Ep 08: From Landscaping to Millions: How Evan Proach Built an Insurance Empire by 32

How many people make their first million by 32 — without a trust fund, nepotism, or connections? Evan Proach did exactly that.

In this episode of The Drive, Evan sits down to share his incredible journey from working at his family's landscaping nursery in Uniontown, Ohio, to building one of the largest insurance organizations in the country — the Sales Mafia — under North American Senior Benefits.

🔑 What you'll learn: • How a ride-along with a friend (who lost his license) changed Evan's life forever • The moment in a 78-year-old woman's living room that opened his eyes to the insurance industry • How he told his dad he was leaving the family business • Making $101K in his first 12 months in insurance • Surviving the loss of 50-60% of his team — and bouncing back stronger • The mindset and work ethic that took him from $250K/year to $5M+/year • Why your biggest losses often become your greatest wins

Evan went from splitting $300-400/day doing storm cleanup with his brother to leading an organization on track to do $50 million in premium this year — with an average team member age of 24-27.

Whether you're in sales, insurance, entrepreneurship, or just looking for the motivation to bet on yourself — this one's for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How many guys do you know at the age of 32 made their first million? Not only that, it wasn't through a family business, it wasn't through nepotism, it wasn't through necessarily who they knew, it's what they did. Today on the drive, you're going to listen to a young man who did just that, rose himself up from obscurity to notoriety. Evan Proach on the Drive today. All right, welcome back to the drive. We have Evan, the model Proach and Olive here today. Olive, how are you, baby? How are you? Evan, how are you, sir? I'm I'm doing good. Not my dog. This is yours, but uh can tell who she likes better. This is my wife's dog, which I am my dog now, right? I am the godfather. Am I the the bonus dad? That's the bonus dad. Bonus dad. Bonus dad. Stud, good to see you. Is that my pocket square? Uh no, no, sir. No. That's my belt, though. Well, you have stolen a lot of articles of clothing from me throughout the years. Dude, what a freaking run we've had over the last, is it fifty 14 years? I bet 13. 13 years? Feels like 14. Doesn't it? Feels like 14, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

I'd say it's a lifetime, man. Seriously. Where we've gone and what we've been able to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

For those people that don't know, look, we we chose insurance. We chose this vehicle that I would not have climbed into uh as a kid because I I didn't understand the ramifications of where seniors are today, these baby boomers. How many seniors are turning 65 who do not have answers to questions that inevitably are going to get asked? And we get paid to solve problems, man. We get paid initially to provide solutions where we're where there are a multiplicity of of unanswered questions. You've done so great. Before the days of insurance, though, you were an athlete, I was told, a shortstop of sorts. I played shortstop, not as good as you, but uh what was that like, man, back in high school? Evan Proach in high school.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Uh, dude, sports came you know easier to me. Uh, loved playing sport, wasn't that great, but I worked really hard at it. So I definitely uh it taught me a lot. Uh definitely helped me uh just kind of grow up and and and have friends and make relationships. But yeah, it was fun. Love competing and and love the sport of baseball and basketball. Those are the two sports.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Dude, you remember those uh you would bury your decisions or your prophetic, here's where I'm gonna go, this is what I'm gonna do, and you'd write it down and you you'd somehow bury it. Did you guys do that in high school? We never did. We did those. So you would take this uh, let's say there's 30 people in a class, everybody would say, Hey, 30 years from now, where are you gonna be? Write down what you're gonna do, write down what you're gonna be doing. We'll put everybody's answer in this, you know, cube or whatever it might be, bury it, we you know, pick it up 30 years later. I would have wanted to be a quarterback, a pitcher, a middle infielder. I just thought sports was my ticket out of Lawrenceville, Georgia. Did you think Uniontown, Ohio was, was, was holding you back unless sports released you? Was that was that your claim to fame?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Uh Derek Jeter, right? That was my boy. That's who I wanted to kind of grow up like. He was shortstop. Uh, I don't even know why I loved the Yankees, but he was part of it, so I did. But no, baseball was what I kind of wanted to do the rest of my life. I wanted to continue to rise up and keep going to that next level.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

So you get to college, and I guess what happened? I mean, did you had to have been successful, but it just at some point you just realize how great you have to be to get highly paid for for that as a living.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

No, for sure. Look, I play with some great athletes, uh, and maybe some listeners have, where you're like, I know they're better than me, right? And and they got drafted. And before I got to college, I got to see, well, that's that's that's that's a tough, that's a tough journey. And uh the minimal pay and a lot of the hours. So I tore my labor room actually freshman year, playing backyard football, didn't want to get surgery. I pretty much crack, I realized I don't want it that bad. So I decided, you know what, let me enjoy college, right? Because most of my life I I worked, I played sports, I did school, and two of those I really liked, one I didn't. But now that I'm in college, I want to enjoy school a bit more and uh worked hard. But yeah, that's uh kind of gave that up and decided to focus on what my future would look like.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

So you worked at a nursery, and knowing you as well as as I do, being the best man at my wedding, I didn't know you liked kids that much, bro.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I didn't know you liked children that much to work at a nursery. Yeah. You would not have made it there just from that comment. No, trees, shrubs, mulch, landscaping.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Oh, that kind of nursery. That kind of nursery. That was good, bro. That was good. I planned that. So not a nursery with children, a nursery with trees and shrubs. Correct, correct. And and and you dominated that. I could see that. I could I could see poison ivy was something that you created.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Oh, no, no, that was not. No, I was allergic to poison ivy. So that so that was the family business. Okay. So that's what I grew up doing. Spring, summer, fall, really seven days a week. It's it's not for the faint of heart. Uh, but I loved it, right? Because back then it was kind of like I am getting paid to condition. That's how I looked at it. Competitive advantage. So, and that was that was really true. But uh, look, I uh I made good money, made always actually made more money than my friends growing up. I worked really hard, but I had a great opportunity and was working for the family, which I couldn't ask for anything, anything more.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I remember getting off the plane um in Akron and you taking me at one point to your father's nursery, and I was like, holy shit, this is this is y'all's spot. Like, this is Mr. Proach's nursery. And dude, it was huge. Yeah. So I grew up in Georgia. Um, I've been to a lot of nurseries where you've got shrubs and trees, and you've got, you know, just just a multiplicity of different options. Uh, there's there's great money in it. My like cousin removed from a family member owned a huge nursery, Grayson, Georgia. And when I saw what your dad had created, and knowing you as well as I do, hell yeah, if I'm Mr. Proach, I'm wanting my uh legacy, my son, Evan, to follow in my footsteps because I'm placing that nursery in great hands. But but dare I say God had another plan, you had another plan. And it started through a friend of yours getting too many points on his license. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah. So when I was a senior in college before I graduated, about nine months before that, one of my best friends moved back home to get into business, did not choose his family business, but chose insurance for old people. And that caught my attention. I'm like, all right, let's go fail at that. But I started realizing and finding out that he's he's doing well. Uh, he's growing up as a as a man, right? As a business owner. His communication skills were going up. I knew he was making money because he went from being the friend that never had money to where now he's buying things for his buddies. So it caught my attention for sure. But I I graduated and went back to work for the fame of the business. How I got into this business and what I've been doing for the last 15 years now, as of March. He, like you said, he he wrote a stop sign, had too many points on his license, and he calls me this before Uber Lyft. And he says, Hey man, I'll pay you a hundred bucks a day. Just drive me to my appointments. I don't want to reschedule them before I get my work privileges. I'm like, okay. And I look, I haven't told many people this, but just weeks before that, it was winter time, so we had a really bad ice storm, and I was literally door knocking with my brother and I, and we were going and cleaning up, falling down trees, falling down sticks for like 300 to 400 bucks a day. And we had to split that. And when he's telling me he's making a thousand bucks a day, I'm not a mathematician, but uh, I'm like, I'll take a hundred bucks a day, I'll drive you in a warm car, and I'll see what you do. And the rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Isn't it crazy the way life opportunistically just creates these opportunities and these advantages that initially we might have seen as undesirable? But once we look at what it is that we're trading time for money for, it's like, holy shit, you just don't know what you don't know. So you get in the car with a friend, he's paying you a hundred bucks a day to drive him. Did you just sit in the car while he went into the appointments or did you shadow him?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

