scheduled for a big career event that we did, we had 72 people show up in the end. Result of that was 67 hires that we had. A lot of those people are doing very, very well for us, but that's what we'll do What but adds up all over the area with dedicated recruiter that works handed and with all of our clients intial schedule, these career events and myself and our team will actually coach up the business owner how to effectively facilitate these career events. So now you're not spending an hour one on one with every single candidate, but you're literally sitting there in a group of 5 to 10 people that you're interviewing simultaneously. So it's conserving time and you get to talk to all those people in one hour segment. But the cool thing about it, I think in my thinking it is it creates a unique dynamic in atmosphere that so what we found in the years of staff, I think in recruiting is there's a lot of professional interviews on them, and what I mean by that hasn't been done so many different interviews. They're just like, really good at answering those same interview much you over and over again. And that can cause somebody toe maybe make the wrong higher because they get in. They talked to talk, but when they get in, they can't walk the walk like they got call reluctance. They lack confidence. What's unique about this, like this group dynamic that we dio, is when they're when you're interviewing everybody else. That professional interview or maybe that lacks confidence. This creates a little bit higher pressure of an interview situation to see how the Iraq have been under pressure because now they're interviewing from you the perspective employer. But they got four other strangers sitting next to them that they got a performance from them in those people that might not be cut out of the clock that you're looking for, that you get weeded out in that process very quickly so you don't make a hiring mistake. But the opposite end of that, like the rock stars the ones that do very well. They tend to stand out extremely well. They're the ones that are the most articulate, the ones with the most energy, and then those are the ones we recommend our clients to bring back for the for that 2nd 1 on one interview at that point. But the process it's worked really, really well so far again, we've been having success for ourselves. It across the country for agency.

spk_2:   7:02
That's awesome, Dave. Thank you. And, you know, I actually had some experience because you don't know of a

spk_0:   7:11
house for you guys. Whether you have 1 24 people show up,

spk_2:   7:14
you I Yeah, I think that where there were 25 5 relates, So we booted him, but they ended up sitting out there the whole time. We didn't know they were out there. They just sat in the front. But but yeah, we got results and I would do want to talk about that. But before I get to that, I think that it's important toe acknowledge something that you said near the beginning, which is that it is probably one of the hardest part's finding top candidates and end sort of like in the way that we do our sales right. We create a funnel. So we have a whole bunch of people that we called then we have a little bit less that we quote, and then we get down to the sales, right? So as the business owner, the way that you're gonna be most effective is by doing that same thing with the potential, you know, with always be recruiting and always be hiring. I think that agency owners, whether captive or or independent or or even, you know, e c p or start up whatever it is, and especially in those instances where it's really high turnover because they don't know what's going on, that they will. If they get somebody good, they kind of get comfortable. And they think, Oh, well, I'm good, you know, because I have a match.

spk_3:   8:28
They let their foot off the gas, right,

spk_2:   8:30
right, you know, and even in, I mean, I've done this 10 years. I'm fairly experienced. I don't think I'm by any means, you know, some pro at all this because you learn something new every day. But I opened on November 1st. I had seven people. I lost five of them in the 1st 2 weeks, right? Just all of a sudden, it's like everything went wrong, you know? And so that was around the same time when when we set up the event, so we got out of the event there were 25 showed up, 20 that we brought into the room and we hired five of them. Now, of the five to have started, one has ghosted me. Another one moved away and the other 3rd 1 is taking her test tomorrow. So there may be, Ah, third, which I think would be great numbers off of having 20 people if we got. That's a huge win, a huge way. I am wrong. I actually one of them. He started before the other two who started a couple days ago. No, I have three, so I'll have four potentially and the 1st 1 to give real numbers. He's at almost 15,000 premium for December, and he started December 1st. That's awesome. So you know that's that's a big win. That's better

spk_3:   9:46
numbers and I can work with out here like trying to dio software in and sure Tech to bring on the team of five that we just brought on. We started with 80 people who and that was it is a time suck. Like Dave, like mentioned, you know, is an agency owner you can never like let off the gas. So you know what Craig was mentioned that you just never know when you're safe, because you're really never safe. Your best performer could get a fantastic opportunity, and you don't want to hold them back. Um, you certainly want to be, you know, happy for them and say, Oh, I put people in successful positions. Um, And then there are times that people are going to be, Ah, a bad hire. You know, you want to avoid those the most of your ability, your rush tire, which is somewhere kind of in between. You know, those people that come in and you apply 10 80 10 to a room and you're like, you know, this just isn't working out or you need so much of my time. Yeah, it was It is beyond difficult. And in it to candids market across the whole country right now. You know, the unemployment rate is down. Um, we're seeing this just uniformly across the industries. I think we're all looking for experienced good talent, too, You know, people that are really gonna be a great fit for organization long term. You know, we don't We're not looking for short term seasonal hires. Those Christmases we are. That's not what we're looking for. Welcome for people that are gonna make a big impact in our organizations. And that just makes it even harder to find the right people.

