--:-- Ryan Hanley: [Opening] In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home... Hello everyone and welcome to the show. It is December 21st, 7:45 AM. December 21st.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: While most of the episodes released for this show are long tail episodes — like the last episode I did with Pep Le Ja, where we talked about branding and brand strategy and the importance of creating discerning emotions in your potential clients to attract them to your brand, and why moving forward, our brand is becoming more and more valuable, if not as valuable as the service we actually provide — I know for some of you, that may seem like a foreign concept. But if you go back and listen to that episode, you'll get a better feel.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That episode is a long tail episode, meaning you can listen to it a year from now or two years from now and it will be just as relevant as it was today, for the most part. Many of the tactics and strategies will apply. That's not what we're going to do today.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Today, I want to take this moment in time and talk a little bit about recapping 2020, but moving into 2021 and where I'm going with Rogue Risk. I share these things with you guys because from feedback, I know a lot of you have similar questions and concerns. I know we all, as agency owners and insurance professionals, struggle with a lot of the same concepts, the same things we all deal with every day.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm sharing where I am right now at this moment and what 2021 is going to look like for Rogue Risk to help give you context. Maybe you can find some things you can use in your own agency, ideas you hadn't thought about, or resources you hadn't considered. I think that's why I like to put these episodes out there — to let you know you're not alone. It also helps me frame my own thoughts, so maybe it is self-serving to a certain extent.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I have a few things I want to go through, but basically the point of this episode is to share with you what I want Rogue Risk 2021 to look like that is different from Rogue Risk 2020.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You've probably realized that recently I haven't published as many episodes of this show. That has been tactical. I've been doing a lot of planning, brainstorming, workshopping, whiteboarding — whatever you want to call it — to really refocus what I want this agency to be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: COVID and everything has impacted people so much. Obviously, starting my agency seven days before the zombie apocalypse — we officially launched March 9th of 2020. On March 16th of 2020, the state of New York was shut down, along with many other places. I know all of us are hit, and I'm not unique in that way, but it definitely threw my strategy of going after commercial lines business, particularly focused on workers' comp, right on its head.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think I may have overreacted in many ways. I actually have an episode of the show, if you go back a few, where I talked about some of the mistakes I made — chasing technology, losing focus on what I wanted the core of Rogue to be. I think I moved into personal lines a little too quickly. Not that personal lines isn't important to the company — it certainly is — but Rogue was built to be a commercial focused agency. When COVID hit, I stepped away from that because a lot of businesses were flipped on their head. No one had any idea what was going on, and cold calling into businesses during the hardcore teeth of COVID didn't seem like an appropriate maneuver or a good way to introduce myself to potential clients.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So I positioned and transitioned, pivoted — whatever you want to call it — to personal lines. That was good, except one of the things about Rogue Risk that's interesting, and you've probably heard me say this before, but it's worth noting again: I drastically underestimated the double scratch nature of my startup.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: When most people start scratch, the first thing they do is call their friends and family, the people they went to high school with, college with, played golf with. They get them to do their insurance with them. It's a nice jump-off point — it gives you a solid base, people you know, people who will put up with some of the hiccups of being in a new scratch agency. Then you grow from there with referrals and referral partners.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Well, my wife and the Murray Group write all of my friends and family. They write all my golf buddies, all my buddies from college, all my buddies from high school. For 14 years of my insurance career, I would just refer everyone to the Murray Group. Even when I wasn't working there, I'd just say, "Call my wife. She's the best." And my wife is the best. So it made sense. But when I went to start Rogue, I drastically underestimated the impact of that. Every client I have, except for a few exceptions, is someone I didn't know before March 9th.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Part of that makes me proud that I've done what we've been able to do, all things considered. But there's this other side of me that thinks that has been a challenge. Starting double scratch, then having COVID hit, pivoting into personal lines too early — I really didn't have anyone to write in personal lines. So much of personal lines either comes from COIs, which I hadn't had time to develop yet, or people you know, which are already with the Murray Group.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I made this pivot into personal lines only to find that there was nothing there. It was like a barren sea. While I've scratched and scraped and dug up and bought leads and different stuff as a way to get in front of people, personal lines has been a struggle. Ultimately, it's always been commercial lines that I'm most interested in and where I see the most value for what I'm trying to build with Rogue.