RHS 028 - Billy Williams Teaches Us the Assembly Line Approach to Building an Insurance Agency

Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Yeah, this is the show, the Ryan Hanley Show, and I appreciate you being here with me as we talk with one of my absolute favorite guests. Just someone that every minute I get to spend with, I feel like he's pushing me and my work forward. But not just my work, like me as a person, the way I think about things, the way I approach them. He asks challenging and tough questions. He believes in what he does and the proof is ultimately in the pudding with Billy Williams, our guest today.

Ryan Hanley: Just someone, if you don't know, just get in his ecosystem. He's going to toss a lot of stuff at you. Just get in his ecosystem somewhere. Newsletter, email, LinkedIn, whatever. Just make sure you're in Billy's ecosystem. And for all my event hosts out there, if you're looking for an absolutely tremendous speaker, Billy is your guy. He does a wonderful, wonderful job and will blow your people away, I promise. Especially my insurance friends. He will take your attendees' games to the next level.

Ryan Hanley: So before we get to Billy though, we got to pay the bills and talk about some of my fine friends, the sponsors who create amazing products and then pay me so that I can tell you about them. That's how I keep the show going because this thing costs money to me even though it's free to you.

Ryan Hanley: The first sponsor that I want to talk about today is Tarmica. Tarmica had an incredible performance at Innovation 2020 IAOA's event this weekend. Pretty much a line out in front of their booth the entire time. I stop by every once in a while to say hi to Chris and Alex because obviously they're a client of mine and I just wanted to make sure they were doing well and they were. They were crushing it, and they were the Wi-Fi sponsor, so everyone who wanted Wi-Fi had to type in T-A-R-M-I-K-A into their cell phones or their computers or whatever to get the Wi-Fi, which was a brilliant move on their part.

Ryan Hanley: There's a reason. It's not just because it's buzzy. It's not just because I like them. They have a wonderful product that I believe is built in a way that could change the game for particularly commercial lines rating. But when they drop personalized rating from the same platform, so you have commercial and personal in one platform, one point of entry, delivering quotes for the carriers that you're appointed with, and if you're using someone like an Indian or another wholesaler and you can get at all the carriers on their platform, well then now you're really rocking and rolling and not just providing more efficiency to your team but providing more efficiency and effectiveness to your clients. And that, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road.

Ryan Hanley: So make sure you check out Tarmika, T-A-R-M-I-K-A. I am using Tarmika. I am using Tarmika. And I think that you should give them a look. Doesn't mean you should use them because they may not be for you. But give them a look. That's the most we can ask for.

Ryan Hanley: Our second sponsor today is Advisor Evolved. My man, Chris Langell. Saw him at IOA as well. He is just a tremendous professional in our industry. And even though I bust his chops for being from Jersey, even though really he's from Philly, the Advisor Evolved platform is more than just a website. It is a tool, an easy to use tool for everyone to give you a clean, crisp, fast, SEO friendly resource on the front end with a lot of really cool functionality on the back end to help you run your automation, your communications to clients, and just, again, it's all about delivering the right product at the right time.

Ryan Hanley: Efficient and effective delivery and Advisor Evolved is what Rogue Risk is built on. RogueRisk.com, if you go there, you check it out, that's an Advisor Evolved site. You probably know someone who has an Advisor Evolved site because many of the best agencies out there are building their websites with Advisor Evolve. So go to advisorevolved.com. That's advisorevolved.com right now if you're looking for a website or just when you have that need, go check them out.

Ryan Hanley: But with that, we're going to get on to Billy Williams. Let's do it.

[Transition to interview]

Ryan Hanley: Innovation this weekend, that was awesome.

Billy Williams: Yeah, it was awesome. You know what I'll say about what they've done? I actually wrote a post in their group because I'm brand new to the group. I was never an agency owner, so I never was part of it. But I found that event to be wholly unique in the openness and selflessness of people sharing. I've been at events where people are excited to elevate others, people are excited to talk to each other and meet. But you and I meet for the first time, and within 10 minutes, you're describing your entire business model, the carriers you're with, the tools you're using, your revenue per employee. Metrics that in other groups, people keep over here.

Billy Williams: It was just so refreshing because you felt like you could have a very honest and vulnerable conversation. People weren't judging you. They were giving you feedback. They were giving you help. A great point is Ryan Keating. Do you know him?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, great guy.

Billy Williams: Talking to him, explaining what I'm doing, what my model is. And he's like, "You got to talk to Chubb. What Chubb is trying to do, the moves they're making, it fits exactly with what you're doing." While we're standing there, he fires off an email to a guy that he knows inside of Chubb. This morning I have a call with the guy, and later this week I have a meeting with their local person to hammer out the details of potentially moving forward. It was more than just a "let's get to know you" thing. It was a "let's make sure this works and then move forward" kind of call. You just don't see that other places. You simply do not see that.

Ryan Hanley: Well, I think this is new for you. Actually, we do that pretty much with the owners. Here's what you're going to find. There are three or four different mentalities in the insurance world. Number one is an employee mentality: "Let me go in, do my job, whatever I got to do." Number two is a manager supervisor employee: "Let me make sure my people are doing my job. Let me cover my butt so that I look good." Then there's an owner mentality, and owner mentality really is a sharing mentality because we realize there's so many other people going through the same crap we're going through. If I can understand what you're going through, that can help me get through my crap.

Ryan Hanley: And then there's the carrier mentality, which is: "You guys are just a distribution point. You think you're more powerful than you really are. We make the products, we build this, we just let you sell our stuff." Each one of them has a different dynamic about how they deal with folks.

Billy Williams: That's a really good point. I hadn't thought about that. I think some of it probably was in a future life, I was just a consultant speaker guy. So the conversations I was having with them were probably much different because they were just looking to me and I was looking to them for different things. But it was refreshing. I would say there are definitely other events I've been to where people are hoarding information and moving into little dark corners to have conversations. It's a lot of good old boy network too. If you're not part of that in-crowd, it took me years to become part. I don't even know if I'm still part of the in-crowd, but it took me years because no one understood what I was doing.

Ryan Hanley: You're not an agent, but you influence agencies and you own a piece of agencies, but you're not an aggregator.

Billy Williams: Yeah, and it took them a while to really understand. Look, I don't want to be an aggregator. I don't want to be a cluster. I don't want to control this. I'm an investor. I wouldn't go in and suddenly try to control all of Microsoft when I bought a few Microsoft stock. I wouldn't go in and try to control all of Apple because I bought some Apple stock. I just want to own the stock because for me, it's a legacy. I want to pass this bundle of wealth onto my family. I don't want them to necessarily be insurance agents to have to acquire that wealth. I just want them to have that ability to unbundle that wealth if they wanted to.

Billy Williams: What I always tell my friends when they ask me, because a lot of people say, "Man, how the hell did you end up in insurance?" I just say, "It's not the sexiest product, but the lifestyle that you can build for yourself around this business can be as sexy or as unsexy as you want it to be." That's completely up to you. And that's what I love about it.