No, man, I got to shadow him. I got, I was told, look, shut up, take notes. Don't ask no. That was hard. No, no, no, no. I was, I didn't know what to talk about, right? So this is brand new to me, and I'm I'm in these houses. I'll never forget the first woman that we actually got to help out present to. 78-year-old woman did not want us there. Right. She was nice, but she's like, I already got it taken care of. And my friend's like, Well, you filled out a card for life insurance. Let us just do our job. And he just politely pushed to get in the house to find out the reason the woman filled out the card for life insurance was she lost her husband within like six months from that point in time, left her with no insurance, left her with debt. And she's like, I did this because I need to get insurance for my two kids. I don't want to leave them that that way. This is the first house I was ever in, Youngstown, Ohio. And fast forward through that, she grabs the policy to find out she has a term plan to age 80 and she's 78. And she bought this policy to be there for her kids. Guess what? Not for the next year and a half, for the rest of her life. She knew no idea that there's different types of insurance. My friend did, I did not, but I got to learn that wow, this is 60 to 70% of the houses, the families that we're helping out where we're finding a dilemma, fixing a problem that they did not know existed. And when we got to that house, I'll never forget, I'm like, dude, that was awesome. I feel great about what we helped her with. Let's go make a sale now. He's like, Whoa, no, that that was a sale. I'm like, what are you talking about? She she already had the program. He's like, Well, that's a lot of what we do. And we get to the car and he shows me he made like $900. I'm like, what? Why would someone pay you $900 to do? I just I didn't understand it, but it had my attention and I was really focused the rest of that day. And I actually chose to do another ride along because I didn't believe it was real. So after two days, I'm I I knew this is something I want to try.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

What some people call sales, we have learned is actually education-based problem solving. So when you educate someone as to what they thought they had, but they don't, what they wanted to have, and potentially thought they bought, but it wasn't all that that it was uh cracked up to be. And you're able to put them in a better place, dude. You had to have left that appointment and just kind of told yourself, wow, we we completely helped change a 78-year-old woman's life who thought she was in a good place, but unfortunately had something that that that she was she was unaware of.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I did not think that's what sales was growing up. So uh it was definitely a change of uh vision.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And how did you tell your dad, bro? Because I'm like, he he's wanting you to take over the family business, you know, follow in his footsteps and and and shout out to Mr. Proach. I would want that too. Um at some point, did you have a conversation with him? Did you just get so good at it? I guess you went and got your license and tried it. Yeah, so I went and got my license. Took me about two weeks, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Did you pass on your first time?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I I did. I thought for a fact, like I know you're a betting man, so you would have bet, I would have bet that I did not pass, but you need a 70% or better man. I was a C C agent in school my whole life, and I tried, but uh, you need a C or better to pass. So I did get lucky pass the first time. And how it came about is like for probably a month, every day I'm like, how do I tell him this is I want it? Something I want to try. And I get down to realizing it's like, man, I just want to try another job my whole life. That's that's all I did, right? Work for the family business. And I wasn't trying to get rid of it. I just I'm like, if you've never had another job, I would advise you to try something else. And that for me, I'm like, dad, I just want to try something else. I don't know if I'll like it. I've I've witnessed it. I I I think I could be good at it. I'm like, look, I'll work for you still four days a week. Work for the family business. Just could I have Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday? And those are my days in insurance for the first year and a half or so.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

