Elevate The Hustle
Elevate the Hustle is the bold, founder-to-founder show for leaders who want to stand tall and scale smart. 🦒
Hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams, the show dives into the real journey—growth, chaos, culture, and the systems that unlock time and revenue.
You’ll hear from independent insurance agency owners, entrepreneurs, and operators who are in the arena: how they hire, how they lead, and how they use world-class talent to level up. It’s fast, funny, and practical—no jargon, no theory, just the plays that actually work.
Who it’s for:
Owners, principals, and operators who want real leverage—better processes, better people, better outcomes.
What you’ll get:
Actionable hiring and ops strategies, culture-first leadership insights, and memorable stories that push you to think bigger and build bolder.
Elevate The Hustle
Run Your Agency Like It's For Sale ft. FirstChoice's Keith Captain
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
"If you're not growing, you're dying."
That's not just a saying—it's Keith Captain's operating principle as President of FirstChoice, the #1 largest insurance network in the country. 📈
In episode 7 of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Keith Captain—former sports management student turned insurance claims adjuster turned network president—who's spent the last 8 years helping 720+ independent agencies scale by a minimum of 15% every year.
Keith breaks down:
- Why complacency is the #1 killer of agency growth—and how to recognize it before it's too late
- The "run your agency like it's for sale" philosophy: what it means and why it matters even if you never plan to sell
- How to stop working IN your business and start working ON it (hint: build your org chart 5 years out and hire into it)
- The truth about hiring out of desperation—and why most failed hires are a process problem, not a people problem
- Why you need to start planning your exit 10 years before you think you'll need it (or you'll lose all control)
- What the 2022 merger with Marshberry taught him about culture fit, asking the right questions, and being willing to walk away
Plus, Keith shares why he'd rather sit down for dinner with a candidate than trust a resume, how he almost became a sports agent, and why technology without a customer-first mindset is just expensive clutter.
If you're stuck at 3-5% growth, tired of being the bottleneck in your agency, or wondering how the hell to build a team that doesn't need you for every decision, this episode is for you.
Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.
🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast