--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. My name is Ryan Hanley and I'm so glad that you are here with me. Today we have a guest who has a very interesting story. He's a former signed national touring rock musician turned insurance agent, turned almost insurance celebrity. Yet he has this awesome moment where he steps back from that edge of doing the speaking scene and getting caught up in things that don't help grow his insurance agency. While you still see him out on social media and occasionally at events, he's grinding every day to grow his business.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: At this time, and maybe it's because I'm personally struggling with this, it's so easy to fall into that insurance celebrity trap, and Woody Brown did not do it. Besides being an absolutely tremendous guy, an amazing agent, and someone I enjoy being able to book an hour with and just talk to, we discuss things that I think are really going to help anyone who finds themselves getting asked to do anything that isn't a priority to their business.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This is a great episode. You're going to love it. Woody's a tremendous guy. If you're unfamiliar with him, you will be enamored by him immediately. While he's focused on his business, I'm sure he would love to connect with you and I encourage you to do so. You get all that in this episode.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But before we get to Woody, I want to talk about an announcement I had a few weeks ago. The Inside, my membership community, is free now. It's free for agents and insurance professionals to come in, engage, watch the videos, follow along on the journey, share their own resources. The Inside is now free. I did an episode of the newsletter, my YouTube show that comes out weekly, where I describe why I did it. The long story short is that community was always about helping people, and keeping it behind a paywall was not doing that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I encourage you to check out the Inside. You can subscribe to the email list so when new episodes come out, you get notified. Go to ryanhanley.com/insider. ryanhanley.com/insider is where you begin. All of it is free. I'm not asking you to pay for anything. You can check it out. I just wanted to let the listeners of this show know that the Inside is now available to you, and the Facebook group is available to you. If it's something you're interested in, I encourage you to check it out.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Otherwise, thank you for listening to this show. If you're listening for the first time and you're not subscribed and you love it, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And let's get on to Woody Brown.
--:-- [Transition to interview]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I feel like I haven't talked to you in a long time, man.
--:-- Woody Brown: Well, I think that's because it hasn't been a long time, or it has been a long time, maybe is what I meant to say.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's kind of part of the reason why I wanted to do this podcast with you, dude. You and I have always hit it off so well. I love our conversations. I've been doing stuff, you've been doing stuff. What better way to schedule a conversation with a friend than to record it, in case you say something cool?
--:-- Woody Brown: Yeah, man, I agree. It's a good excuse to get it on the calendar and make it official.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So what's up, man? What are you doing?
--:-- Woody Brown: Just living the insurance dream, dude. I wish there was something new and innovative to report, but I'm just kind of doing what I've been doing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I know. And that's what I've seen from you on the socials. That's part of the reason why I was so excited for our conversation. If there's something I've become more aware of now that I own my own agency, now that I'm making these decisions and looking at things from a "this is how I pay my bills" standpoint, I look at you and I see somebody who... correct me where I'm wrong here, but I feel like there were a couple of years there, those Agency Nation years, where you were starting to come on the scene, all over the socials. Then in the last year or more, it feels like you've pulled back. Maybe that's a fair assessment?
--:-- Woody Brown: Let me know.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You've just gotten to the work of growing and operating your agency. I'm interested in that because I think so many people are chasing shiny objects. It's incredibly easy to do. To a certain extent, it feels like you've been able to avoid some of that. I'm really interested in how, why, what... all of everything. That really long preface with like nine questions in it. Go.
--:-- Woody Brown: Dude, completely fair assessment and truthfully a great observation. On one hand, I feel at times sort of bad because I don't interact with all the friends we've made over the years, starting with that first Agency Nation conference I went to. The Star Wars GIF, whatever you want to call it. I made so many friends. Early on, it was super helpful because I was new to the industry. It was great to share ideas.
--:-- Woody Brown: But then I found, like you said, there's a lot of shiny object stuff out there. Different platforms, different agency management systems, different widgets you can use. For me, as a person who gets easily distracted anyway, I started noticing, "Am I taking on too much of that kind of stuff?" I noticed that being focused on the management of the agency was distracting me from the end goal as an agent. I had to pull back on that.