And so you're 24 years old at this point? 23. 23. So so we're gonna fast forward. You're 28, maybe 29, and I meet Mr. Proach. Not, I don't think for the first time, because I do believe I met him at uh the the the nursery uh the first time I saw his his establishment, but I'll never forget it was your 30th birthday. It's your 30th birthday. That's what it was. Yeah. And um he came up to me, and I'll never, I'll never forget what he said. Now, Evan's dad is you're like six one and a half-ish. Six, uh yeah, when you wear those cowboy boots. Uh, you know, but but uh your dad's taller than you. Big old giant, just just claw of hands. And he he wasn't mean to me, but he was definitively aggressive, which I know a little bit about, although God, if I was six three, I'd be, I'd be a handful. I'd just be a damn handful, right? And your pops comes up, gives me his hand. It's a hard handshake, Evan. Like it was, you know, you know how it is when somebody gives you one of those, yeah. And he never, I'll never forget it. He said, You better be right. You better be right. And and what he meant by that, I knew exactly what he meant, was that again, I'm fast forwarding. You were getting into business with us, and he loved his son. And he had a plan for his son, but he put so much inside you, brother, that we were able, you were able to harvest our company was able to capitalize on. And uh shout out to you, Mr. Proach, for the great job you did with this this fine young man. We didn't just get right into business together, because I remember you going to another organization, kind of getting your your your sales feet wet or your solution-based decision making feet wet. What was that like and what brought you here?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yeah, so the first opportunity in this industry that I was trying was with a small mom and pop brokerage, right? Local, didn't know anything about the industry, just what I kind of saw on that ride along. And I was there for about a year and a half. Uh, took me about four months to get really good at the business. I had local support, but when I got really good, I'm like, dang, this is awesome. Like I can do both. I can help out the family, right? I can make not extra money, but I made $101,000 my first 12 months after any expense on that business just with an insurance. So to me, that was life-changing. And uh about a year and a half into that company, things changed, right? That leadership made some drastic decisions and it had me opening to looking elsewhere just to see what was out there, knowing an industry better than ever, being great at it, knowing like, look, I feel like I'm built for this. It's just where I'm at, I don't feel like I can retire here. I don't feel like being great at something, I might be more restricted uh then excelled by somewhere else. And it uh through a lot of conversations, you actually NSB found me. I didn't even find you guys.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Look, the accelerant to growth crosses the bridge of risk. Look, if you're if you're gonna grow, if you're gonna accelerate, there is a bridge called risk. R-I-S-K that you have to cross. It's educated risk. Yeah. Hopefully you have uh done your homework, done your research, done your due diligence to enable you to make a positive decision. You did that when you kind of partnered with us. Uh, and you never know when Olive is gonna get excited about something. That's kind of how excited I was, believe it or not. I was barking my ass off about this opportunity. It was risk, yes. But but once I saw, you know what? North American senior benefits is real and it is an opportunity by which you can create a lifestyle that without perhaps you you would not uh have enjoyed. What pushed you to cross that bridge? Because it's always a risk when you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, it was somebody else's kind of decision that made me start looking. Simple as that. Because if they never changed anything, I might still be there. And I know for a fact I wouldn't be where I'm at now. So them making a decision that over doing some research and having some conversations and finding out that it was maybe every couple years they did a decision like that. Um, it wasn't easy. Uh, I did not want that to kind of happen. But you know, I took my time and I actually had a really good friend of mine that I got in the business back then that came over to work with NESB before I did. So through the conversations I had, I didn't know anybody there, but I did trust him. And for three, four months, he was working to this organization and it's like, look, they're following up with everything that they said they're gonna do. Uh they're not overpromising and under-delivering, they're following through and uh gave me the comfortability to make that transition, man. The rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Was that the green machine? That's the OG. The Green Lantern, the Green Machine. Mark Green, long gosh, I remember that guy. I remember that guy. You know, it's it's so funny in life and in business how doing right by people, your reputation will beat you across the nation.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Like that's fact. And and the way you treat people, that travels, man. That travels like COVID. It just does. It spreads because literally, when you when you're able to do people right, when you're able to keep your word, when you're able to follow up on what the promises you've made and they become accurate, listen, there's a sphere of influence that that individual that has had a positive experience shares with those that that look, we would have never been able to partner with you had the great Mark Green not have had favorable comments uh about his experience here.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Well, you know how you found us, it was from a stolen business card. Simple as that. One of your top agents found a card from somebody that worked at that organization. So it's just crazy. Like if you're in business and you're trying to grow and you're trying to find the right people out of your organization, it's just mind-blowing where you can find them.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