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So, the first big realignment for Rogue Risk in 2021 is the complete refocusing and targeting on commercial lines. Narrowing that down further, it's extending the expertise and knowledge I have in comp, the market access I have in comp, the tools and resources I've built to support businesses and their workers' compensation insurance, and deploying the program I call Rogue Risk 365 into the marketplace with a dynamic and aggressive campaign.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Not just a marketing campaign — being incredibly strategic and focused on putting Rogue Risk 365 in front of the people we can help, which are high mod businesses where I think the most opportunity lies for us. And training an army of producers to deliver Rogue Risk 365 to the marketplace, supporting them with the backend resources, the tools, and the market access I've been able to develop to help businesses with high mods get those mods down and be safer, healthier, more productive, efficient organizations.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That allows us to differentiate ourselves in the market, be a successful business, and do what I feel is really important and powerful work for small businesses in what is one of the more trying times — certainly the most trying time for small business in my lifetime.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So what does that mean? That means saying no to stuff. I am incredibly poor at saying no to things. I say yes to just about everything. My philosophy has always been: say yes to as many things as you can and let serendipity run its course. That has worked out well for me in some ways, but as the leader of a business, I don't know that continues to be the best methodology.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: As a thought leader, as a speaker, as a content creator, I think you say yes to everything. "Oh, you want me to do a 15-minute pick-my-brain call? Yes." "Oh, you want me to do this event down in Florida for $1,000 less than my fee because you seem like a nice person? Well, we can figure something out. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Thought leader, content creator, connector — those roles saying yes to everything creates a karmic advantage in the universe that you could never completely attach an ROI to. But I can tell you from firsthand experience, it presents itself in ways you would have never thought possible, very positive ways. Do you find yourself doing things you don't ultimately want to do sometimes? Yes. But do you also find yourself in situations and in rooms you would have never found yourself in otherwise? Absolutely.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm very proud that's been my methodology. It's served me incredibly well. Many of you listening are connections — more than connections, you're friends, even though we probably don't see each other very often. Connections online, people I've shared time with and thoughts with because I say yes to everything.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: As the leader of Rogue Risk, an insurance agency with incredibly large ambitions for the next three to five years, I don't know that that methodology remains the best course of action. My willingness to go wide has prevented me from going deep. Early on in any business's life, deep is the quickest way to success. You have to be deep and wide long term, but it's incredibly difficult to do both unless you are highly leveraged or capitalized. I am neither. So I have to pick deep or wide.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Truthfully, you have to get to escape velocity. You have to get to that point as a scratch agency. Some of you listening have done this, but this is my self-reflection. You have to get to that point where you aren't scrambling every day for the next buck to pay the bills, because it doesn't allow you to execute on your plan the way you should.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We're efforting towards that. All things considered, I'm happy with where we are. I've written more accounts in the last seven months of a size I never even considered at the Murray Group after working there for eight years. My overall confidence, my ability to present and deliver and sell into larger accounts, my ability to connect with people who are willing to refer larger accounts is exponentially greater today than it was back when I worked for the Murray Group. That's an advantage.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But I have to get to escape velocity because in the grand scheme of things, I'm not a David Carruthers. I'm not a cold-blooded killer producer. I have the self-awareness to know that of all the skills I do have, waking up in the morning and salivating at the opportunity to cold call someone or get some wet ink on another piece of paper — that's not what wakes me up in the morning.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Obviously, nothing happens until there's a sale. You have to be able to put business on the books or you don't have a business. I'm not diminishing that fact. But there are people who wake up every day and they are salespeople. That's not me, per se. I'm fine with that realization. With this self-awareness to know I'm never going to be a cold-blooded killer like some of you listening from a pure sales perspective, it gives me the ability to focus on the things I am good at and then go out and recruit and find the cold-blooded killers who will come in and work this process that I know works.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Let me do the things I'm good at: branding, relationship building, strategy, process, systems. Those are the things that really excite me. Even going back to my Agency Nation days, the reason Agency Nation worked for me, the reason I used to wake up at 5 AM to create content for Agency Nation, was because I loved putting you guys into positions to win. I don't know if that's a positive or a negative in my life. It certainly isn't helping me monetarily at this exact moment. But I get so much more joy and satisfaction in life helping others be successful than I do in my own success, if that makes sense.