Ryan Hanley: Coming from the fitness industry, here's how you market the fitness industry: 25 to 33 year old, very attractive, fit, male or female, sweaty, working out, take picture, put on internet, business that you have a fitness business now. That's it. It looks sexy. It feels sexy. You own a gym. It's actually the opposite from insurance because that's your whole life. There's nothing more that you can do. You have to be at that place. You don't get to leave. You are completely held to: "I have an eight o'clock class I have to run. Then I have to run a 10 o'clock." You have to be there. If you're not there, people get upset because they don't want your B squad person coming in teaching that class. They want you.

Ryan Hanley: Insurance is the complete opposite. If you can do it right, and this is what we're going to talk about today, if you can set that business up in the way that serves your clients well and operates well, you can live whatever lifestyle you want. You can be there if you like being there. You can be someplace else if you don't want to be there. But it provides you with the ability to be exactly what you want to be.

Billy Williams: That's the difference between expertise and authority. Very distinct difference. Expertise is a technician. Expertise is "I know exactly how to do this." Authority is "I have the answers even the experts may not understand." I learned I make more money as an authority than I do as an expert. An expert is that insurance agent. They can tell you exactly how to do this, exactly how to do that. But the authority are the investors, the private equity group, whatever. Warren Buffett, I'm sure, does not have an insurance license.

Ryan Hanley: Probably not. Although it'd be fun to see him in your CIC class one day, just sitting next to you.

Billy Williams: I'm sure he doesn't have an insurance license, but he is the authority when it comes to Geico. Even all the Progressives and State Farms, they follow his model. One of the things I try to make sure agents understand is: Are you trying to be the expert? Are you trying to be the authority? If you're trying to be the authority, you need to hire experts. Most of the time, you can't be the authority and the expert because there's just not enough time in your day to be both. I choose to be the authority, not necessarily the expert.

Ryan Hanley: I found it took me a very long time to learn that. I've never put it that way, but hearing you say it, I think I'm transitioning in my career more towards the authority side. In the early stages of Rogue, I'm going to have to kind of be both at first, but then quickly I want to start to backfill with expertise.

Billy Williams: That's how it comes from people. It either comes naturally to them, where for some reason in their brain it clicks over that it's a more productive way to be. Or they learn it through having to make a tough decision one way or the other. That's kind of where I think I fell. Somewhere in the Agency Nation days, I learned that I can't be content all day long, Facebook ad guy. I had to be more of managing that area and authority. And then there's people that just seem to never learn that lesson because they want to be authorities, but they just stay experts forever. For some of them, they need to stay experts. Not everybody's meant to be a leader.

Ryan Hanley: And that's hard for some people to understand. You're just not meant to be a leader. Especially in our industry where a lot of agency owners are agency owners because nobody else would hire them, so they hired themselves. And they're too stupid to fire themselves.

Billy Williams: Well, that is a perfect segue into what we're here to talk about today. You sent me over an outline, and this is why I love your work so much. This outline is awesome. I would never take the time to sit down and write something like this. I'm starting to come up with some processing procedures, I promise you, but it is the thing that I envy. There's many characteristics that you have that I am envious of in a very positive way, but that particular thing, your willingness and ability to really get down and outline things is tremendous.

Ryan Hanley: So we're going to be talking about an assembly line approach to building an insurance agency. Selfishly, I don't know that there's anything more that I need getting close on Rogue. I think the audience is going to love this. And just for the audience listening at home, Billy's Fix My Agency workshop. Fix Your Insurance Agency workshop in February. I don't know if there's seats left. I'm definitely going to be there. I think Cass is going, Bradley Flowers. I think we opened up another 50 seats because we're packed.

Billy Williams: All right, sweet.

Ryan Hanley: So I think we opened up another 50 seats. I'll put this episode out super soon. I might put this out tomorrow. We're recording it at the last week of January, which gives you about a month to sign up. There's 50 seats. I'm sure they'll go fast. But I just wanted to get that out early in the podcast. I think Bradley Flowers might be going. So we're going to have a really good time learning some really good stuff. There's going to be some big hitters there. It's going to be a lot of big hitters that are experts at what they do, but now they want to come and see.

Billy Williams: This is the way I explain it without ego. I am the surgeon, and a lot of other consultants are more the rehab. I'm going to cut out the cancer. I'm going to diagnose the real issue, the problems. But I'm not going to sit in your agency and make sure you raise your arm, straighten your leg, bend over at the waist. I'm not doing that kind of work. That's just not what I do. That's the difference between authority and expertise. The people who come to the Fix My Insurance Agency, they're going to get the expertise and the authority because we're implementing. We're not just there to talk. We're there to implement. But they're also going to get the big picture of what it really takes to grow a $10 million revenue agency.

Ryan Hanley: I got to be honest with you, I was pretty excited to go to IAOA, and this is nothing against that crew, but I think I might be more excited to come to your event. It's something that I've been trying to get my wife to go to since you started the first one. She and her sister are starting to become a bigger part of their agency, and I think in the future that would be something they would be interested in. But now that what you're doing applies directly to my future, I'm jumping all over it.

Ryan Hanley: We'll have links in the show notes. The episode URL will be ryanhanley.com forward slash Billy. Just go to ryanhanley.com forward slash Billy. We'll make it super easy for you to remember. I'll have links to that, or you can go right to Billy's stuff and sign up. But either place will have it. But right now, let's get you taken care of because here's the deal. You know me, I'm not a fluff guy. I want to give them some meat and potatoes by helping you with the meat and potatoes part. And that'll either motivate them or scare the hell out of them. They'll either want to come or say, "That's too deep for me."

Billy Williams: Message received. No more sales pitch for you guys, though. I think you all should do it because I said so.

Ryan Hanley: There we go. All right, so let's jump in.

Billy Williams: Here's how we start. I'm going to start as though I walked into your agency day one and I'm looking to invest or help you start your agency. I'm going to tell you, Ryan, here's the deal. You have to think of building your insurance agency just like an architect designs a building. They have six major steps. One, they have to have a vision for what they want the building to look like. Number two, they have to gather all the tools and sketching materials they're going to need to sketch that out. Number three, they got to set aside time for the planning, because if they don't set aside time to sketch, it'll never happen. Then they start to sketch the outline. They don't try to go deep into detail. They just do the outline of the building first, and then they fill in the details after they have the outline going. And then they have to be prepared to make erasures and modifications. "Oh, I thought we could put that wing over here, but that's not going to work." That's the same way you build your agency.

Billy Williams: So let's break this down into the different steps. Have a vision for what you want to build. That starts with either your carriers or your niche. Here's the deal. You can come out and say, "I'm going to be a trucking agency," but if you don't have the carriers, it's not going to work. You can come out and say, "I've got these carriers," but those carriers may not write trucks. So your vision may not be in line with the people who support your vision. Looking at your agency, Ryan, what's your vision? What type of agency do you want as the foundation? Do you want a PNC agency? Do you want a commercial agency? A benefits agency? What do you want?

Ryan Hanley: You want me to answer that?