I gotta tell the story. Remember, we were just in our infancy. You know, we thought we had something we didn't know. We were trying to create uh pretty much something that wasn't, but we believed that that there was there was something there. We would steal business cards from policies in the homes. And let's just say I've stolen your business card. Hey, Evan, this is Craig. How are you doing today? Good, good, good. Wonderful man. Hey, listen, you have been helping so many people here around the Santa Rosa Beach area. So many seniors continue to comment on the job that you did, uh, your your your the mannerisms, the professionality. Uh they they they you left them with a great taste in their mouth. I am sure you were making upwards of a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars based on what I've heard about you, that that really that has to be where you're at at this season. I'm looking for a response. What those business cards did was it gave us a favorable introduction to be able at least they sold one policy, yeah, right? And then through a series of phone calls and a trail of no's, like, gosh, almighty has somehow led us to you, boy. That's amazing. That is that is amazing. Old Mike Slay. Old Tony Sachs. Yeah, absolutely. Started with. You guys started, I remember meeting you in Columbus. That's the first time I think we met face to face and uh kind of kind of started on this trajectory, which you would come to NASBY, you started selling at a high level, you had tremendous success. Um, but with every with every with every great story, dude, not that there's always a villain, not that there's always uh a bump in the road. Uh look, every every day has a night, every rose has a thorn. And and so there was there was some thorns in this thing, man. You you actually were connected to somebody that at one point made a decision that this wasn't the right marriage for him. Speak to that.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Well, the same person that had helped me kind of make the decision of coming here was the same individual that tried to help me leave here. And that that was tough because it was probably three, three and a half years in to work in here. Life's better than ever, confidence is better than ever, team's growing, business is great. Um, and I remember getting a call that he wanted to come, you he wanted to come and talk to me. And that never happened. So I actually reached out to you just next time because we talk daily just about life, right? Not business. And you're like, whoa, what's what's going on? I'm like, I don't know, man, but I'll keep you in the loop. And he gets over and he's like, man, I'm leaving NESB and starts going over all these reasons why what we've worked for is gonna be worthless. So I don't know who you've worked with before. I don't know if you've been in business by yourself before, but there are gonna be voices always that come and try to tell you the grass is greener here, or you're being outdone here, or you're not being treated right there. And at the end of the day, all I knew was my life was great. I'm feeling better than ever. And it was a very uncomfortable time where he left and I'm like, what am I going to do? Because I knew I had to talk to you. And fast forward the next day, you kind of found out on your own, and that whole atomic bomb kind of happened. So there's about 30 to 45 days where I'm like, I don't know who's telling the truth. And uh, as time went on, as I stayed in contact with both you guys, it it it was helpful to to know as about 30 days went by.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

In business, opinions are like earholes. We'll say earholes on this segment of the drive. Uh, everyone has them. But what I've learned about truth is that time will expose you or promote you. If you're honest, people will see.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

But if the words that you say are laced with deceit and laced with your own agenda, you will soon be exposed. And there's no greater feeling than having your enemies exposed. Because you continue to do the right thing. Because you can't keep doing the right thing and get the wrong result. It won't happen. Even when people lie on you, when when your naysayers uh just just spread gossip and and and different types of of of just just just BS on you. You've got to be able to to survive that from a from a a constitution standpoint. It doesn't feel good at the time. But inevitably, if if You've if you've got that resolve, the truth will uh will will come to light. And it did in your situation. And what that really did for us, Evan, was create a roadmap and create a runway for you and I to work directly together. Before that, the sales mafia never existed. This gave us a chance. And you remember this? I remember coming and sitting with you and saying, bro, it's me and you. We're gonna see how damn good we are. We're gonna find out, okay? If we got it or if we don't. And it's us against them. It is us against them. And we had, remember, we everybody left. So it was just us. And let's find who we want to work with. Let's train them up right. And let's build a freaking army that we can be proud of. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I do, man. And it was uh it was a tough time. But at the end of the day, that person did nothing, right? But but helped me in my career here. It just that was the end of his time. And uh, I think a lot a lot of times in in people's career, there's people that come into your life, and you need to make sure you you you leverage that. And if they leave, you know, you don't have to leave with them. Simple as that.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

A lot of times where we think there's a period, it's really a comma. And I've learned people come into your life like life like scaffolding. You ever see a big building that's being renovated? There's scaffolding. That scaffolding is not permanent. That scaffolding is temporary. And it temporarily supports a structure that will become stronger because that scaffolding was there. But once that building becomes what it was intended, or through that renovation, that scaffolding comes down. And that's sometimes where people are there to support, to help. But then that scaffolding leaves. And then that that structure is there for the rest of time. But gosh almighty, once the sales mafia started, it uh it was quality, uh wasn't a lot of quantity. You weren't that big, but whomever you hired was just a badass. They crushed it. But there was a moment I remember telling you, dude, if you get serious, if you really want to take this thing to the next level, if you want to taste six figures, ring that bell, do some things that I don't know, nobody in my bloodline ever made a million bucks in a year. You you hit a million dollars at 32. And I I'd I'd like our research team to find out if I think it's 31, okay? I really do. But but that's on and by the way, every year since that 31 or 32 year age where you made a million, has your income gone up or down? Up. Thought so. Thought so. But it didn't start like that. If I'm a viewer, I want to know how the hell you got there at 32. Let's go back. There's not a lot to build from. Here you are. You take over this organization, it's named the Sales Mafia. How did it grow so big?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Well, so when I say took it over, I was simply, it's from what I kind of built from the time that I was here, you know, for about three years. And during that transition from my manager, all that responsibility, all that weight, all that pressure, it wasn't diverted on a couple different backs. It was all on mine at that point in time. So that was extremely uncomfortable. But guess what? I had to grow up. I had to grow up in business as a human being, as a leader. And I just had to learn things that without that experience, I don't know how quickly in life I would have or in business to get me to where I'm at.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