--:-- Woody Brown: In terms of interacting with agents, I started getting in the weeds with putting out a lot of stuff on my own, whether video or a podcast I started for fun last year that has nothing to do with insurance. That takes time. And then just normal life as a parent at the ages our kids are, every single second of the day is used. I had to shave some time and attention in certain areas to sell more policies and make more money.
--:-- Woody Brown: Over the past year, year and a half, maybe closer to two, I've slowly turned off notifications on social platforms so I don't get bogged down in that. I'm an ambitious dude much like yourself, and I do have a love for helping other people in our industry. But at some point, I had to ask myself, "Selfishly, what is going to help me reach my family goals and our financial goals quickest? What's the path of least resistance?" Ultimately, it was backing off a little bit on that end of things.
--:-- Woody Brown: As much as I love helping people with what camera I use or sharing ideas, sometimes it becomes like another job. I don't want to discourage people from reaching out. I love meeting a random agent who lives in Louisiana who reached out to me the other day. It's cool that we can connect from other states and bounce ideas off one another. I dig that. But from the outside looking in, there's a lot of folks... I just had to back off a little bit and concentrate on kicking ass.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I know. To be honest with you, a big part of why I want to talk to you is... this is going to sound weird, but I mean it in the purest sense. I'm proud of you for making that decision. These are decisions I'm starting to make in my own life. I'm like a crackhead when it comes to creating, sharing, distributing, connecting. I can't help myself. I've been creating a lot of stuff that doesn't have to do with Rogue right now because I'm waiting for some paperwork to come through. But the day that stuff comes through, when I have a pointed carrier and my license is good and everything's ready to go, I am not going to be able to do that stuff nearly as much.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's that whole insurance celebrity thing. I was talking to a friend of mine who I really care about, and I said to her, "You are about to be catapulted into another level of insurance celebrity hood." She's smart, outgoing, and easy to connect with. People are going to want to know what she has to say. I said, "Be very, very careful about becoming an insurance celebrity because it is not all it's cracked up to be." There are certainly benefits, but those benefits come with absolute trade-offs.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: As I'm trying to move out of that space, and to see you... for the audience who may not know you yet, just some timetables. To see you walk up to that precipice where if you kept going and sharing and creating, you would have become an insurance celebrity, and you stepped back. I have so much respect for that because you didn't step back and go into a hole. You stepped back and kept building your agency.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In 2017 at Elevate, which is the Star Wars GIF conference... I challenge any U2 efforts to do 57 GIFs to open up a conference. Literally one of the best presentations I've ever seen. I don't know if it's because I'm a Star Wars nerd, but I was instantly sold. I'm like, "This guy gets it. Whatever he's about to tell me... are we joining a cult? Whatever it is." Where were you in your career back in 2017 at that Elevate, and then where are you now? Give us the timetables a little bit. At what point did you say, "I don't want to go down this rabbit hole any further. I'm going to step back."
--:-- Woody Brown: In 2017, I was still relatively green as an agent. I had a couple of years under my belt. In a lot of ways, I wasn't doing anything I would consider innovative. Elevate and that time, meeting people like Nick, Joey, and Sydney, catapulted me into thinking, "Hey, creativity is something I want to add into my legacy as an insurance agent." But I was still really green. I'd been to other insurance conferences, but this one seemed like something different. It was refreshing. That's when I got the bug to make more of an impact on the local level in Georgia.
--:-- Woody Brown: I told a guy I was talking to the other day, my ultimate goal was when someone types "insurance" in the state of Georgia, selfishly I want it to be my face they see, my voice they hear. I wanted them to hear, see, and read me. I was trying to figure out ways to do that, and one of them was pumping out a ton of content.
--:-- Woody Brown: In 2018, after being inspired by the insurance video folks and Casey Neistat, I decided... I'm one of those people who can say all day long, "I need to get in shape" or "I don't need that double cheeseburger." That's all great, but if I don't sign up for a race or pay a ton of money to do something, I don't have the same rate of success. I have to come up with something crazy and lofty, declare it publicly, so that at the end of the day, I'm going to embarrass myself if I don't complete it because I already told everybody I was going to do it.
--:-- Woody Brown: So in 2018, I said, "Every single day this year, I'm going to do a daily vlog." One reason was to push myself to edit and complete things faster so that once the daily vlog was over, I'd be able to knock out videos super quick. I wanted to get better at storytelling, having to create a story every single day that is at least somewhat entertaining or creative. It's hard. It's quite a task.