Billy Williams: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: Okay. So Rogue is going to be a small commercial agency. What's important to us is less the specific class of business and more the relationship the carrier is willing to have with our agency. When I'm searching for carrier partners, I'm looking for carrier partners that have best in class service centers because the model for Rogue is agent as a frontline underwriter, relationship provider, flowing the prospects in, properly setting up coverage, and then passing and establishing the relationship at that point that all service will be done by their expert at that carrier that we place them with. So it's package business, A plus rated, high quality carriers who are willing to invest, who have invested in customer care centers and want full partner relationships with that agency. I want to build a sales force, back end that sales force with maybe some VAs or maybe one in-house person to just do kind of tasks, agency tasks, and service as much as possible to be done with a dedicated rep at a customer care center. That's the model that we're building.

Billy Williams: Okay. But in order to have that model, you're still going to need a niche. I know you say niche, but Jason Cash says niche. Whatever. I'm from the South, so I say niche. That's fine. You're still going to need a niche. Here's why. You can't be everything to everybody. They have to be able to easily identify you with something. You said something earlier. You said, "Hey guys, I want to make this easier for you. It's going to be Ryan Hanley forward slash Billy." That's because you made it easy for them to identify.

Billy Williams: When I meet you on the street and I say, "Hey, what do you do?" And you say, "I'm a commercial insurance agent." If you stop at that, you won't get any business. But if you say, "I'm a commercial insurance agent and I specialize in contractors," or "I specialize in buildings less than 250,000 square feet," now you allow that person to mentally segment you into something that they can repeat. I can't repeat generalities. I can only repeat specifics. That's why you need a niche.

Billy Williams: Here's the deal. The niche doesn't mean you're going to be trapped into that. It means it's my starting point. If you say, "Billy, I primarily write general liability contracts under $50,000 in revenue," I get it. That's your lead point. But from that lead point, that could lead into auto, home, life, flood. It could lead into all other things. All I'm telling you is you still need a niche because even when you go to get your carrier relationships, they're going to ask you, "What do you want to go after? What do you want to target?" And then they're going to look at their taste, their flavor and say, "Okay, we can match what you want to target."

Ryan Hanley: Have you ever had anyone go the opposite way?

Billy Williams: Yeah, always. If you notice on that paper, it says "carrier." And then if you look at the paper I sent you, notice it has the equal sign or "other." So yeah, sometimes you go with the carrier and the carrier determines the niche that you're going to end up in. And then sometimes you go with the niche and you find the carriers that fill your niche.

Ryan Hanley: That's the route that I'm taking with contractors, just because I have done them for a long time at the Murray Group. That was one of the areas that I specialized in. That will definitely be a place that I spend a lot of time. I can speak the language. My dad was a foreman on the railroad. I've just been in that place. I know a lot of what goes on in that space. But I guess my upfront process and the way I was thinking through this because of the way I wanted to set up my business was to say, a high value target carrier for me, someone that I'm working hard on and hopefully could have a chance to have an appointment, is Cincinnati. I'm going to keep blowing you up until you appoint me because I think you have a great carrier.

Ryan Hanley: So now I know I have a world-class organization with world-class people that care about their clients and care about the agency relationship. Everything I know about that company, every interaction I've had with them hits all the buckets that are important to me. Great paper, great claims, good service center, take care of their clients, take care of their agent force. If I can get in with them, then really what I want them to say to me, because I'm more marketer than I am niche specialist, is you tell me where you want to go. You tell me it's fitness businesses. I'll go figure that out. You tell me it's contractors. I'll go figure that out. Not all at once, but let's pick something and just go get it. I can speak the language for most of these. If it's something really wild, then maybe I just don't have the expertise for it. But if it kind of fits in relatively standard, then I can just dial in on that because I know that's what they're looking for. Does that make sense?

Billy Williams: No, that's exactly it. That's the thing a lot of agents don't do. Some agents start with the carrier and then the carrier determines the niche because the carrier says, "This is our flavor. This is what we want." And then some people start out with the niche and they go find the carrier. For you, it seems like you're starting with the carrier and letting the carrier determine your niches that you go after.

Ryan Hanley: That's what I'm hoping to do.

Billy Williams: Okay. And so that goes to number two, which is your products. For you, you're not going in with a set product. You're going in with a set carrier and the carrier will determine your product.

Ryan Hanley: Got you.

Billy Williams: But that leads to number three, which is your five best prospects. Let's keep insurance real simple. There are five best prospects and 10 ways to market to them. Keeping everything very simple. Your five best prospects are: Number one, your current customers or relationships. Number two, referrals from referral partners and customers. Number three, people that are actively searching for your product or service. This could be an internet lead, someone looking around on Google, someone looking at YouTube, but they're actively searching for your product or service. Number four is former customers, people that have done business with you in the past and they've moved on for whatever reason. And then number five, people that have a possible upcoming need for your product or service. This is why we use things like COLEX dates, because we know that you renewed this time last year, you're probably going to look for insurance again this year. Or maybe you had a baby, or maybe you just relocated, so you possibly have an upcoming need.

Billy Williams: Once you identify your five best prospects, then you have to look at the next number there, which is triggers. What trigger is it that prompts them to take an action? If it's my current customers, the trigger could be you calling out to them, you sending them something, emailing them something. If it's a referral partner, then that trigger may be you texting them every month saying, "Hey, don't forget to send me your referrals." But something has to trigger an activity. That's why number four is triggers. A lot of businesses don't get business because they don't remember the triggers.

Billy Williams: You and I decide we're going to be referral partners, right? But I never hear from you again. You never call me. You never email me. So now I don't think about you when the situation comes for me to send you business. You didn't make it easy for me. I can't drive people to your website. I can't drive people to a landing page. We're not connected on Slack. I don't have a Slack channel that you can directly put a lead into. You didn't make it easy for me to do business with you. Does that make sense?

Ryan Hanley: No, it does.

Billy Williams: Okay. So once you know your triggers and your five best prospects, then from there, you need to create your prospect list. Creating your prospect list could be, if it's your current customers, run an audit, run a report. Let me see what my current relationships are. You have a huge, vast network of relationships. So it's time for you to build that into a prospect list. Same thing when you're talking about your people who are actively looking for insurance. You're big on YouTube. You've got a podcast. But the one thing you haven't done for insurance yet is you haven't created good call to actions for insurance.

Billy Williams: You're listening to my podcast today, guys. If you notice mine, it's easy inspire. So if you want to connect with us, get our freemium membership, any of that stuff, you text "easy inspire" to 313131. That's on all my posts. That's on my YouTube. That's on social networking. That's on Instagram. You name it. I probably get somewhere between 900 and 1,000 people texting in each month. What do I do with those? It depends. If I put out something that I can refer to one of my partner agencies, then that's what I do. I did a podcast on understanding how to file a claim. Probably had 500 or 600 people. All I did was break down and go, "Here are people who were interested in this topic." It's the same thing for you. You've already got the forums. Now you just need to repurpose those forums so that you're driving your insurance side, not just your podcast side or your social media side.