So what do you say? One of the best things that ever happened to you, I'll say one of the best things that happened to me was getting fired. One of the best things that happened to you was that brief divorce that that enabled, you know, our our our relationship to kind of remarry or or reposition a leader.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Well, I was just, I was very complacent at that period of time. Like I can look at that time now and be like, at the moment, no one knows. No one knows in the moment like where you're really at. Somebody else can tell you. I can tell myself, because where I'm at now. Back then, I was happy. I was probably making a quarter million, right? Quarter million, $300,000 a year. 28 at this point, 29? Would have been 27, 28. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd have been happy with that. Well, I was. Simple as that. But you know, who doesn't want more? Who doesn't want to grow, right? If you're not growing, you're dying, and I don't want to die. So it's like this, you gotta grow. But so much of looking out of those, say, lenses back then, I'm like, well, I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll keep growing. I I didn't have that 10x mentality. I didn't have that double quadruple. I didn't have that multiplication aspect vision until I literally had to step up and do things that I didn't want to do, I was not doing, or I had to source out for people to do for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

What just full transparency here? What do you think your exposure to my crazy ass just when I say the way we approach the business, right? Um, the way we attack this opportunity, what kind of an effect do you think that had on you? Because I always we talk voices lead to choices, the power of association. People come into your life, one of four reasons add, subtract, multiply, divide. I'd love to be a multiplier when I see someone that can multiply back. Do you think that had an influence on you, Sheila?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Well, yeah, well, I know for a fact, right? Because growing up in sports, I've had plenty of different coaches. So if you grew up in sports and you've had different coaches in the same sport, but there's been seasons that you love that sport and then seasons that you hate that sport, it's not the sport, it's the coach. And I would say it's the mentor. So I would not be here without you being a mentor to me and what you kind of taught me to put my hard work that my dad taught me growing up into an unbelievable opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Well, I I I've definitely mentored your wardrobe as you look great today on the drive, Evan, the model approach. I gave you that nickname, the model. You remember that? I do, yeah. People think it's because of like the way you look. It has nothing to do with the way you're looking at. No, no, it didn't look like this back then. It was how I modeled the business, right? That's right. That's right. That's right. I have said your superpower in business uh is three things. I think you've been gifted. This has to, dude, where do you get this great attitude? Like you always wake up in a great mood. Mom approach. Mom approach. Mom approach, yes. Shout out to mom approach. Yeah, no, seriously. She's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

She is amazing, but you know, I've had a I have a great family, unbelievable family, was raised very, very well. And she was just always positive. Anytime something bad would happen, she would try to find something good out of it. From the person that did the bad. Not really for me, but if somebody did bad to me or I thought it was, she always would put herself in other people's shoes. So at least I grew up that way. And and now that I'm in business, it's just it is a superpower because I work with so many people that it could be something bad, it could be something big or minor, and they allow it to consume them, which then costs themselves way more money, and that makes them even more furious. So I I do love being on the uh on the optimistic side of things and the positive side of things. But it was it was definitely how I was kind of raised. And really in sports, that's another thing I helped. Knowing that doesn't matter how the first five innings go, you know, there's more than five. It doesn't matter how the first three quarters go, there's always one more. And you know, if you've ever done sports where you didn't start winning, but you finished winning, then there's some resilience that's definitely built in you uh that you can definitely use in business, and definitely this business.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Generally speaking, nobody remembers that first, second, third inning. Yeah. It's the seventh, eighth, and the ninth. Being a finisher and a closer, I can tell you for me, one of the things I've admired about you is you have you have from mom approach been able to channel this inner ability to not be a thermometer, which regardless of how hot or cold it is in a room, you your your attitude and your actions and your mentality is is uh you know manipulated by that. You're a thermostat where you're like, dude, this is what we're going to do. And when the email comes, when the text message comes, when the phone call comes, it it it doesn't change your mentality. Your attitude has been a superpower of yours, but your work ethic. It had to come for your dad. Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