spk_1:   11:13
Yeah, and I think one of the big problems is is most or are a lot of agents. A lot of agencies are delusional about everything across the board, you know about sales. I mean, it's the same process for hiring. Is that its sales? You know, you have to get those 100 people in there to find 5 to 10 or or whatever that that number may be in your area. But, I mean, it's just numbers, just like quotes and everything. And it's like if people really wanna get serious about hitting their numbers hitting, you know, getting enough people in the office so they can actually cell and and all the stuff they got to get this stuff down. They got to be real about the numbers and know that Hey, if I have to, if I have 10 hires, I need to get 100 people in there. And realistically, I have eight hours in the day. I gotta motivate my current staff. I've got to do all the stuff I have to bring in a team toe, bring in a team, and there's no way one person could do

spk_2:   12:15
it all. It's just one little spoke of the wheel, you know? Yeah,

spk_0:   12:20
like the exact same thing. Because what happens a lot, because it could be a daunting process. We find that they're looking for that perfect candidate, and a

spk_1:   12:28
lot has

spk_0:   12:29
happened is like, there's this over analysis paralysis that leads to the end result. Being hiring, nobody are getting nobody in front of but space. And what we found is it's a numbers game the same way, you know, take your 10 quotes to close a deal. Yeah, but not every one of those quotes is gonna be an I s for And that's why our processes is like, we get all these live people in front of somebody. It's by design. There's gonna be some people that don't fit the cloth in there, but we know out of 9 to 10 live candidates, there's gonna be inevitably a rock star amongst them. It's gonna be the right mold in, In in the agency that's gonna be able to deliver

spk_2:   13:06
did right, and that's but so So when when we had him, what we did, I brought him into my conference room. So we brought them all in the conference room, and then I gave a little spiel. You know, welcome, Jamal said. Oh, said the whole thing. And then I said, Does anybody have any questions? The first guy that just started going like he just, you know, went, Hey, I'm from Geico And he did. He presented himself in front of everybody. He's the one that actually is the one that wrote the 15 K like it was you get to see just right off the bat. And then there were there were three others because we broke into, like, break out. So it was my operations manager and then another manager from another office. So we had three. We have three different rooms. Where was a smaller group? Did this setting? Two of the ones that were in my room are the guys that just started, and then the two from one of the other rooms. One of them was, was good. I think she's gonna start tomorrow. She's probably passed, and then on the other one, who They said she was quiet. But then when I did one on one interviews, I liked her and to your point, about the professional interviewer she's in, that's disappeared. So I went against the, You know, I was like, I sent it of, you know, but it But it's remarkable because one thing that they all said was I did not expect to be in a room with a whole bunch of people would have to talk like that. And it's like, Well, that's the job you're

spk_0:   14:30
creeping about it because increases dynamic where they are caught up a little bit off guard with it, you know, we find the key is is we have an organization. We simply explain the process during the orientation. You know, we find it's important to talk about the opportunity at your business and all state the culture what it looks like. So they really understand the career path, and that's the size of the scope of the opportunity that they have in front of them there. But again, it creates this a little bit higher pressure environment where that professional interview they're they're not used to that catches them off guard and again prevents you from making that potential hiring mistake

spk_1:   15:08
me up.

spk_3:   15:09
I think that competition factor to like, you really see who's gonna like, put their head down and like, grinding like, has that great? So let's get out there and talk about it and be confident that you like you said what you're doing. I think it does remove that professional interviewer from the area that they're most comfortable just going through the motions in and gives us that advantage again. To really see the inherent skills that hopefully we've all identified is valuable within our agencies or businesses.

spk_1:   15:40
And I'll bring up something. So I've actually been doing this for about six months now. The big group interviews, and it's a little intimidating at first, like and I think that there are a lot of agency owners out there, probably when they're listening. This think like wow, that's uncomfortable situation and it is at first, just like coaching is just like everything else is. So get over it. And if you really want oh, if you really want, like doing one on one interviews in this day and age, just you'll never you'll never reach your goals. I mean That's like doing 11 quote today, like How are you ever gonna sell anything? It's a

spk_0:   16:19
fire. That's exactly why we make part of a process, too. It's not just we're gonna deliver people to you, but we do have a coaching element to it, too. So when we're in there, we're gonna lock somebody through that process. It is easy to make sure when they walk into the first career event, they're comfortable. They're confident. And then we find just exactly that. Like some people are like, I am never done this before. They're a little bit nervous, but after they do it, it's almost like every single time. I will never interview any other way ever again because it just delivers the result. And it's just a lot more, a lot more efficient.

spk_1:   16:52
Yeah, well, we've used team hired and last, uh, we were supposed to have event last week. My my entire family got sick. It was a nightmare, and I had to be out of the office and stuff and they rescheduled everything and I do it. If I didn't have the team hired team helping with that, we would never like. There's no way I would've rescheduled or I would have been so behind the eight ball. So it's like you gotta You gotta invest in somebody to help you with the hiring, because when life happens, it's like that's the last thing you're You're never gonna call those people out of the list of stuff you have to dio the hiring Part of it is the last thing that you'll probably, um, you know, put it the top your list because I run your agency.