--:-- Woody Brown: After doing all that and taking the time to do it, I started being asked to speak at certain things. I'm the kind of guy, and I think you and a lot of our close agent friends are like this too, which is probably why we all get along so well, I end up saying yes to a lot of stuff. Because I'm creative, I always have cool ideas of how to make things better. "Oh yeah, I can do that." Maybe I have too much confidence in a lot of ways, but I say yes to a lot of things. Because of that, a lot of things end up suffering a little bit.
--:-- Woody Brown: After a while, I started realizing I was getting into that zone of "insurance celebrity." It came down to one thing. I had to ask myself, "Is this my ultimate goal?" If it is, I can public speak. One of the carriers we represent sometimes asks me to come speak in different states. I know I can do it. I like a crowd. I like that energy. As a former lead singer of a rock band, I feed off that. It's the best. But then I had to ask myself, "What is the longevity of something like this?" I figured out that for me, it wasn't the route I wanted to take.
--:-- Woody Brown: Don't get me wrong, dude. I love attention. I walk into a mortgage office, I love it. I walk in front of a crowd, I love it. But I knew it just wasn't my ultimate goal. There are a lot of folks out there where that might be their ultimate goal, and that's awesome. Hopefully they don't think... here's the danger. I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks. The hardest part is not having that attention, not having that spotlight in any way.
--:-- Woody Brown: Over the years, I haven't really changed much of what I've done in terms of pushing out content and being present online for my audience. I started realizing that the audience I was making content for wasn't necessarily who's going to be putting food on the table for them right now. When I started figuring that out for myself, I thought, "Am I making videos for other insurance agents? Or am I making this for somebody who is going to ask me to look at their stuff because they like me, they think I'm goofy, or I know what I'm talking about, or no one else is doing it?"
--:-- Woody Brown: That is the direction I took. Because of that, it sounds cliche, but I've been so busy reaping those rewards and managing my current book of business while having lofty goals of growing it. It takes a lot out of you. I knew the smartest decision for me for now was to take the path of being an insurance agent and push hard on the audience you're going after in terms of your target. I had to refocus my target.
--:-- Woody Brown: I don't think I was ever really making a lot of content for the insurance community. It was just different, new. "Hey, who's this guy? Videos are kind of cool." I got a lot of attention from that. Then more folks started doing video. I like to think of myself as maybe the 21st person to watch in 2020, maybe 25th. I'll take a couple slots down. Do I take that sort of stuff personally? I'm a competitive person, so initially I'm like, "Hey bro, why not on the list?" But I don't take it personally because the past couple of years, my head has been down just working it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That was not a ranking, first of all, for everyone listening at home. That was Cass and I just coming up with some names of people we wanted to feature. Let me back up on that. I know you're not giving me a hard time, but I think this is a good conversation. I know it's not personal. There are people on there I never talked about before. I wanted to get some fresh names. I actually think we're going to do another one because it's about connecting people. That's why I did the whole thing with "go to my page and connect on LinkedIn" so you can connect with all these people. I wanted people bouncing off each other.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I also like that it makes you a little competitive. Maybe you'll actually work now.
--:-- Woody Brown: Yeah, exactly. It makes me kind of... I'm giving you a hard time. I thought that would be kind of funny. One thing I love about the industry and what I love to celebrate, especially on the independent side... no offense to the captives listening. There was a captive agent on a Facebook group yesterday trying to... it was just funny. In my opinion, coming from outside the agency, there are a lot of things that attract me toward the independent channel. One of them is you're automatically born an underdog. You don't have multi-billion dollar marketing that's been around for so long backing you up. You don't show up on day one wearing your red stuff and that's it. We don't get that luxury.
--:-- Woody Brown: As a group of independent agents, and including the captives for sure, if one of us does awesome, it helps build the brand of independent agents.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I agree.