Ryan Hanley: Does that make sense?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Actually, a local, a buddy of mine who is a local real estate agent. We're going to do a local business podcast, like an upstate New York business podcast, the two of us. And we're going to host it at a co-working space. So it's very Albany business friendly. And then we're going to bring in business owners and let them talk about their business. We already have it all lined up.

Billy Williams: Beautiful. That's one of the things that we're going to start doing.

Ryan Hanley: Beautiful.

Billy Williams: See, that's your prospect list, developing your prospect list. Now there are 10 main marketing methods. 10 main ways. If you want me to go over all 10, I can. It's completely up to you. I don't want to pick up all your podcasts.

Ryan Hanley: Pick one or two of your favorites. We don't have to do them all.

Billy Williams: All right. So I'm going to go over to my marketing page here. You can't see what I'm doing, but I'm looking at the 10. My favorite 10, this is me personally. I love lead magnet marketing, like writing content, articles, blogs. I love videos. I love webinars. I love any of that stuff. The other thing I love is I love breakfast meetings, and especially for you as a contractor. I don't do lunch and dinner because it's too expensive and I'm cheap. First and foremost, contractors are busy at nine o'clock. Their morning starts at 5:30, 6:00. So I'll do a breakfast where I'll bring in 15, 20, 25 contractors, feed them breakfast, seven bucks or eight bucks a pop, give them a presentation, build up the euphoria because there's so much energy in the room. And then we sell from the stage. Sell from the stage is after my presentation, you're supposed to run to the back and be ready to sign up with me.

We sell from the stage, and those live presentations are why I love doing conferences, why I love doing workshops. You had me at Elevate. I love going to these other places. This is why I don't charge not-for-profit organizations. Not just because not-for-profits were a very important part of what I do, but because I know I have the ability to sell from the stage. If I can get in front of two or three hundred agents, I'll connect with them to the point I'll speak their language and we'll cut through the bullshit and they'll realize this is somebody I want on my team. So they go in the back, see my assistant, let's get you signed up. I know I had to answer all the questions about you after Elevate. How the hell do I get a hold of Billy? How do I get Billy to speak? I don't know, go talk to him, he's right there.

But that's your strength, that's what you have. So again, you're an SEO guy, that's going to be great for you. You're a podcast guy, that's going to be great for you. All those. So let me just run through the 10 since we talked about it.

Number one is signage, such as business cards, storefront, billboards, yard signs, posters, things like that. Number two is phone calls, both outbound and inbound. Number three is text messaging. Again, outbound and inbound. I use the hell out of text messaging for inbound marketing, which a lot of people don't do. If you want my podcast, text "EZ Inspired" to 313131 and you'll be signed up. Number four is email. Outbound emails. We do a lot of drip emails, autoresponder emails, follow-up emails. Number five is SEO. Website, videos, landing pages, local search results, national directories, online ads, pay-per-clicks. Number six is customer and business referrals. Professional business referral partners are a huge part of our business. We look at the BDA. I think you and I talked about this before, Ryan. The BDA: Before, During, and After. Who touches my customer before they need my product or service, who touches them during the time they need my product or service, and who touches them after they bought my product and service.

Let me give you examples. Before, maybe it's a bank person, maybe it's a mortgage, maybe it's someone trying to do a commercial loan because I can't start my business without them. Maybe it's a continuing education provider or a pre-licensing provider. I need them before I can start my business. During, maybe it's a manager if I'm in a carrier, or maybe it's another person who is going to help mentor me in the insurance world, or maybe it's my vendors, my technology vendors, my AMS. But who is working with my person during the time that they're getting their business up and running? And then after, after my person has moved into their business, who's going to service them? Who are their suppliers? Who's their property manager? Who's their maintenance people? I want relationships with all of those, the BDA, because any of those can send me business.

Ryan Hanley: Does that make sense?

Billy Williams: Yeah, 100% it does.

Ryan Hanley: Okay, good.

Billy Williams: All right. So then number seven is social, social media, social networks. LinkedIn is huge for me.

Ryan Hanley: Yep. I think it is for you.

Billy Williams: Facebook, LinkedIn is huge for you as well.

Ryan Hanley: Huge.

Billy Williams: And while we're talking about this, let's talk about the money value of social networks. Each social network brings with it a different denomination. LinkedIn has the highest denomination. So if I'm looking for a $100,000 deal, I'm not going to find that on Snapchat. I'm going to find that on LinkedIn. And then after LinkedIn is Facebook. Facebook has the next highest denomination. And then after that is Instagram. And then after that is Twitter. And then after that is Snapchat. So when you're going out through these social networks, it's not just about who's popular. It's about which network is going to make you money.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I used Snapchat for like three months and then stopped. I'm not saying it doesn't have value, it just didn't for me. I have really dialed back my Instagram for the reasons that you just talked about. It's a cool tool. I actually like Instagram DMs as a platform for communicating with people, it's nice. But outside of that, I find it just doesn't add a ton of value to my business. It's just more ego stroking. There's some awareness. So I started trying to do like one post a week so that it doesn't feel like I'm just giving up on it, but I'm not super active, man. I get about as much out of LinkedIn as I put into it. Facebook too, but LinkedIn more. What I put into LinkedIn, I'm getting that back. And that's where my attention has been. LinkedIn, you get your spammy messages every once in a while, but filtered in between those spammy messages are really high quality contacts looking to do business. A lot of speaking gigs, a lot of business opportunities, really good stuff. I've found LinkedIn to be incredibly powerful.

Billy Williams: Yeah. And that's because it matches the denomination of your business. If you were selling $5 lipstick, Snapchat, Instagram, all that might work for you, but we're not. We're selling high-end, high-ticket items. So we need to communicate with a network of people that are high-end and high-ticket. I don't go to the country club to try and sell cheap products. And LinkedIn is the country club of social media.

Ryan Hanley: I agree. A very good friend of mine, his girlfriend just started an eyeliner business, a mascara business. And she only markets on Instagram and is absolutely killing it. So that gives you an idea of the e-commerce nature of it. She's doing incredibly well. But she took all her attention and put it, based on what you said, that's where someone's buying $20 mascara. I don't even know how much it costs, but say it costs below $50 for every one of them. That is where her audience is. That's going to click a button to an e-commerce page to pay $12 for eyeliner. That's where that audience lives.

Billy Williams: Yep. And like you said, Instagram is more ego-based, so makeup and all those kind of things. Fitness. I can imagine Instagram did really well for fitness when you were in the fitness world.

Ryan Hanley: Yes. Instagram and Facebook were our whole business.

Billy Williams: Right. And agents have to understand that. We're not meant to be everywhere. We're not meant to live or put our emphasis on all of these particular things. We need to know our denomination. If I'm selling Mercedes, I'm not going to go to the junkyard and stand there and say, "Hey, would you like to buy a new Mercedes?" It's just not the denomination.

Ryan Hanley: No, that's good. That's a good thought. I don't think a lot of people position it that way in their mind.

Billy Williams: Number eight is postal mail. Postal mail still works for us. It is a driver. It drives people to other things. It drives people to take activities or take actions. It drives call to actions. But postal mail still works for us. And it's the only way that I know I can touch every single person in a neighborhood.