spk_3:   17:42
I think everybody has to be aware of their own like shortcoming, whether that then, like an agency management position, like I can recruit. But I can't train. You know, it's not my strong suit, so I need to look at options of how once I bring these people in and I busted my butt to get him in the door and they're here like, how do I keep him around? You know, that's like an option all the way to, you know, there might be some people that are the most sincere and devoted like coaches, and they just struggle, creating enough time then for new hires. So I think people have to either bring on Ah person. That look fulfills their weaknesses, and that's a difficult higher. It's a super self aware, you know, reflective Hyers, who's gonna meld well with you, Or you have to get somebody you know, like they seem that professional at it and is giving you like, Listen, we know the numbers, here's the process. Follow it and you're going to get the kind of results that you need and then you can do, Ah, fantastic draw. But the things that you're really incredibly talented at, you know there's no point struggling over things that your are never going to really move the needle for your business.

spk_0:   18:46
And I completely agree with that statement to getting him in the door. That's one part of the process, but it's like when you find that, like that right person, that superstar. Now it's like, How do I keep them howto I maintain them Otto. I motivate them. So when we phone is the best practice for that, too, is what we'll do in our organization. So we got pretty high retention, and a lot of our people been with this, like, 3 to 5 years, and I believe that's because, you know, we haven't defined career path for everybody, said organization. If they start with us for a telemarketer, they know the length of time in the actions of steps that they need to take to get to that license sales producer position. They know what they need to do to become a senior license sales producer. They know what they need to do, become a supervisor sales director all the way up towards you know, mentoring is on the point where they can open up their own agency. So when we haven't come in is the best practice. We'll find one of the best people in our organization that's got the most potential. And maybe they have goals toe open up their own agency one day, or be an agency manager will involve them in the process. And we'll tell them that, Hey, this is gonna be part of your development. We want you to be in this process, and this is gonna be a perfect test for you because, in my opinion, the most important thing and running an agency there's a 1,000,000 things to focus on. Running a business in general is being old toe. Bring on the right people but then develop them to the level where they're gonna be able to grow your business. And this is gonna be a test for you. We're gonna essentially put this person under your wing for 90 days to see how well you could do. And we have involved in that process from a dizzy even even in the upfront orientation will have that key person speak to a day in the life of the position with the candidates will allow them to ask some interview questions. It had wants me on board that person, which we have that candidate in part of the decision making process they're mentoring underneath them. And then what we do is we put an incentive structure in place and say, If this person hits this performance level in the first month, maybe you're gonna get $1000 bonus. If they hit this performance level, you're going to get a $1500 bonus.

spk_2:   20:48
So they're

spk_0:   20:48
incentivized during that 90 day process. But what's also what's great about it is this new person that knows nothing about the business is mentoring underneath our best, most capable, most talented individual. And we find a lot of the training honestly comes through osmosis when they're sitting next to that caliber of individual before you see it like day one week, one a month in all of a sudden they're mimicking in styling, the behaviors, the mannerisms, the talk pass of that individual. And all of a sudden you have a mini me of that of that person that's out on your floor. And we found that toe work very well in helping develop somebody in our agency that's looking to go to the next level. But at the same time, get that person in that, you know, early on get some early winds and success in the right level of training and support.

spk_1:   21:36
I think that's a key is get the new hires with the early winds. I see it so often, and in our agency we know that if somebody's not selling within two weeks that their self esteem is down, you know, almost no recovering.

spk_0:   21:52
And in that sense that wants to get to that point. It's show tough to overcome that, because now they developed over two weeks they've developed limiting beliefs in a huff, commemorate those release those beliefs that they have their But when they're when they're sitting alongside your best, I've always found like Ivan terminology like you shadow of a leader like a shadow of the leader to me is very important. It's like, What shadow are you casting your in your agency every single day? Because you can come in in, demand people to do something or instruct people to do something? But I've always found people will do is you do before they do as you say. And if you have them next to somebody, that's literally they're seeing and eat, live and breathe there, practicing what they preach like there's no excuse not to do it like they just get it's like get on the train or get off. And we found the right people more, more times than not. They're going to get on the train and they're gonna start the mimic the same behaviors and results,

spk_3:   22:48
right? That's using that top 10% of your hires to really move the middle that initial you know that 80% that's always gonna be there, using those all stars and giving them more responsibility, which, you know so many people are craving. How do I get to the next step. What's the plan? Um, yeah, that's certainly part of it. That are recruiting style style has even come out of a similar mentorship. And the opportunity as you're becoming successful to take on additional responsibilities as often as possible. You know, bringing in a referral, somebody that is friends of friends. Whether that was at a previous company, an organization, whether that was, you know, they went to college together. We hire a relatively ah group of young people. So, you know, we still have that as a successful funnel began. I just It helps so much to have the mentorship attached to the leadership that it's like you said, They've just not do as I say, not as I do, but they're really watching you, like live and breathe is a wonderful example.

spk_1:   23:51
No, absolutely cat. Can you kind of talk about your background with hiring and you're ramping up of agency zoom and kind of your process?