I mean, growing up in people ask, like, do you have a tough, you know, tough young or childhood of it? Did you have a tough childhood? I'm like, no, not at all. But none of my friends were to work with me when I was younger. So I, you know, I do understand landscaping is not fun. People don't did your dad spank you because my grandfather spanked the shit out of me. Uh, I did remember my dad spanking my older brother once, and I'm like, damn, I do not ever want to be that person. So that that that definitely did help me uh do the right thing more so. But there were some times he got pretty mad at me, uh, for sure. But I I try to keep that on uh on the singular. Do you spank Luna? I have not had to spank Luna yet. No, you liar. There are times I want to, for sure. Yeah, dude. I I it's hard, man. I spanked kids are bad.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Like she does, she doesn't listen like I'm sure you didn't listen as a kid. So Alex says pow pow. That's like a Latin term, pow pow. Yeah. Like for little Rocky, you know, pow pow, whatever. We've gone through spankings in business, haven't we? Yeah, we we've gone through things that probably we deserved where wow, I shouldn't have done that, right? Or or I know better than that. And look, lessons not learned in blood, easily forgotten. Now we shouldn't spank our kids to the point of blood. That's not my point. But pain creates change. Pain creates change. And and and you and I have have have experienced some of that. Yeah. Let's transition quickly. It look, obviously, your attitude's phenomenal, your work ethic is amazing. We've had some painful moments, and and those moments have created and I would say launched, initiated change in our behavior, in the way we thought, in the way we acted. What in your career has been a loss that, when you look back, turned out to be a major win?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Well, there's always losses in in life and business for sure. So, like if you have not experienced a loss, be prepared to find one and to go through it. If you are, don't think it's over. Don't think the game's over. Don't think your life's over. Don't think your business is over. I uh I had probably four and a half years into my career here with you, had uh had lost about 50% to 60% of my organization uh that was led by one individual. Great person. It's just his time was was uh it was over with with us. And man, that was tough because like when you put your blood, your sweat, your tears, like into business with someone else where you guys are like a line and you're thinking the same way, and it's like, wow, we're we we just keep whooping ass. We keep winning not ball games but championships. It's hard when somebody wants to to leave and do their own thing, whatever the case may be. So you gotta you gotta look in. You gotta be like, where did I go wrong? What can I learn from this? Because if this happens again, that could be the end of my career compared to what can I learn to advance my career. So, you know, in in that loss that I had, it was for sure, what could I have done better? Uh, what can I learn from that? And uh you need to with every loss that you go through.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Well, we've all had it. I don't know any success story that hasn't had twists or turns, uh, hills and valleys, um, landmines that that we always want to step over, but damn it, sometimes we step on. And it just it puts us in a spot that there's a lot of introspection there, right? Like, okay, this happened. I don't want this to happen again. Maybe it's choosing the wrong person. Maybe it is uh trusting uh the wrong individual. Uh perhaps it's it's just the blinders that we have of trying to say just because somebody's a producer, we think they're a reproducer. And and we both know that that's kind of not the case. Sooner or later, a little later than sooner, in in the sales mafia's case, you got some crazy traction.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Things started to really increase. Things started to to go to places. I mean, Evan, your organization this year will do 50 million in premium, uh, of which you should make five million of if if my numbers are right, close to, whether it is or not. I know you hate to look, look at you, you're so stoic. He's just so put the camera on this guy. He's so stoic about what he's earning and making. I'm proud of you, boy. You should be damn proud of yourself because you're raising up a generation to do that. My question to you is how how do you build that kind of organization? There's a lot of people watching that would love to be at that mountaintop. What were the steps you took, the decisions you made, daily, monthly, annually, quarterly to get you there?

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah. So the first decision I was thinking of myself, right? Because that's going from the family business that I knew really well to get into something that I knew I would not be good at. So I was selfish. And for about two and a half years, that's all I did. I worried about myself, my finances, my business, my family. And, you know, back then I didn't really think about it. Soon after, I'm like, man, should I have done that or not? And now that I look at it, you know, 15 years later, I'm like, well, yeah, because timing is everything. There are so there are a lot of people in this business, or let's just say in business, that you're trying to force something because you're just maybe not the person that you need to be to obtain it, to build it. So for me, two and a half years in was the right time. But I tell you what, going back to like my biggest loss, quickly soon after that, within three months, became one of my best additions to my business, which was then a multiplication. So so many people they get knocked off their horse. They may they may take years to get back in the swing of things. And for me, I always took in sports, especially loss, that fired me up, man. That pissed me off to put more time, more energy, more focus, look in that mirror and be like, what can I do so that never happens again? I know, I know there's some losses you've had in sports. And like it just was hard for you to get over that. But you definitely look back and it's like, I will never lose that same way again. And in business, that's how it was. It was like, I know what happened. I saw the I didn't see the writing on the wall, but I do now. And as I continue through my journey, I want to make sure I partner with more of the right people that are like me. And I want to make sure that we're finding people that uh we don't just work together, but we live our life together.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

It's amazing. I was at your event in Tampa. You asked us to come down and and and be a part of that. Just amazing, amazing convention. Dude, you rented the Tampa Convention Center. You told me that. I'm like, what? Yeah, right on the bay. That thing is sick. And you packed it out. I mean, literally packed it out. Unbelievable. Somewhere under, I don't know, you know, 1,500 people. It was it was unreal, brother. It was unreal. Um looking at at that and just kind of considering your average age, I would say 27 to 29. Average average age of an individual that works with your organization is what?

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Well, so early days, you know, you always talk about a sphere of influence because I was 20 25, 26 when I got into duplicating my success. And it's so funny that most people I found were 10 to 20 years north of me, not my age or south of me. And as just time goes on, it's just like uh law of large numbers or whatever that kind of is, it eventually works out, right? So I was young, I was outgoing, I was athletic, I enjoyed what I did, I loved what I did. I didn't just bring, I didn't just do the work when I was working, I brought it home with me. And that was in the fact of it just bringing people along with the ride. So uh I would just have to say there's not a specific thing that I did. It's just as more conversations that I had, more relationships, as the team just simply grew, we attracted people that thought like us, wanted to work like us, wanted to make money like us, and wanted to live like us. So average age?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Uh 24 to 27. It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. So let's just go back. You're 38 now, made your first million at 32. We've gotten a little bit of honesty out of you, a little bit of a little bit of honesty. This whole thing is honest. What I'm saying is if I ask you how much you make, you don't want to tell me. You just want to kind of keep it like, you know, you owe somebody money, like the IRS is watching. You know, who knows? You're just sales mafia. Who knows what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

How much do you owe your ex-wife? You want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I'd I'd rather leave that for another episode, sir. If we could, you asshole. Uh, with that being said, um, I had a point here. And that point was, Evan, that, you know, as as as you continue to to build your business and as you continue at 38, very young, very young, to look to the next page, the next chapter, the next generation. Is Evan Proach full? Because as I've told you, man, I got into this business at, I think, 33, 32, 33, uh, when I got licensed, I would have loved, loved to have had the coach, the leadership, to be able to not make all the mistakes myself, but learn from somebody that gave a shit about whether or not I succeeded or I failed. Obviously, you have that that that power, but do you have the capacity at this point or are you full?

SPEAKER_01 39:00

So here's one thing that you just said when you talk about getting the business at 33, right? At 32, you and this company helped me achieve something that you weren't even in the business at your age yet. That so all I can do is think about, oh my God, what I'm 42, what I'm 52, what I could have if I wanted. So I'm as uh I'm as confident as ever. Um, I'm as poised uh as a group, as a company, right? We're we're sitting in a better seat, being able to uh to attack an industry that is growing. We're just we're really, really growing. So it's kind of like I don't know if you've ever played, I was not a video game person, right? My brother was, and we played some videos, video games growing up. But you ever play a video game when you got cheat codes and you know you can't you can't lose. No matter what happens. Even if something bad happens, you just plug in that code, you got a new life. That's how I feel with this business. And like that's why I'm looking harder than ever for people to add to this organization because I know we're going to a place that the past's been laid out by the organization that I'm already at, but I get to drive my own car, my own ship, my own yacht. My, you know, financial future is in our hands here. And I do think in 2026, if you want financial future, you got you gotta run your own shit. You gotta be an independent contractor, you gotta run your own business. And I just thankful that here at ASB, we get to do that.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

You know, the crazy thing, I've got a 19-year-old son, Caden Jack Harvey. He is a freshman, he's kind of a freshmore. In between freshman and sophomore at the University of Georgia. Shout out to you, uh, CJH. And I've got little Rockford Reese Harvey, 19 months. So I've got a 19-month-old and I've got a 19-year-old. And I would say uh on this podcast uh to whomever uh around this world chooses to watch, I would be honored if either of those boys got to live and work in your organization to be mentored by you, to follow in the footsteps of what you teach. Uh you're a leader of men. And we are where we are as an NASB organization, largely because of the model Evan Proach. Thank you and the sales mafia for all that you do, and thank you for tuning in to the drive.