Ryan Hanley: Okay.

Billy Williams: I'm not going to get to them on Facebook or Facebook ads. I'm not going to get to them through social media marketing. But I can mail and touch every single person in a neighborhood.

Ryan Hanley: Can I ask you a question about that?

Billy Williams: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: So with your postal mail strategy, my understanding is it can't be a one and done. The only way that works is if you're consistently putting out pieces that build that brand value in the mailbox. What I get feedback on is, "Oh, Travelers used to have this program where they would subsidize you pinging a zip code of mailers. And you would do it, and you'd get no calls. And you'd be like, 'Ah, mail doesn't work.'" My perception was always, and I haven't done a lot of this, that if you're going to commit to a hard mail strategy, it really needs to be a few pieces over a period of time that draws people in versus just one big blast.

Billy Williams: That's yes and no. Here's why it's yes. If that is your primary strategy, I'm going to mail you and I'm going to let the call to action be "call us, email us, get in touch with us." But if that is coupled with another strategy, if it's coupled with "here is a link" and when they click that link, there is now a Google pixel or Facebook pixel so that I'm tracking you and putting you into a custom audience and you're seeing my ad all over every social page or every online place that you go, then you don't have to send as many because there's more call to action outside of just that mail. What we find is if I coupled it with three or four other call to actions, drive you to a landing page, drive you to a Pearl, which is a personalized URL that says, "Hey Bob, thanks. We're glad you got our card. We created something specifically for you," even though that's just a landing page with a merge field, but still, he created a pearl for you. So no, I don't have to send 10 different mailings a year in order to get that kind of traction. So that's why it's yes and no.

Ryan Hanley: No, that's good. If it's your only real driver, no, you don't need as much if you've got other call to actions connected to you. Cool. That's a good way to think about it. I had never done it. My idea for Rogue was some hard mail. I also really like strategic billboards personally.

Billy Williams: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: I actually find that billboards in the right place with the right message, I remember them. They stay in my mind. There are professionals who operate around the Albany area and I know who they are because I've seen their billboards. I wouldn't otherwise know them. So I do think they have value. But my ideas were around hard mail to text. The call to action is "text me." Because it's easy. Usually your phone's in your hand. You grab the mail, your phone's in your hand too. You're probably not in front of your computer, but your phone is probably in your pocket. If you can have a clear call to action to text and start the relationship that way, that wasn't like a number one marketing plan for Rogue, but it was something during my brainstorming times that I had done some thought experiments.

Billy Williams: Well, when you come to the Fix My Insurance Agency workshop, you're going to go over all these 10 and then you're actually going to sit there and go, "Out of these 10 and these different things I can do within these 10, here are the things that I'm going to do." And then we're going to hold you accountable for that. I love the text messaging with the mailing. It works. It just works.

Number nine is group presentations. That can be a live group presentation, a recorded group presentation, a conference call, a webinar, whatever. I built my Allstate insurance agency on conference calls. I think you remember this, but I do remind everyone in the audience, I was a captive agent. Everyone around me, I was the young captive. There were all these seasoned agencies all around me. They were selling auto and home. They had the relationships. They were doing everything. I needed a niche. I needed to break in. There was nobody selling cancer, accident, heart attack, stroke, critical care. Nobody was doing that. So I would go out on Saturday mornings, go to all the fields in the area, baseball fields, softball fields, whatever, give out my business card. On the back of my business card, it said, "There'll be a conference call at 11 o'clock and a conference call at two o'clock. We're going to talk about accident." I'd give out my card and then I'd go sit my butt in my car because I used a free conference call number. I'd go sit my butt in my car, have a conference call, and there may be 10, 15, 20, 30 parents that showed up on that conference call. And then from there, it was my strength, which is sell from the stage. I literally would have the conference call and talk about why they needed the accident, heart attack, stroke, cancer. Minimal underwriting. Can't qualify for life insurance? We can at least get you an accident policy that will get you $10,000 or $20,000 in guaranteed life insurance with no underwriting. So at least you're not leaving a struggle bill for your folks if something were to happen to you. Little Johnny or Susie twist their ankle out on the field, now it's like an Aflac type policy, you get three or four hundred bucks to help you because you're missing work. I would do these conference calls every week. I was the number one seller of accident and heart attack and critical care policies. And then from there, I'd leverage that into auto and home.

Ryan Hanley: This is a slight tangent, but you've mentioned it a couple of times and it's really interesting to me. Have you ever done any trainings around selling from the stage? I'll put a preposition on this for everyone who's listening at home. You have a way of selling from the stage that doesn't feel offensive. Some people are offensive when they sell from the stage. The way they go about it, you're like, "Oh my God, Jesus." You know, "What's he saying? Now he's going to hit me with this." I've never, everything I've ever heard, everything I've ever watched from you, I've never felt that way. Even when I know you're pitching me something, I'm okay with it. I'm like, "Okay, maybe I want it. Maybe I don't. But I'm cool with it." And that isn't the way for everyone. Have you ever done trainings for people around how to sell from a stage without creating that feeling among people where they don't... Does that make sense what I'm asking you?

Billy Williams: Yeah, it does. Actually, we have that training as part of our membership. It's called Decision Flow. It's actually a book that I've written that I've never released. I've got like four or five books I've written, but for some reason, I've just never released them. I have this book called Decision Flow that I wrote, where it talks about understanding the facts, goals, obstacles, solutions. But let me summarize why I'm good at selling from the stage. Because I'm solving a problem. I don't sell from the stage to sell a product. I sell from the stage to solve a problem. So if you don't have that problem, I don't connect with you. And I tell people when I stand up, "This is not going to be for everybody." And that's because I'm an old Southern boy. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher. My great grandfather was a Baptist preacher. And so they sold from the pulpit. And all their message was, "This isn't for everybody here. You're sitting in the audience, this message may not be for you. But if it's for you, you need to pay attention and you need to listen." So that's my mentality and kind of my upbringing.

When I'm talking to you, like on this podcast, there's some agent right now that I'm connecting to. They're writing notes and they're like, "Man, when are you going to put this out, Ryan? Because I really want to copy this again." Now, will they spend any money with me? Nope, they won't. They won't spend the membership money. They won't come and do this. That's fine. I don't really care. But I'm connecting with somebody and I'm helping somebody. Without getting long-winded, selling from the stage is connecting with the people that have the problem you're solving. And I don't try to be a jack of all trades. That's what I was telling you in the beginning. You need a niche. Don't just be the insurance guy, be the insurance guy that focuses on this. And when people trust you for one thing, they'll accept you for anything.

Ryan Hanley: Does that make sense?

Billy Williams: No, it does.

Ryan Hanley: I mean, to back that up for anyone who cares, I can say that authority on a topic built from trust and respect transfers to other areas very easily. Once you've established that authority, you can move to other things very easily. A very shallow example is moving from one social network to another. A much deeper one would be transferring from personal insurance to commercial insurance. To a consumer, if you do a great job for someone on their commercial package, they're just going to assume that you will do a great job for them on their personal lines package. There will be literally no loss of authority from one line to the other. So I completely and utterly agree with that.