--:-- Woody Brown: It fires me up. Another thing that made me back off was I started learning from people outside of the industry. I started seeking those people out because I wanted to be well-rounded in business concepts. It becomes harder to find folks... I'm sensitive here because I don't want it to sound like I'm saying these people don't exist in the industry. I wanted to be mentored by folks I felt I had things to learn from.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: No, I think... look, Woody. If people have listened to my show for any period of time, they've been offended enough that this doesn't even come close to the bar of offending them. Everyone completely understands where you're coming from. One of my best friends and mentors, a guy I talk about all the time, is Marcus Sheridan. He's rugged, but he has nothing to do with the insurance industry. He's spoken at events, but he doesn't know a policy form from an accord form. He has no idea. That was so nerdy. I'm sorry.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Another good buddy who pushes me constantly is Matt Davison. He owns his own PR firm in Buffalo, New York. He doesn't know anything about insurance. I constantly call him and ask him for feedback. I think you're 100% on pace. Another great example is Jeff Roy up in Canada. He takes more inputs from outside our industry and brings them in than anybody I know. He's constantly reaching into other spaces to find the best of what they have. I think it's a testament to you trying to be the best you can. I don't think it's a knock on our space at all.
--:-- Woody Brown: I hope anyone listening doesn't think I can't learn anything from them. I definitely didn't mean that. I truly believe I can learn something from everyone. If I had to distill it down... I'm going to go back to Star Wars here. Can I learn how to be a Jedi by hanging out with Luke Skywalker? Sure. Old school Luke Skywalker. But should I seek out Yoda? The level of mastery there is just different.
--:-- Woody Brown: Plus, there are so many people in the industry who are just so innovative. They blow my mind. Jeff Roy and all these people doing amazing things for the industry while simultaneously killing it for their business. It's fascinating to me. I guess this is the longest winded way to say I just had to concentrate selfishly on being better at what I do and focus in on that.
--:-- Woody Brown: I'm super blessed that my wife is now a stay-at-home mom. That's one of the things that went on me. It's like, "Hey babe, I know you want to not work at your job anymore because you're not super passionate about it and you want to be a stay-at-home mom. I got to go meet with XYZ Insurance Agent and teach them how to make a video. I'm going to go do this free speaking gig for a carrier in West Tennessee." Once you get to a certain point, you've got to know your worth. My time away from the family is the most expensive time. In order for me to make that sacrifice, it absolutely has to be worthwhile. My love for the industry 100% doesn't trump my love for my family.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: There's no doubt about that. I felt it. It's wild. I used to travel three weeks a month for a long time, especially during my older son's life. When I stepped away from the industry for that period of time, it was because I couldn't get on air. My wife literally said, "I have to be home for a bunch of reasons." I didn't get on an airplane from March of 2019 until last week at IAOA. That's the longest time in almost a decade that I haven't flown away from my family. We've taken a couple trips together.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Having spent all that time every day, there was part of me that felt good to get a little bit of... "If I want to go sit over here and do whatever, listen to..." No one's like, "Dad, dad, dad, dad." If you just want to go to the bathroom for a second... "Guys, can't I just... the door is closed. Come on." That felt good for like a minute. Then all of a sudden I was like, "I miss my crew." That's a big part of why I started Rogue. I wanted to own my own destiny. I never wanted anyone to tell me I had to get on an airplane. There are obligations. I never wanted that to be the case.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You said nothing's more valuable than your family time. It's so easy to lose that, especially when you've been home and no one's ever wanted you to travel and talk before. Now all of a sudden they do, and you get on the airplane system. You're walking around the airport doing whatever you want. You can eat whatever you want. "I want a beer at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Sure. I'm speaking. Why not?" That freedom is tough.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My question for you is... and I want to clarify, everyone you mentioned, Nick, Joey, and Sydney, for those listening at home, that is Nick Ayers, Joey Giangola, and Sydney Rowe. I'm taking notes. I'm really interested in this because I think people struggle with it more than they talk about. Any agent who starts to do something new, people start to reach out to them. It's cool. It's great. I'm happy our industry has gotten to the point where we're so willing to share. A lot of people struggle with this. I'm super interested in, as much as you can describe, the moment you knew. You've talked about it at a high level. But what was that moment? Was there an imp? Was there something that happened? An event you came home from?
--:-- Woody Brown: You know, a soccer game you missed or whatever that like, you're just like, "You know what, I have to do this." What was there a turning moment that you can really pin this on?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm also super fortunate that a mentor I have extremely close by is Clayton Rhodes, the owner of the agency. We were buddies in college. She's actually younger than me, so it's kind of weird sometimes having a younger boss. But he is one of those guys that can approach a situation with almost no emotional tie. If I come to him because I like to assess my progress, and I find myself not being happy with whatever result, I say, "Okay, let's figure out what's going on that can make that result be closer to the goal." He's a great person to go to.