spk_3:   24:01
Yeah, So, like I said to start off our process, it is a little bit naughty. We do cold outreach, um, of the people I've hired in the past, and that anywhere from what you guys would consider equipment to a telemarketer. You know, if I was looking for somebody to be able to sell the Allstate agents, it certainly wouldn't hurt to go grab an Allstate telemarketer, Um, or a sales producer goes to be really the two rules that I have spent a lot of time with. Um, and we traditionally bring them into that telemarketing rule initially and then groom them and grow them up into the organization. Ah, we do our best to not bring somebody in ahead of somebody else who's been there busting their butt, but it does. It starts with them doing some amount of outreach us doing cold outreach. Out of everyone I've hired, I've only ever taken one active candidate. Um, everybody else is sitting at a desk job sitting pretty like in their life, making the most of it. You know, there even if their job isn't perfect, they have that, like, grit and that Ah, intensity. Let go Make the most of it. Um, so yeah, that that slows down the process. But I think one of the things, too, to the point that you're all using that I love and we've done similar in the past are those events. You gotta treat it like a pipeline and you can never kill a deal in the pipeline. You know it. Like if somebody says, like, if I'm talking to Jason and I'm like, Listen, Jason, I think you have a good opportunity to learn more at your current company in here. He's like, you know, cat. Yeah, I'm probably okay where I'm at. Don't force it. You know, Figure out what the difference is gonna be one. You can make that greatest impact and make sure Jason's coming to those group events so that everybody else that's there for the first time knows what type of person you're looking for Turned Jason into the biggest advocate for your company and then make sure that everybody that is part of your company is attending those events to, you know, um, Craig, I think you said you had your operations manager there. You can't just have one person. You know. You can't just have the rocks, are there? It's gonna be everybody. Uh, could you just don't know who's gonna come in the door and who's gonna matter most and connect with someone on an individualized level. So we do proactive outreach were are spending time with people on a 1 to 1 basis. But as soon as somebody is in that pipeline, you know, until they tell me Kat, you're crazy. Lady, please go away. Like stop checking out my LinkedIn profile. Um, we're staying in touch and making sure they're attending those group events of you trying keep a pretty tight schedule on those to be doing those once every two months. You know, I want to know if the smallest thing starts coming up in somebody's life that they're starting to feel like they're topping out at their current career. And then it's my job to nurture them. And if I could get them into my organization and take them to that next level to get to do that, then so,

spk_2:   26:49
no. Yeah, I think it's important not to the to the importance of expertise on Dave. You know your background before you. But it's such a great story. I almost wanted to have you tell it again. I

spk_0:   27:04
give the cliff notes version of

spk_2:   27:05
I mean, I think that's great in case anybody missed the original the original podcast with with you because that's that's a really cool story. And then the importance, though, that because you've done all these things and you've done it 10,000 times, it's much more effective, even though it may seem like it costs a lot toe toe. Bring in somebody to do this, whether it's team hired or somebody else. But But you bring somebody in and they know how to do this thing. And look, your time is better spent over here because like you're doing a 1,000,000 things and you hire the wrong person because you're doing it on the cheap, it doesn't pay off. But if you could, I mean, your story's great. I love

spk_0:   27:46
that. On that point to we actually kind of perfected it down to a science where, you know the cost of our package, we found, ends up being more affordable than they're putting up all the ad spend following the normal process that we d'oh you know to be goes low as 15 $2000 for in a higher in the package, which again I think, works out pretty competitive. When you look at the average recruiting agency, that's Ah, it's out there and you know, a small price to pay to have ah, superstar during your team and your organization.

spk_3:   28:17
They were taking on new clients. Because when you tell me and I'm going to coffee, like every morning, starting at 6 30 when the coffee shop opens and I'm coming in to work at nine, and you tell me for 15 to $2000 you know, I'm gonna be able to sit down and, like, have good candidates show up at my door like I could use some extra sleep. So you tell me when you start taking on