Billy Williams: Good, good. And then the 10th and final marketing is lead magnet marketing. This is written content, blogs, eBooks, audio, video, recorded hotlines, whatever you're using. But it's something that a person finds and then they take an action because they found it. My number one lead magnet is YouTube. People find me all over YouTube. But what's so crazy, since I've started doing this podcasting thing, I'm seeing my podcast at 11, 12, 1300 downloads an episode where my YouTube is still at 190, 200 views per episode. Same episode.

Ryan Hanley: I think what's happening is podcasts are so much easier to consume. I'm going to give you a thought on that, though.

Billy Williams: Yes, sir.

Ryan Hanley: Here's my thought on that because I've had people ask me, "If you podcast as much as you do, why do you still do the videos?" There is a very, very specific reason for it. This is not an exact number, but it'll give you an idea. I think it takes 10 podcast listens to achieve the same level of authority in someone's mind as them watching one quality video. If I watch you for 10 minutes on one of your videos breaking down a topic, I can't do anything else. I have to be here. I have to be watching you, listening to you. Some people listen to YouTube Premium like podcasts, almost. Most people are watching and listening. You have at least two of their senses completely focused on you. They can't do anything else. If I'm listening to you on a podcast, I'm walking my dog. I'm on the treadmill. I'm driving in my car. I have something else going on in my brain. So yeah, I'm listening to you, but you do not have a hundred percent of my attention. With video, you have a hundred percent of my attention. So my belief, and it's from subjective feedback, but I've been doing it for long enough that I firmly believe in this, that even though your video views will almost always be less, continuing to do video content is incredibly important because it's the nail in the coffin for authority. When you get somebody to watch a 10 or 20 minute video of yours, they believe in you. They might not always agree, which is fine, but they believe in you enough to spend that time with you and give you at least two of their senses, a hundred percent. That to me says a lot. So that's why I keep pushing the video really hard.

Billy Williams: Yeah. I won't do a podcast without a video. If you notice on any of my podcasts, it says, "Watch this on YouTube." The other thing I look at, because again, for me, it's all about revenue. It's all about money. People who watch YouTube spend money. They will join my membership. They will come to our workshop. They will do whatever. People who listen on podcasts, it's almost like they want the free stuff.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. They're more voyeurs.

Billy Williams: Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Hanley: So I have two questions for you.

Billy Williams: Yes, sir.

Ryan Hanley: One, have you done a lot with, or ever thought through, self-hosted video versus YouTube video? So instead of publishing a video on YouTube, you publish it with a tool like Wistia or Vidyard on your own site and push everyone to your own site versus pushing them to YouTube. That's question one. And question two is, have you ever experimented with evergreen webinars? Those are two notes that I wrote down.

Billy Williams: Yes. So number one, we do. I use the Wistia turnstile feature. I really like that.

Ryan Hanley: Okay.

Billy Williams: That's actually one of our lead magnets when we're putting it out on our landing pages. We have hundreds of landing pages that are out. If you're looking for anything insurance, you wouldn't even know it's Inspire Nation. It's just a landing page. You'll start to watch it for 10, 20, 30 seconds. I get you involved and then it stops. Boom. "Give me your email if you want to continue watching this." And that's a lead magnet for us. So yes, we use that. But YouTube is about driving people back to my site.

Ryan Hanley: Gotcha.

Billy Williams: So everything that YouTube does, my call to actions are "go to our site." And then once they're on the site, then they can engage. For those of you listening at home, Billy yells at me all the time for not putting enough calls to action in my video. I'll just get these random LinkedIn messages from him. "I just watched one of your YouTube videos and it did not have a call to action. What are you doing?"

Ryan Hanley: Hey, it's got to have a call to action. I appreciate it. Sometimes you forget. I've got to go back in.

Billy Williams: It's good stuff. So again, YouTube for us is about driving them to our website. And as far as evergreen videos, I do that when I'm doing a webinar. I turn all our webinars into evergreen videos and I'll put out a two minute clip, like on LinkedIn or whatever else. And it's like, "But if you want to watch this, you got to go." And then we use GoToMeeting or GoToTraining for that backend hosting so I can look at the analytics. So yeah, we use it all.

Ryan Hanley: The evergreen webinars for me, that's another idea that I really like. I'm doing some specifically deep trainings for people on specific topics, running ads with teaser videos to get them to sign up for the evergreen training. Now they're a lead. They watch that video. If they spend more than 15 minutes watching a training online, bam, now we know to call out or ping them or drive them back in, giving them calls to action during the webinar. Because if they're willing to spend that time with us learning about comp mods or cyber liability, these would specifically be targeting topics that tend to be more misunderstood pain points inside of an organization. Driving them to that evergreen, letting them kind of learn on their own, and then bam, bringing them in. I actually have that kind of mapped out already in my prospecting book. I was just wondering if you had any experience with them.

Billy Williams: No, those work extremely well. We use them and those work extremely well. If you got on YouTube, you'll see we use the "up next" feature. One of my team has learned how to make our video pop up on the recommended video.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Billy Williams: Because that's a huge driver. But we also use the ads. You're watching this video and all of a sudden we'll pop up as one of those ads that skip in three seconds or four seconds. So yeah, we do those as well. And those will work. The thing is, these 10 work regardless. So I know we kind of jumped around. So let me just call out these 10 again.

Number one is signage. Number two is phone calls. Number three is text messaging. Number four is email. Number five is SEO. Number six is customer and business referrals. Number seven is social networking. Number eight is postal mail. Number nine, group presentations. And then number 10, lead magnet marketing. I don't care how fancy it gets. I don't care how many conferences you go to, Ryan. I don't care how many phone calls you get. At the end of the day, we're going to be able to fit everything into five best prospects and 10 ways to market to them. So we want to keep things simple.

Then the next thing after our marketing is we need to make sure we've got the technology. So number seven on our list is 10 core technology and automation tools. I'm talking things like your agency management system, your appointment scheduler, your text messaging tool, all those particular things. There are 10 core tools. Our number one prospecting tool for current customers is a declined coverage form. So, Ryan, that's one of the first tools I want you to create. You're going to create one at the Fix My Insurance Agency. But even now, I want you to create a declined coverage form. I don't want you to create one form for each product. I want you to create one form that you can throw different products on. "Oh, you declined flood. You declined light. You declined uninsured motors. You declined loss of income. You declined motorcycle, passenger on the motorcycle." You want one form. Don't send them 10 different forms from 10 different products. Send them one form that has everything you suggest.

Here's the deal. Right now, if you took a full evaluation of all of our agencies that I'm part owner of, it adds up to about $1.2 billion in what they produce in premium. $1.2 billion out of the 160 plus agencies. Three out of every $10 with a current customer comes from a declined coverage form. Three out of every 10. How do I know?