--:-- Woody Brown: So multiple times a year this happens, but probably close to November of one of those years in the past. That's generally when I'm planning for the next year. I asked him out to lunch and started talking. I said, "Man, what do you think about all this stuff? I'm kind of frustrated because my growth isn't as fast as I want it to be in terms of policy count or whatever. What are some of the things?"
--:-- He just kind of pointed me back in the direction of looking inward and thinking about all the activities you're doing. Figure out which ones get you to that goal and which ones distract you from that goal. Ultimately, it's that word "distraction" that at first kind of pissed me off. I got defensive internally. I'm like, "I'm not being distracted. I'm still successful. I'm still a top agent in the agency and for our carriers." Then I started thinking about it. I took a breath, took a beat, and started thinking, "Damn it, he's right."
--:-- If you boil it down as simplistically as you can, you've got to figure out what your goals are. My goal was... I guess the ideal versus the goal. The ideal is just to be the most successful insurance agent of all time. But backing that down, I really just want to grow on a really consistent basis year over year in such a way that I'm setting myself and our family up for a really awesome future, whatever that means and whatever that entails for everyone.
--:-- Then I dissected everything that I was doing. "Hey man, do I need to go to that networking meeting anymore? Let me break that data down. What value am I getting out of that?" Not just in terms of the money-making activity, but what was the value of everything? Do I enjoy speaking? Absolutely. Can I back off of that a little bit and do that?
--:-- Really, it was just that sort of talk. It was the trigger for me to start looking inward and looking inward hard. I was bitching in a way about not being happy about my results that year. It was like, "Hey, look inward. What are the activities that you're doing? What can you do differently? What's distracting you from making it to your goal?" Nothing changes if nothing changes, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Right, man.
--:-- Woody Brown: The ultimate unfortunate side effect of all that is I don't think it's hurt the relationships that I have. For whatever reason, the core tight-knit group of the 5 AM Club or whatever, I think we're friends, brothers, sisters for life. I don't think unless they got insulted by anything I've said today, I don't think there's anything that's going to change that. Now we just don't speak as often. Sometimes I take that as awesome because I feel like they're probably busy doing it.
--:-- It's that old thing my dad used to say: "You can either tell everybody you're the best, or you can just be the best." If you're too busy talking about how you're the best, you probably might not be the best.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm completely with you on that. I echo your 5 AM Club thing. I've kind of gotten off of Twitter a little bit and certainly off of Instagram a lot because they were two places that were taking up a lot of my time that wasn't producing results for me. For me, up until Rogue launches, it was consulting and speaking gigs, mostly speaking gigs. Those came from Facebook and LinkedIn. That was it. So I had to make those choices. Once Rogue launches, that'll come down.
--:-- I think to your point, once you make a real connection with somebody, a real connection, you could not see them for five years. It doesn't matter. The next time you see them is going to be like you saw them yesterday. I feel that way very much with people in the 5 AM Club. I think we came together at a time when all of us, for whatever reason, just needed that venue. That group of 20 or 30 people, everyone seemed to need each other for all different reasons. Everyone gave to that group.
--:-- Even though different people have come and gone, and some people don't contribute as much, myself included, I saw Carrie Reynolds who I haven't really communicated with that much for no other reason than I've just been doing other things. Saw her at IOA. It was a big hug. "How you doing? What's going on?" It was great. Same thing with Crowley, same thing with whoever.
--:-- I think when people see you grinding and doing what you need to do to take care of the things you need to take care of, they respect you more for that than if you're showing up but paying a price on the backend for showing up. That defeats the purpose. So I think you're right on the button, and I'm just happy to hear that.
--:-- I want to be respectful of your time because you are an operating agent, world dominating in the fullest extent. But just to kind of hear a quick hitter session, what kind of stuff is working for you, man? For the people that are listening, what kind of stuff are you doing? What does your day-to-day look like?
--:-- Woody Brown: Yeah, grinding on it. It's going to happen for sure, man.
--:-- One of the things that has really been amazing is that weekly Facebook video show, Ask Woody Wednesday. You wouldn't believe it. It either entices people that I haven't heard from in forever to reach out, or people will share it with their audience on their page, and their friends will reach out. It's been a huge piece of it all.
--:-- I track everything, where referrals are coming from, and a large majority comes from that. It took time. That's the thing that happens in the world of insurance and stuff, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. 12 months is not enough time to build the foundation. I'm just now seeing, "Holy crap, my inbox is literally full of referrals." "Where did you find us?" "Facebook. Ask Woody Wednesday." It's just now starting to get to that point.
--:-- In addition to that new school stuff, one of my favorite things in the concept that you talked about not too long ago is the brackish water. As much as I am a proponent of video and technology because it's such an easy way to get out in front of people, I still love the old school face-to-face showing up. I've been really concentrating on developing a new relationship or having a coffee at least once a week with somebody new. Same thing with rekindling or maintaining a current relationship once a week.
--:-- That pushes me. It sounds like, "Oh, one new person a week, that's not a lot." But when you put yourself out there like that, you've got to dig deep and force yourself to meet somebody new. One per week, I have 52 new people in a year. You're going to see a lift there.
--:-- Getting back out there face to face, assessing what relationships are working, and really designing... Here's another thing I've come to the conclusion of after six years in the industry. You have to rub shoulders with people. You have to be in the same room with them. But what I figured out was I was forcing myself to be super nice to a mortgage person that was ultimately the biggest douche of all time. I was like, "Well, I can get a referral from him." Early on, you don't necessarily have the luxury to design who you're around. A couple years in, you do.
--:-- I started figuring out, "What if I approach it like this? What if I approach it in terms of my interests?" I'm not a huge after-hours guy. I'm not going to have seven or eight whiskeys and start over. I'm past that part of my life. So I don't want to focus on those kinds of activities. I started coming up with ideas of designing the interactions and the networking atmosphere based on my interests and finding people that had similar interests. Now I don't have to force a relationship. We're already connecting.
--:-- It's way better to work with or alongside people that you would consider friends. It just makes it so much easier. I'm not going to force somebody that has never seen Star Wars and doesn't like that genre to floor seats at the Atlanta Hawks. I'm not going to be like, "Hey man, I don't know if you're interested, but I got an extra ticket to IMAX for the new Star Wars movie." They don't give a shit. But if I can find somebody that does, now we're connecting on that level. We're actually quote-unquote working, but we're watching Star Wars. Or, "Hey, you like the Braves too? We're at the Braves game together."
--:-- Doing it in a way that... everybody listening is probably like, "Duh, we've been doing that forever." But for me personally, it was a big eye-opening revelation. I was forcing myself outside of my normal personality and forcing myself to work with people that... if I just pulled it down to, "Is this somebody that I would actually hang out with outside of a professional need?" And if the answer was no...
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think what you said, designing the activities for the life and the person that you are versus what people think you should do or what the common thought is, I think that's an incredibly important thought that most people get wrong. Myself included. As I've matured into business, this has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn. You read some article and you're like, "Oh, that sounds dope. I'm going to go do that." But it's not you. It's not who you are. Then you get friction and you're like, "Well, this should be working. How come this works for these three people but it doesn't work for me?" Because it's not who you are.
--:-- The fact that you've had the self-awareness, which I think is really the key to a lot of our conversation today, is that you have self-awareness. If you go back and listen to the show I did for Agency Nation when I interviewed you the first time, talking about your career as a musician, self-awareness was an incredibly important part of your career there and the moves you made, and the move coming to insurance, understanding who you wanted to be as a dad, as a husband. I think your self-awareness is a superpower for you. If you were to stack up your superpowers, it would definitely be on that list. I hear you talking and I'm like, "This dude is looking at himself at a level that most people don't go to." It is a huge part of your success and an incredible lesson for anyone listening.
--:-- Woody Brown: I appreciate it, man. In all the different things that I've done, I've always hit my stride when I am maxing out the "This is myself, Woody." When you start music, the first songs you write... back in the day, I was a huge Oasis fan. I sounded like Liam Gallagher. My songs sounded like that. They were good, but they weren't me. Same with the band. The songs I wrote sounded like stuff I was influenced by, but the best songs I ever wrote or the best I ever sang was when I was being myself.