spk_0:   28:39
considerate Know what? Connect up the call. No, I mean to give you, give you the cliff notes version of you know my story again and again was with Allstate for 10 years. That led up to, you know, launching team hired. But, you know, back 10 years ago, I fell, uh, you know, down on my luck a little bit. I do with health challenges and back then knows that it's worse. I had some part of immune issues that put me off work for about six months on disability. And, you know, I used to play college baseball, and, uh, I thought that's what I was going to do my entire life that didn't pan out. I had to figure out what I was gonna do. And I started just selling car stereos that Circuit City found out. It's pretty good at sales, good with people, moved up very quickly, became an executive store manager, and that was my career for 10 years. And when I start having health issues, I went out for work on disability for about six months. Probably gotten the worst financial position ever was in because not working for six months not getting an income. It it makes it pretty difficult. Finally got to the point, you know, help wise. I wasn't ready to come back to work, but I had to force myself to come back to work because otherwise I was gonna lose my position, came back to work before I was ready, and that three months later I got hit again and found out the Circuit City was following Chapter 11 in going bankrupt. So now I was gonna lose my career at the same time. It was just a lot of lot of mixed emotions. There's a lot of change, but it was a blessing in disguise because it can't uphold with me and into into the right scene. So, you know, what happened next throughout that process was I had a friend of the family that was with Allstate. You know, I was done working with people, and even at the time, I had doctors telling me that you know what, most people with what you got. They end up on long term disability. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I just told myself I'm like, That's not the life that I'm gonna live. I'm gonna create a life on my own terms. That's conducive to my health is conducive to my family. And I literally no, no lie. I can show you a picture. I still have it hanging in my office at home. I wrote myself out and check for a $1,000,000 in that check for a $1,000,000. Wasn't about the money at all. It was something to give me a mental picture individual. Every single dad literally looked at that check every single day. And what it meant to me was creating that life for myself, creating a life that was on my own terms, taking care of my family because you know what? My parents wanted to take care of my beautiful wife, provide a life for her and my parents growing up literally gave the shirts off their back for me and never me and my sister had a brother that went down the wrong path, and they never wanted to see us go down that same path. So they literally sacrificed everything, never bought new clothes, never won on vacation. So I made it my mission that I wanted to be able to get back to them and build it gain enough resource is that I could provide them over a life, their dreams. And I was able to, you know, God willing, bring them on. Probably eight inner circle trips. They went to every single Allstate, a work trip that they were able to win. And, you know, it was a complete blessing, but went back when I first started talking to somebody at Allstate about the opportunity. I was like, You know what? Amid people were Don't tell him you go work for somebody first. I was like, You know, I'm just gonna go all in. I'm just gonna figure this thing out. Open up an agency. But the problem I had was I just came back from a difficult financial situation and didn't have the capital. So shortly after that, I just started getting my license thing. I was like, I'm gonna figure it out for got away. And then when the liquidators came in the Circuit City, they basically said, Hold open merchandise, Dave, we need the blowout, and we just gotta get rid of the pennies on the dollar. Anything that's a customer return any open merchandise I saw that is my opportunity to raise capital. I took the last bucks $7000 out of my 401 K, and that's fine, um, close to $80,000 of the merchandise, pick it all, sold it all on Rod Line, paid off my debt and then raised the capital I needed for my first scratch agency Hired to people that lost her job with me in a certain city and honestly, like we just from day one of my agency open, I acted as if I still look at that check every single day and realized that was my freedom and acted as if somebody was trying to take that away from me 24 hours today. Ah, no joke. When I first got in their day one our instructor came in to train us on how to quote howto run an agency. Well, that they said the 1st 2 weeks, we're gonna be training and then you can start selling animal. It was that I don't have the luxury to do that. I'm literally 30 60 days away from being out of business. If we don't, it's a major revenue so much. What we're not rather have you do is train me, teach me and coach me while I'm in action in our first location was across from the D. M V inside of a shopping mall, and I literally ran out and started grabbing people out of line. My first customer is still with me to this day are although Hernandez, our first customer, I remember bringing him in out of the d. M V line. We signed up. His motorcycle is home is autos. And I had no idea what I was doing. It literally took us, I think, five hours to sign up all of his policies with this trainer in instructor. And then that's how we learn, but we learned fast. But because, you know, back to my point, like shadow of a leader, because I set that level of intensity and I set that kind of tone, what do you think? The two employees that I just on? Bond. How do you think they acted and perform? It was like, literally there was no room to you anything but hustle and grind all day long, and that's what we did to build a business, and we didn't have anything fancy back then. It wasn't we. I didn't have the money to buy leads. I didn't have any of the stuff I literally worked out of a phone book equivalent of a phone book. We're using coal, ex dates, sales genie and just pounding the phones all day long, getting people perfecting our pitch, getting people interested, quoting them in closing them. And I think in our very first month we did 70 something items. We started to bring some revenue in, and then I started to pull myself onto the business and focus on the business building best practices, processes, systems, investing in marketing that allowed us to scale it today toe close to $20 million in revenue.

spk_3:   34:56
That's exceptional. That's like the kind of thing that you like so well, a team during the like, you know, half time for, like, national championship. Like I got back out there. Get back out there like that. Of course

spk_1:   35:09
it is. It is. And so that's why I would love to kind of get your head. I'd love to know where your head's at with this. So when you hire someone, um, what are you looking for? Like with all that experience and with your drive and what you've been able to dio, what are the qualities that you would say are that just hands down

spk_2:   35:30
what you're looking

spk_0:   35:30
for? Yeah, So I mean what we're looking for it. The end of the day is that high energy individual that's motivated, That's driven. That's looking for that opportunity to get in the Lexx level. A lot of the people that have moved down from us to own their own agencies to become agency managers. You, Nana, they started in, you know, we had some people that were flipping burgers there. They're what they're looking for a career path. And I love somebody that's hungry that's looking for that opportunity and they just never gotten in life and somebody that's really hungry and willing to put in the degree of effort that it takes to be extremely successful in that business in this business. So that's really the caliber of person. We're looking for, somebody dynamic. I know there's a lot of people out there they're looking for sometimes to fill that void and looking for the path of least resistance. Okay, I want a license person that's already brain, and I've actually found that more times than not that detrimental because when I found when you hire a license candidate and there's exceptions to this rule, but more times than not, you hire a license candidate. They're not out in the job market well looking because they're crushing it somewhere else and they up in love.