Billy Williams: Because we track that. We keep up with that. So if I wrote you a policy today, even if I'm quoting you, let's say I'm quoting you a policy, and I see that you don't have this, you don't have this, you don't have that, you don't have that, I'm still going to send you the decline coverage form, even during the quote process.

Billy Williams: Now, one of the things we do, and you know, now that we're working together on some things, you're going to have to have a formalized non-disclosure. We use a non-disclosure for any premium beyond $10,000. That's because I'll be damned if we're going to do all the work, and then you're going to take this to the agent that you're currently working with, or the agent down the street, and go, "Here, match this." You're probably still going to do it, but I'm going to make it hard for you. I'm going to make you have to think about it.

Billy Williams: So if it's over $10,000 in premium, I'm going to have you sign a non-disclosure. When you do that, I'm also going to give you this decline coverage form that says, "Hey, I just want to make you aware. You've already signed this non-disclosure, so the other agent's going to have to figure this crap out on their own. But you got these problems on your current policy and I want to make sure that you are aware of it even while we're quoting you." And they go, "Oh, here's the deal, Billy. I don't need to get the form back. I don't need them to sign it. I don't need them to whatever." In fact, probably 80% of the people won't sign it, but they have the conversation with me. And that's what I want.

Billy Williams: So one of the first tools I need for you to make is a decline coverage form. You'll be at the Fix My Insurance Agency, so we're going to give you our version of the client coverage form, but you definitely need that.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Billy Williams: Okay. Number eight, lead tracking. So now you've done all this work. You got this prospecting, you got all your tools up, and now you're getting leads and they're falling through the cracks because you never planned for lead tracking. And you never planned for accountability. So that's the next thing that we do.

Billy Williams: Then we look at our follow-up methods because there are methods that are much more effective than other methods. Everything is not just "pick up the phone and call." Text messaging is our absolute most effective follow-up method. So that means from every single person that I'm doing a quote for, I want to get permission to text message because it's our absolute most effective follow-up method. And we track that. Does that make sense?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Billy Williams: And then of course you've got calendaring, and then you've got your different processes: new customer process, claims process, retention process, staffing, accountability, payroll, hiring. When I go into an agency, I look at the 18 things. You're looking at the sheet. These guys aren't, but there are 18 things. I assess those 18 things. That may take three days, may take two weeks, depends on how organized or disorganized that agency is. But I refuse to put a dollar into an agency until I've looked at these 18 things and evaluated them.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Billy Williams: And that's what I've given you. The 18 things you can use as the foundation for building your agency.

Ryan Hanley: Well, I can't wait for a couple of weeks. I'm really excited because there's so much here. I feel like it's very easy. What I found being on this side of the fence now, I have to have some self-awareness about what I believed before and just what I'm experiencing today. One of the things that I wrote on LinkedIn, you may have seen it, I was like, "I'm sorry. I never fully empathized with the technology issue thing." I heard you, I listened, I felt it. But now that I actually have to take my own money and make the decisions and try to piece this thing together, it's not easy.

Ryan Hanley: Now, I believe that we make it harder than it needs to be because a lot of times we're chasing new shiny objects. I get that. And I did feel a little bit of that. So now I can kind of say that. But that being said, it's still not easy. And I think with the processes, it's the same way. The reason that I, a brand new agency, am spending the time and money to go to IOA, to go to your workshop, is because I want to try to jump the line. I'm not three years in with bad habits now trying to re-break those bad habits and re-establish good habits. I want to mix with the people who have the good habits today, learn the good habits, and start with as good habits as I possibly can have moving forward. I just think that's the only way to do it.

Billy Williams: And you're doing it right, Ryan, because of the process. See, here's the deal with technology. People usually buy technology and then try to fit it into their processes. Technology should fit into your process. That means if my endorsement process is "look up my phone number, verify the address, send a confirmation email, point out a policy weakness," I need the tool that allows me to do that best. That's where a lot of agencies screw this up. They don't have a formalized structure of processes, so they go buy all these shiny tools.

Billy Williams: As an example, I was talking to one of my actual partners and he was saying, "Billy, InsuredMine. Oh my God, I want to get InsuredMine. Trust me, I'm about to invest in InsuredMine. I think it's a phenomenal tool." But he can't have it. Why? Because he chose a system that doesn't integrate with other things. InsuredMine has to be able to work with your system. So now he's screwed. So while he may want it, he can't have it. What he told me was, "I think I'm going to get it anyway and see if I can make it work." So now you're going to spend all this time, energy, and money buying something because it's shiny, not because it's going to make your processes better, not because it's going to make Judy's life easier, not because Bob is going to be able to be more effective and make more money, but because you want a new shiny object. Wrong answer.

Billy Williams: That's how people get bad credit. Getting a car they really can't afford. Living in a house they really can't pay for. Going out to do things they really can't afford to do. That's how you end up with bad credit. There are a lot of agencies that have bad ownership credit because they're so busy getting things they really have no purpose for.

Ryan Hanley: You mentioned something that I've heard many agency owners that I respect very highly say the same thing, often learned through hard lessons: you start to lose credibility with your staff. You only get to make so many technology mistakes or chase so many rabbits down technology rabbit holes. Eventually your staff just looks at you like, "Oh, this is just another tool that we're never going to use." Getting them to adopt only becomes harder and harder.

Billy Williams: Yep. So what happens is the agent will go to a workshop or a conference and they come back all fired up. "We're going to change our agency. We're going to make the world a better place." The young staff is running around going, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" And the old staff's like, "Hey, just calm down. This too shall pass."

Ryan Hanley: I get that. I'm trying to make my agency management decision this week. I've spent too much time on it. I have a couple, I pretty much know where I'm going to go, but it's still like—

Billy Williams: Well, before you make that agency management system decision, let you and I have an offline conversation so that I can walk you through some of the best practices. Then you can make sure that the technology matches the best practice, versus trying to make best practices out of technology that you bought.

Ryan Hanley: I would love that. That's the best way to do it. All right. Go ahead.

Billy Williams: [Laughs]

Ryan Hanley: I was going to say, I want to be respectful of your time. We are over our allotted time here. I could go for a few more minutes with you if you want to go.

Billy Williams: I'm good. I'm here to work with you. We're good.

Ryan Hanley: You have delivered incredible value to me already. Plus I want to tease the hell out of the people listening because they should be going to this thing. And if not this one, the next one you have, because you do them quarterly or twice—

Billy Williams: I have them every other month. There are five in 2020.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So the workshops are coming. If you miss the one in February, which is the one I will be at, that's fine. The next one's in April. But this is a good teaser. I think mostly because it's so much more than a teaser. I mean, I have literally a page full of notes and in my crazy shorthand where I start writing around the edges. I have long form, I have short form, literally decipherable only by me, but it makes sense.

Ryan Hanley: Billy, we've already talked about it a lot, but where are the best places for people to connect if they don't want to come to my site, which they don't need to? Where can they go directly to sign up for the workshop or just get on your email list? I know you have a freemium membership that's available now for them to test. Just give them the stuff.