--:-- We're all kind of guarded in some way. We want people to feel like we're professional. Coming into the industry, in my head, I wanted to be myself, but in a way, you kind of mimic those that you're around. It really hasn't been until I'm just fully who I am that I feel like I've started to hit my stride.
--:-- Thinking about all of the friends that we have, I wish I could list them all right now. If they're listening, they know exactly who they are. Every single one of those people, as they become more and more themselves in the industry, I feel like if I rewind it all the way back to that first Agency Nation thing, that was the turning point for me. For a lot of those folks, we slowly but surely started understanding that we as individuals are our superpower.
--:-- We're in this industry just like everybody else in any industry where it's flooded with people. If we all act the same, there's nothing that sets us apart. We have this magical thing as individual humans. We're all different in a lot of ways. If we're okay with that and you're confident enough being yourself, you can absolutely use it as your ultimate superpower.
--:-- That's what I've done with things like video and all this. I want people to see who I am because I'm proud of that. Am I going to make everybody happy? Is everyone going to love me? No. But I'm also not a butthole, so a lot of people will like me.
--:-- Sometimes the feedback or the questions I get from folks that aren't necessarily as lucky as I am in terms of the agency they work for, they say, "In one of those videos, you have a crazy Braves starter jacket on. Who's your target audience?" When I tell them my target audience is luxury and high net worth people, their immediate thought is, "Well, how are they going to take you seriously if you're in a Braves thing?" They're like, "Are you supposed to wear a tuxedo when you do these videos?"
--:-- The bottom line is, it's myself. They're going to connect with me on some level whenever they're watching that video, or they're not. If they're not because of that video or maybe they don't have a Facebook account, that's not the only outlet I'm going after. I think of the career and business like the game of Risk. I am posting up in Australia. If you're listening, by the way, this is what you should do. Post up in Australia. If you don't know about Risk, you're super confused right now, but it's okay. I'm putting all my little soldiers in one spot, and at the same time, I'm putting them all over the map so that ultimately I can conquer that whole globe. You have to attack in different directions. It's not just Facebook video. It's not just YouTube videos. It's doing a lot of things.
--:-- Going back to the first question, that's what's taking the time. Doing all that takes energy, time, and yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Dude, it has been such a pleasure. I just love when we get a chance to talk. I'm so happy for you. Watching from afar, I could tell things were going well. I could tell you were starting to find your stride. "Proud" is the wrong word because it sounds like I'm more than I am, but watching from afar, I was happy for you. It seems like you're in a really good place. You're cooking. I know how competitive you are. I know the quality work you do. It's just been great. We haven't talked in a while, but this is freaking tremendous. I'm so glad we had a chance to connect and talk through some of this stuff.
--:-- I'm sure now either no one's going to reach out to you because they think you're super standoffish, rich, and cold, or they're going to be like, "No, no, man, come speak at my thing."
--:-- Woody Brown: No, man, reach out to me. I just know that if I don't reach out first, it's because I'm really trying to stay on task here. But reach out to me. Old friends, new friends, people that have any questions. I'm always willing to help. If you have a question about what gear I use and all that, I'm happy to help in any way. Hopefully, if they didn't get bored by my voice this far, they know that I'm happy for everybody's success. Like I said before, our success is our success together. Rising tides raise a ship, or whatever the saying is.
--:-- Two things. One, thank you for inviting me to be on this podcast. And two, thank you for all that you contribute to the industry. You have been and are a huge inspiration to me. You've always been kind of a mentor from afar. I really appreciate it. I've been lucky enough to have a burger and a beer with you, and it means a lot. I'm excited for you too. Also, what a rad name. As soon as I saw Rogue, I was like, "That son of a gun. That's a badass name." I couldn't believe New York State approved it. I was so pumped.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. I do this only because partially I have a problem and partially just because spending time with peeps like you is what I love. It's my favorite thing. It's just been great. Hey bro, let's get out of here. I want to get you your time back. There are people that need to be sold insurance by Woody Brown. So let's get out of here. Thanks for everyone listening at home. I love you for listening. Much love, man. Talk to you soon, dude.
--:-- Woody Brown: Thank you. Thank you.
--:-- [Advertisement]
Narrator: Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the One Call Close System, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the One Call Close System eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masterofthecloses.com. That's masterofthecloses.com. Do it today.
