Elevate The Hustle
Elevate the Hustle is the podcast for independent insurance agency owners, entrepreneurs, and operators building something real.
Hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dom Piccirillo, founders of an eight-figure company helping agencies scale with top offshore talent, the show sits down with the people actually building right now: agency owners, M&A and P&C experts, and operators who've hired, led, and scaled without burning out.
Every episode is the behind-the-scenes conversation you don't get anywhere else: how they hire, how they lead, how they grow without creating more chaos.
New episodes weekly.
Want to see if a virtual assistant is right for your agency?
Learn more at elevateteams.io
Episodes
36 episodes
E36:Your Clients Should Be Your Marketing Department: How HawkSoft Grew on Word of Mouth
You built your agency on relationships. Now everyone's telling you to automate, buy more leads and spend more on ads. Darrin DeFouw has watched that pressure from inside one of insurance's most loved software companies for 22 years.Darri...
E.35 Every Business Comes Down to These 3 Things | High School Hustle
In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Scott Lingle and Peter SerVaas, co-founders of High School Hustle, join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to talk about the summer competition teaching teenagers to build real businesses. One of their ...
E34: The Master Connector: How Ricky Brito Built ForgePoint on Relationships, Not Transactions.
Ricky Brito joins Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to break down how he went from working rooftops at age 10 to becoming one of the most connected people in the insurance industry, and why his next chapter is built on relationships instead...
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Ep.33 Fired, Then Founder: Greg & Becky Hile on Building QuoteRUSH From Scratch
Greg and Becky Hile, co-founders of QuoteRUSH, join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to tell the real story behind one of the insurance industry's most trusted quoting platforms, now serving over 1,100 agencies.Greg shares how he g...
Ep 32: The Insurance Agency Owner Who Turned His Biggest Pain Point Into a Business | Justin Goodman
Justin Goodman, founder of Total CSR, joins Stan and Dom to break down how he turned his own agency's biggest problem, watching big houses poach every employee he trained, into an online trade school now used by 1,400+ insurance agencies across...
Ep. 31: We Made $17K Our First Year. Here's How Erb & Young Got to $100M | Brett Young & Matt Main
Brett Young and Matt Main of Erb & Young join Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo to break down how three guys with zero insurance experience and $17,000 in year one built one of the fastest-growing P&C agencies in the country....
Ep. 30: We've Trained 1,500+ Insurance Virtual Assistants. Here's How It Works. Ft. Melissa Rivera
Melissa Rivera, Head of Training at Elevate Teams, joins Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo to break down what it actually takes to build and train a great virtual assistant.Melissa has trained over 1,500 VAs for U.S. insurance agencies over...
Ep. 29: The Insurance Industry Runs on Relationships, Not Rates. Ft. Adam Urbania from The AC
"Relationships close deals. Rates don't."In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Adam Urbania, part of the leadership team at The AC (Agency Collective), for a real conversation on why trust beats price in the i...
Ep. 28: Shark Tank's Nelson Brooks on Building a Billion-Dollar Party Empire
"$225K for 10%. He left owing 32%. Still called it a win."In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Nelson Brooks, founder of Cabana Boys Events, who built an 8,000-party empire before Shark Tank ever called, for ...
"This 14-Year-Old Entrepreneur Turned a Dinner Idea Into a Real Business | Cody DeCoons Ep. 27
14 years old. Already failed 10,000 times. And he's just getting started.In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Cody DeCoons, a 14-year-old entrepreneur who built Sports Sitters, a real, paying business, from s...
How to Scale a Family Insurance Agency Through 20+ Acquisitions ft Marc Duffy | Elevate The Hustle
He lost his father at 26, inherited a family business he wasn't ready for, and turned it into an 80-person insurance agency with 20+ acquisitions.In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Marc Du...
How to Launch an Insurance Business With No Roadmap and No Guarantees
Insurance agency owners: How Greg May launched a specialty casualty MGA from scratch with his brother, said no to the opportunity three times, and bound their first policy in under five months.Want to grow your insurance agency without b...
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What Every Stuck Insurance Agency Owner Gets Wrong About Growth
In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Kim Ades, founder of Frame of Mind Coaching and one of the most respected executive coaches in the entrepreneurial world. Kim started selling back massages on C...
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How to Actually Grow an Insurance Agency ft Ryan Hanley
In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Ryan Hanley, 20-year insurance industry veteran, founder of Rogue Risk, board member at Linkora, and one of the most polarizing voices in the independent agent ...
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Stop Growing Your Agency Alone | How to Build Connections That Drive Revenue | Jon Spaugy
Insurance agency owners: How Jon Spaugy spent 16 years building one of the most connected networks in the independent insurance world, and why the agents who stay personal are the ones who survive what's coming.Want to grow your insuran...
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The Future of Insurance Agencies: Who Survives and Who Gets Left Behind | Kevin Panter
Insurance agency owners: How Kevin Panter built a $20M independent insurance agency in a Georgia county of 27,000 people, and why he keeps saying no to private equity.Want to grow your insurance agency without burning out or selling out...
How to Build a Business That Runs Without You | Liz Mershon
Most people build a business to find freedom. Liz Mershon built five and was still a prisoner.In Episode 20 of Elevate The Hustle, hosts Stanley Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Liz to unpack the unfiltered story of how she...
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Most People Sell Their Time Cheap. He Never Did | Neil Krauter
In Episode 20 of Elevate The Hustle, hosts Stanley Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Neil Krauter to unpack a career that started with peanut brittle sales records and a keg party that changed everything, leading to a $40 million b...
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How He Built A Referral-Driven Agency In The Hardest Insurance Niche ft. Andrew Nigri
Most people talk about building something. Andrew Nigri had the audacity to actually do it.In Episode 19 of Elevate The Hustle, hosts Stanley Meytin and Dom Piccirillo sit down with Andrew to unpack the unfiltered story of how he ...
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Why This 3rd Generation CEO Won't Sell ft. Connor Lynch
"This company has survived the Great Depression, multiple wars. When you really think about what it takes to navigate business for that long, it's really insane."Connor Lynch runs a 107-year-old insurance agency in South Florida. His gr...
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From Pro Football to Making Insurance Sexy ft. Kenneth Mantuo Jr
"No one grows up wanting to get into insurance, right? It's not on your vision board."Before Kenneth Mantuo Jr. was building a multi-state insurance agency and trying to make the industry sexy, he was chasing a very different dream: the...
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Why Niche Beats Generalists Every Time ft. Troy Chakarun
"We knew the need before they knew the need."Before Troy Chakarun was helping scale one of the fastest-growing firms in insurance, he was making cold calls, sorting mail, answering phones, and getting yelled at by strangers at Merrill L...
Your VA Could Be Your Next Leader ft. Gabriela Rodriguez
"This is not the ceiling for me. I need more, I want more, and I've always worked for that."Gabriela Rodriguez started as a virtual assistant in Venezuela in 2017. $1 an hour. Paid in a collapsing currency. Her first client? Cold...
Why Most Agency Owners Hire the Wrong People ft. David Ragno
The best investment you can ever make? Yourself."I took a 70% pay cut at 25 just to get my foot in the door. Whether I made money at it or not, it was going to provide me tremendous value long term."David Ragno start...
Don't Wait for a Promotion. Take it ft. Sonya Horton
"I promoted myself to COO. See, when you don't want to promote me, I promote my damn self." Sonya Horton started as a receptionist at a Brooklyn livery cab brokerage in the '90s—answering phones for quarters and dimes, reading BOP p...