Billy Williams: The easiest way is literally to search Google "Fix My Insurance Agency." That's going to bring up everything that we do under the Fix My Insurance Agency banner. That's going to bring up our podcasts, our webinars, our freemium memberships. Just search "Fix My Insurance Agency." That's easy. If you want to go directly to our website, go to inspireanation.org.

Billy Williams: Let me talk real quick about why it's called Inspire A Nation and not Williams Consulting. It's because at the end of the day, I make my money investing in insurance agencies. I mentor because that's my passion, because that's my gift. Selling from the stage, being in the pulpit, that's my gift. That's why I call it Inspire A Nation, because at some point I'm going to branch out of the insurance world and go into the regular general business world. I also do some religious-based training. So don't be confused, guys. "What is this Inspire A Nation crap?" It's because my message, what I'm trying to do to leave my legacy and my influence, is so much bigger than just the insurance space.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, and plus it's just a good name, easy to remember.

Billy Williams: There we go.

Ryan Hanley: Well hey, if they want to get our podcast, they can text "EZ" — not the word, but the letters E-Z — "inspire" to 313131. That's going to put you directly on our podcast and YouTube sign-up list. Nothing else to sign up, it immediately logs you in and makes you part of the list.

Ryan Hanley: If you're listening to this and you are not in Billy's ecosystem already in some way, shape, or form — connected on LinkedIn or any of the things — I'll have as many of the ways to connect with him as I can on my site too. But Billy is absolutely someone you have to be connected to. We've known each other now for two years, maybe a little more.

Billy Williams: Two or three years.

Ryan Hanley: But every conversation like this one, it just takes me forward. You know how sometimes you talk to people and it's like, "Oh, that was a cool conversation. I'm kind of in the same place I was, but it was fun." I am never in the same place when we're done speaking to each other, even if it's just for 20 minutes. I'm always some amount forward, either as a person or as whatever I'm doing. I'm usually just blasting you with questions.

Billy Williams: I'm honored though. You've been just as big of an influence for me, Ryan. I think you kind of pulled me out of my shell. I never wanted to be the face. I never wanted to be out in the public domain. I just wanted to be the guy behind the scenes. But then you put me on Elevate and that just blew that out of the water. When you put me on the Elevate stage, it demanded that I be out there more. I love it because I feel like I actually have a greater influence and I'm helping to spread that Inspire Nation message. Not from a marketing standpoint, but I feel like I'm changing people's lives. That's my goal: to change people's lives.

Ryan Hanley: I appreciate you saying that. It was my great honor to have you at Elevate. You kicked off day two. It was a no-doubt decision for me. But your presence out front — you can tell that was a decision to stay behind the scenes, because your talent to be out front in front of the camera, to create these things, to talk on stage, is uncanny. If there was ever hesitation in you, it is not obvious to those of us watching at home.

Billy Williams: Well, it was a choice. For 21 years, I was out front. I was commander of Army College recruiting. I traveled around the country, I did all this other stuff. I said, "When I retire, I just want to be at home. I just want to be with my kids." I didn't want to travel 300 days a year. I didn't want to be out speaking to audiences. So it was a choice. But one of the things I've learned is God always puts you where He wants you to be, not where you want to be. I think He said, "Look, I gave you this strength. I gave you this talent. I gave you this ability to sell from the stage. And damn it, you're going to use it. The way I'm going to make sure is I'm going to put people around you to make you have to use it." I think there's a lot in that, whether you believe in God, universe, whatever.

Billy Williams: That's the same thing with you, Ryan. I know you're destined to be very successful at whatever you do, not just because of you, but because of who you attract around you. Your net worth is a direct reflection of your network. You have the network that your net worth is going to be huge because you've built that network.

Ryan Hanley: I am blessed in many ways. The friends that I have in life are among the top of them. There have been different times in my life where I've looked around and said, "My family, absolutely, first and foremost. And then, geez, the people that I can call on the phone and have a conversation with that'll pick up the phone or text me and say, 'Hey, what do you think about this?'" It's unbelievable how giving and selfless people are willing to be if you are willing to be giving and selfless to them.

Billy Williams: One of the things you're going to learn — and I know we're going over — is that people who are wealthy, I don't mean rich. Anybody can be rich. You have a bunch of stuff, acquired a bunch of whatever. But people that are really wealthy, meaning their money is going to be long no matter what, are some of the most selfless people in the world. Poor people are people with a poor mentality. You can be broke and not be poor. But people that have a poor mentality, those are some of the most selfish people in the world because they're only worried about their problem. They only look at their stuff. They won't share anything. They won't give anything because they have that poor person's mentality. Being poor is a mentality. Being wealthy is a mentality. People that have a wealth mentality, they share. They share ideas. They share experiences. They share whatever. That's what you built. You built your network around a bunch of people that have a wealth mentality. That's why we don't care about sharing, because it's not going to hurt us to share with you.

Billy Williams: One of the things that I'm most honored by when it comes to you — and it probably was not a big deal for you, but it was a huge deal for me — is when you were deciding, you were transferring or thinking about leaving one position going to another position, and you called me and we talked for like an hour and a half.

Ryan Hanley: We did, yeah.

Billy Williams: For you, it may have been just "let me reach out to Billy, let me pick his brain, let me do whatever." But to me, it was: here's a guy who first of all has influenced me so much, who the world loves, who's very influential in our industry, and he calls me to say, "I'm thinking about making this move. Give me your opinion." That was a real honor for me.

Ryan Hanley: What's crazy is I was honored that you picked up the phone. I was like, "Geez, I hope he will be willing to talk to me." I don't want to waste your time. I know you're a busy guy and a lot of people are vying for your attention. This is a love fest or whatever, but it's true. I was honored that you were willing to take that call. I have to talk through things to get them square in my head. I'm not good at sitting in my own thoughts. I need to talk them out. It's very meaningful when someone will give me that time to let me do that and give me honest feedback. Your feedback wasn't just like, "Yeah, Ryan, go do what you want." You were giving me — and I also knew that about you — that you wouldn't just give me what I wanted to hear. You would force me to think about how I was making that decision. That means a lot. Some people will just lip service you, and not in a bad way. They're trying to be nice, and that's great. I don't fault them for that. But to me, I really enjoy people who in a respectful way are willing to say, "No, I disagree with that," or "Have you thought about this?" or "It feels to me like you're not considering this thing."

Ryan Hanley: I think it's easy to be nice and just roll over. It's much more difficult and meaningful to be nice but challenge someone. I have found you to be someone who I trust implicitly to be both very respectful but also very challenging on a person's thought process. I think that is one of the most respectable qualities that someone can have.

Billy Williams: Well, thank you. Thank you.

Ryan Hanley: We probably need to let these guys and girls get back to work.

Billy Williams: Yeah. Everyone's like, "Geez, they're going to make out after this podcast."

Ryan Hanley: [Laughs] No, I appreciate it, man. You spending this time with us is great. I can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks. I'm going to get this show out super quick because I want people to have time to make plans. Whether February is the day or it's one in the future, if they want to go to that February one. So I appreciate you. Obviously, if there's anything I can do, you just let me know.

Billy Williams: Thank you.

[Promotional segment]

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