spk_2:   36:41
But

spk_3:   36:41
precisely 100%

spk_0:   36:43
work out somewhere else. They're happening habitually agency to agency and what I find what that is embedded. Limited beliefs in that person is typically not coachable, but most importantly and more even more detrimental when they come into your operation. Like all the other great people in operation, they can come in and bring them down very quickly with their mentality in their attitude, cause they might. It came from an environment you're asking them to do 40 50 items in a month. Performance lies and insurance a vertical and they came from an environment or an agency that hasn't done that in four months. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll get it done. But what really want their thinking is like that impossible, like games out of his mind. There's no way I could do that right? They're not saying that, you know, they're saying that, too, is all the other people in your office. Yeah, you're with other people in your office here that intrinsically over and over from somebody they perceive is experienced in the business that they all of a sudden, you got somebody having a bad week of bad month. They start to buy into that person. If you take a really good producer in your agency and brings them down,

spk_2:   37:50
you know

spk_0:   37:51
somebody that it's got the right cloth. Like even somebody that retail retired people from Best Buy, for example. You know, we know that somebody from Best Buy if they're working in their TV department their computer department. That's one of the higher gross margin areas and Best Buy. And they put their best salespeople in there in the lawsuit when they promote their sales people. Joe Supervisor It's typically their best salespeople, and they're really under compensated. A lot of the supervisors at Best Buy make $14 an hour. So somebody like that that's in retail. I know that's hungry. They're willing to put in retail hours, and they're grinding and not even getting compensating according to the degree of effort. But the men and I can plug it in the best. Give him a career. That person is going to stick with me. They're gonna be loyal that somebody had taken hold and develop. And if I tell them 8 40 items is the price of admission toe toe, earn your seat here. They're gonna do it. They're gonna do it every day. So I'd rather take somebody from the ground up, mold them, coach them, and that's that's how every single superstar we've had no organization. They started without a license, and we've gotten him to that point where you know they're crushing it now.

spk_3:   38:58
I feel like this might not comments a surprise in the insurance space considering how much time we spend at each of these respective areas, but the two people that, like I will take time with, no matter who they are. Bartenders and caddies. If you're willing to haul around somebody else's junk in the heat and you liken, just make small talk like you're a walking agency management system. To me, you know you like Bill, what is up and see what the bartender like. If you can keep that small talk and you're engaging and you can multitask to that level and you're on your feet all day like and I say, like I could give you, you know, a career path. There's going to be growth here. You know there's gonna be stability and not working until you know, three or 4 a.m. anymore. Carrying kegs like likes better, you know, And it's just an opportunity. And we agreed everybody, when we go through during the, um, like the actual recruiting process on grit, pass chin, curiosity, competition and whether they're a challenger, you know, Can I change your mind as a person, you know? Am I curious enough to understand you and then impactful and passionate enough to change your mind. Uh, and and those those urges people that have it. You know, it's been ingrained no different than people. Best buy that probably gets held like hey, kick rocks, you know, nine out of 10 times. But there's still justice cheery when I walk in right after somebody else and there's already a long line like there were gonna butts off like, there's just a lot of people out there that don't have any bad habits. They don't have those limiting behaviors of that mindset, and you could just do so much like with a good training program and like the right, um, text back and everything you need to make them successful there. So many opportunities out there. And we I mean, our 1st 30 days. They're they're kept track of off of a really, really small quota, like really reduced, like get in, understand it, learn it so you could maintain your personality and feel confident what you do. And then we we judge them off with three sixties. How are they integrating? Are they supporting their teammates? Are they weighing down one teammate or they weighing down the group. And you just read, um, six core competencies in that 360 on a scale of 1 to 5. And that doesn't come from me. That comes from the peers, the people that are in that rule with them. Um, and that's how we start weeding out gave to your point, like the bad apples. You know, if somebody comes in even if they're an all star, everybody's had that lone wolf before. Even if they're all start like and they're killing the culture and they're pulling down the opportunity. Somebody else has to be great. Six months from now, a year from now, whatever it takes to get there, that's a bigger indication. And a bigger, like, red flag to me. Then just, you know, you come up one item short, you come up four items. Sure. You know, your 10% behind I can get you there if you have, you know the passion for doing it. And you have the grit, and the curiosity will get you there. But if you just have that poor attitude, you're never gonna overcome that.

spk_1:   42:03
No. And

spk_0:   42:04
I'm so sorry.

spk_1:   42:05
We've had the same experience is you did Dave with with hiring those experienced agents. It's home almost never worked out, almost never. And the other thing toe. What Cow is saying is you gotta have a culture of gratitude, like you gotta have people that are grateful for being there. Then it makes a Nen tire culture of where you're grateful that they're there and, like everybody's helping each other. You actually want to show up to work. There's been a couple times in our agency where I just didn't want to show up, like is horrible and those those rock stars. I had a couple of those rock stars that really weren't rock stars, but that have the highest sales at the time, really brought down everybody else, and they eventually left and and then you have to clean up after their messes for years.

spk_0:   43:02
Well, worth having them. An organization like I was saying the same shoes that at one point Jason. So I was having the same thing going on the organization. We had a couple people that were crushing. It sails lives, but they weren't living and breathing like our company culture the way we wanted it to. And, you know, I think over time I think a lot of people gonna relate, You know, like all this person's performance, I'm gonna let this slide. But this life that went to a conference and I heard this guy speak up on stage. His name was J. J. And he operated the number one through 700 dealerships, an entire country. He ran 700 dealerships in every one of them. Ranked 137 in the country in the afterlife. What do you attribute your success too? And he said non compromising company culture. And he laid out non negotiables. And that was the biggest thing I took out of the way. The culture. I immediately development non negotiables. I went back and I said, You know what? My name is on the door going forward. I'm not gonna walk in and work environment anything less than my perfect work environment. So I developed these non negotiables and laid it out to our team and we give people time to adapt. We basically told him like I don't care how much you sell. If you cannot eat, will be eat, live and breathe. Our company culture and non negotiables going forward, you just can't be off the team. And basically, you know, some of the non negotiables we put in place was always be coachable. Toe Pia may. So we require PM A. If you look at our agency, we got signs up everywhere, said no negativity of loud. But P. M. A is positive mental attitude, like it's literally a terminal offense in our agency. If we catch somebody in their perpetuating negativity intentionally, that's bringing down their teammates like that being said, you know people can have problems and we got an open door policy where they can come to us. But what we don't tolerate is somebody expressing their problems in a negative way that's bringing down others. That's not confusing to our workout spirit. You know, living with integrity with every single thing that they do always be coachable training every single day. Those were some of the non negotiables that we put in place for everybody, and we drew a line. We had some people that were top performers of us, and they couldn't adapt to that separated ways. And some people are afraid of that, like, Oh, it's gonna kill my production. But our production increased like everybody was glad when we had this culture, and now what we do is we protect the heck out of that culture. So when we bring in a new hire, like a lot of times our agency and our people on our team, the vet, that person out before they even get in there like this person isn't living our core values as an agency, this person can hold up to him and we'll get rid of them before they even become a problem. So I felt culture is like absolute must absolute key Kurt develop the right custom culture and protected at all costs.

spk_2:   45:49
So huge and and also on the odd the hunt, right? If you are looking for just license and even more specific is yours all the time. If somebody's Allstate or farmers Oh, I wanted have farmers experience, right? And it's like, Well, let's just shrink the candidate pool when we have to act, create a big funnel, right? Why would we limit ourselves to that? Almost

spk_0:   46:11
like the crippling of saying You know what? I'm not gonna quote anybody. I'm not gonna review your policy unless I know they have 800 perfect

spk_2:   46:18
crust for the

spk_0:   46:19
three houses and they have

spk_2:   46:20
seven cars. There's been a lot

spk_0:   46:22
of business looking for that person. You're never gonna hire anybody looking for that part. You're gonna get what's gonna happen out of it is in over analysis, paralysis in the situation that's gonna result in not the results that you're looking for. So it is. It's a numbers game.

spk_3:   46:37
You'll end up if you if you have your expectations and you set this net so tight you'll end up with those rush tires. They're not going to necessarily bad hires, but you'll compromise to appoint to get people there in the time frame that you need them. And rather than being open minded to some exceptional talent that needed development from the get go, you end up with some average talent that maybe have some, you know, bad habits here and there that they're just never gonna be the rock stars. You know, you're never gonna have that upward potential sitting there that you could develop no diamond in the rough. You know, I

spk_0:   47:11
think I think the message here is, too. It's not just about finding the higher. There's a lot of components of getting the higher developing the higher, maintaining the higher in there, too. That's That's what I love about the process with recruiting. So a team hired. That's why we try to differentiate ourselves to you is you know we'll be is involved in the process. If you let us going, somebody can call my phone any time. And if it's not even about hiring, if it's about company culture, whatever it is, you know I want them to be a massive six shots for the customer. Because it is. It's not just the 11 avenue of getting the person in there. There's a lot of steps getting them to be a top performer and then retaining that person in, you know, within your within your company culture.

spk_1:   47:52
I want to touch on something real quick. In your opinion, if you had a smaller agency that only needs like 2 to 3 people, or maybe even just to, would you hire one at a time to find the right

spk_2:   48:04
now, I would

spk_0:   48:05
always be overstaffed by one person because none of the day if you're prepared to lose somebody and you always got somebody on the bench, I would 100% over staff, especially going into the environment that we're gonna be facing coming up because compensation models changed all about acquisition. If you go into that, you're not prepared. You know who's executed acquisition model? Um, it's gonna be a tough go ahead, and you could get behind really quickly. And by not having that extra person in falling in a reactive hiring state could cost you your year. Takashi, your bone is everything that you have a detrimental your office. I mean, we have a philosophy to always have a bench. So one of the things that will do is we found to be real successful, too, especially if we bring somebody in a lot of time. We'll start him in what we call a sales support role. So will reward our top producers by assigning a sale support agents. And, um, that's basically doing some of the heavy lifting, calling out, giving, talk, passing, generating live quotes. So we'll start in that role hitting the phones just a real simple job description where they got to get on the phone and talk Thio, you know, you've got to make $250 a A and talk to people give a specific pitch in support one of our best sales runs, so that's rewarding our top sales rep. So instead of investing his money into a live transfers in, a lot of marketing will invest in people to generate those live transfers ourselves internally. But what that's doing at the same time is that's giving additional people in our organization. It's creating a bench. So the ones that come in and perform in a very high level will set the expectation of you. Come in 30 60 days and you crush it. You're you're generating, like 1.52 quotes an hour and you're helping one of our couple of our license sales producers really 60. We'll give you the opportunity to get in their shoes really quickly. So get this done in 60 days over, deliver for us. Well, then invest in you at that point, get you license and allow you to live in the shoes that everybody else is. So I mean, what that does is they come in, they start crushing it for 60 days, delivering like some pretty good results for US channels producers. But that gives us a good gauge before we go in and make a major investment, get somebody license, invested all of his training and find out they don't work out. This gives us a good snapshot of how they act in our culture, how they work with their co workers in a lower position. Are they trying to earn their keep to get to the next level, or are they just settling? So if they come in and they're living all the attributes that then we look for, That's how we know, like, this person is gonna be our next rock star on the sales team, and then we'll promote them and move them up Thio to the role.

spk_1:   50:53
I love that. Yeah, that's a great That's a great idea. Okay, we've had you guys for an hour. It's and thank you guys so much. What is one one knowledge nugget that you would give to any insurance agent out there when it comes to hiring? Um, let's start with you, cat. And then and then you Dave wanna know Nugget?

spk_3:   51:15
Thanks for having us, Like

spk_1:   51:17
for the hour

spk_3:   51:18
one. Dave, your story's awesome. And Craig and Jason, as always, you guys were absolutely great. You're on one. Thank you. Won ha. I would tell them to Just so be hyper aware off what they need their non negotiables. And then don't take a moment looking away from those you know, know yourself be that self awareness is so important. And then never, ever, whether it's during recruiting or even when you make ah higher. It's not always to be perfect, but just never step away from that. You're gonna end up somewhere down the road like kicking yourself in the butt, and you don't wanna have to be like cleaning up after those types of the states. You don't want to have the effect on the rest of your team and your agency. Um, so I think a lot of people are at the point that they're running an agency self aware. Tune into that and stick to it like, just be awesome at what you're doing.

spk_2:   52:15
That's awesome. Yeah, love it.

spk_0:   52:17
And I would I would say, honestly, don't rush like don't just because the first person that walks in the door or somebody's got a license don't just rush in

spk_1:   52:27
trans panting at way Lies happened,

spk_0:   52:31
might sound alright. Sound good, and, um, outside easy, but you're gonna pay for it. Don't rush. So I would encourage people involved your entire organization literally lay out the road map. What a perfect employee look like? What are what are non negotiables? What is our culture? And then get the whole organization involved. Allowed. Allowed chief staff members to interview. Allow your hiring manager interview. Have you interviewed then come together in a consensus and say, Can this person eat, live and breathe our culture? Is this person gonna be a problem? Any capacity house, this person's attitude houses person's work ethic and collectively come together like I went to. You don't know if anybody's ever gone to the Zappos experience out in Vegas, but Zappos to shoe company. They literally have 11 of the craziest hiring processes I've ever seen. I went on the Zappos tour. It's a six month process to bring somebody in the organization. They get so in depth with it, and it's so important to them to protect their company culture that they have. The cab driver is involved in the hiring process that brings the person to the organization.

spk_2:   53:38
In the cab,

spk_0:   53:39
dropped, the cabdriver strikes up a conversation to it, unbeknownst to the candidate and they'll interview the cab driver like, How did this person react? How today that the receptionist is involved? How did this person interact with you? They have a brand ambassador that walks that person around and introduces him that everybody in the organization and they go after the fact and ask them How did what did you think about this person? And then, even when they decide to hire on, they literally have amount of six month probation where they're like going through this task the entire time? We're essentially the organization is voting on. If this person belongs permanently as a part of our team or not, and they take it so serious that at the end of that six months, if they accept somebody in a permanent position and they graduate, they literally have an auditorium built at Zappos. In the invite, the entire family they hurt get up on stage almost like a graduation ceremony. Well, king in them into the company. So I saw that like we obviously remembering our hiring process, that level. But I saw that, and how important it wasn't how serious they took their company culture into me like that was like a a major takeaways. You know, take your time. Make sure that you involved multiple people in the process. Really defined what your culture looks like and what you think the best employee attributes will look like in your organization. And ask yourself, does this person stack up and can they live my expectations,

spk_2:   55:05
Dave Williams dropping the mic at the end that Yeah. So much more leverage in having too many candidates versus the other way around because they come in and they see you're struggling. They're going to take advantage of that, right? They can't fire me. I could take the day off because they can't do anything. Right. So you want to put in a position where you have the leverage? You guys thank you so much, I We definitely should do this again. No love

spk_0:   55:34
for you. Absolutely love. Now, I'm passionate about this stuff. I love talking anybody out there, like, you

spk_3:   55:40
know, having

spk_0:   55:42
conversations about love.

spk_2:   55:44
Yeah, I think recruiting. Well, thank you, Kat. Thank you, Dave. We'll put the link for team hired. I think it's floating around in there right now on a bunch of the episodes. So we appreciate everything you bring, and it works really well. So

spk_0:   56:00
thank you.

spk_1:   56:01
I think there's a lot of Ah lot of stuff in there that people met might not have thought about, you know? And that's huge on why we why we do this to begin with is just open everyone's mind to the to the ways you know, successful people have have done it.

spk_0:   56:16
Yeah. I mean, you don't know what you don't know.

spk_1:   56:18
You don't. That's

spk_2:   56:20
true. So you guys all right? You

spk_0:   56:26
guys were great.

spk_1:   56:30
Hey, you gotta check out the insurance dudes. Inner circle. Coming soon where you get extended interviews as well as live coffee talks in our private Facebook group. Join the mailing list today at the insurance dudes podcast dot com. Hey, thanks for checking out the insurance, dude. Hey, subscribed. We got some really great stuff coming out