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's a really tough thing to wrap my head around. It's taken me a long time because I'm like anybody else. I look at other people in our space and I get jealous of what they have and envious of the positions they find themselves in. That's not to say I'm not happy for people or that I'm upset with where I am. But I think to myself, "Geez, if only I had solely focused on this thing for this amount of time, I could be in a much better position."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's difficult to be a 39-year-old guy. I don't mean to be offensive towards women, but dudes tend to have egos. I can't help that I have my own. To not be able to peel off cash for my wife on a monthly basis is difficult. That's a difficult thing emotionally. I see the light at the end of the tunnel — it's not always going to be that way — but day to day, that doesn't feel good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I often say to myself, "Why am I not in this position? Look at this person. Geez, if only my parents had handed me that opportunity, look at what I would be able to do with that." But that's not my reality. And personal achievement has never been my primary motivating factor. It's probably why I'm not an incredible salesperson, a cold-blooded killer type. I love watching my clients be successful. I love when I can hand somebody a connection or a new product or a process that helps them be successful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That realization is really what is going to drive my actions in 2021. This is a long-winded way of saying I need to sell as much as I can until I don't have to sell anymore and I can put other people in a position to sell Rogue Risk 365. Not because I think sales is below me, but because sales takes energy away from me. There are plenty of people who get energy from sales, and I want to put them in a position to be successful because what gives me energy is building the systems, process, products, and messaging around people so they can be successful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If I can wake up in the morning and know there's someone on my team, we've put a new process in place that helps them be 5x more efficient or productive or just feel more satisfaction in their own job, give them a little more responsibility — those are the things that add energy to me as a human. As a byproduct of that, coming out of Agency Nation, we were on a wonderful trajectory because while that thought process tends to have lagging results, when the results come, they tend to have a logarithmic impact on the business versus the traditional, more self-oriented growth structure, which tends to have more linear growth.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So this is a long-winded way of saying that Rogue Risk in 2021 is going to be about building out my team with a dogged focus on Rogue Risk 365, the branding around that program, the channels in which we drive business into that program, the type of accounts we target, and saying no to business that doesn't fit those targets.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: One of the things I'm struggling with today is, early on, I wrote everything that came in. But I'm not an expert in all these different lines of business. I'm not an expert in some of these issues. Having to take an hour out of my day to figure out why something is happening on this account or how something works takes me away from the selling piece. It comes back to not being focused. If it were all similar products, similar veins, I would be able to more quickly pick up the nuances of the product, the coverages, how everything works, and push forward. But right now, every fire is a brand new fire that I don't know how to put out and I have to learn.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's not what I want the agency to be because it doesn't allow me to deliver on the value proposition. If Rogue Risk is a human-optimized agency, the goal of optimizing your humans is to deliver more value. If I'm constantly trying to put out fires because I don't know how to do things because I'm doing too many different things inside the agency, then you're not able to deliver on that promise. It kills me that we are not at the product delivery level that I would like us to be at.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So what are we actually doing? We're focused in on Rogue Risk 365. A big part of that is defining goals. Brent Kelly has written a couple of wonderful articles recently. One was called "The Seven P's of Agency Success," and the other had to do with "Bridging the Performance Gap." Both are on LinkedIn. If you go to Brent Kelly's LinkedIn and look at his articles, or scroll through his recent posts, you'll see one was posted on November 29th and the other was published on December 20th of this year. Both are wonderful. I've printed them both out and read through them and taken notes.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In there, Brent outlines — especially in "Bridging the Performance Gap" — because that's what's happening at Rogue. I have a very clear vision of how I want to deliver this product and we're not delivering it, certainly not as well or as consistently as I would like. How do we get there?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The first thing Brent wrote in "Bridging the Performance Gap" was: have meaningful and achievable goals. He said, "Don't be a wanderer," basically. I'm paraphrasing Brent. If you don't know Brent — one, have you been living under a rock? And two, Brent works with Roger Sickins at Sickins and is just an incredible thought leader when it comes to agency success and leadership success. I highly recommend you follow him on LinkedIn if you are not and get in his ecosystem.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I am a wanderer. I've always struggled with goals because I was like, "We're going to do as much as we possibly can. What is the point of a goal if all we're going to do is work as hard as we can and what happens, happens?" But I know that is the wrong way to think because it gives you easy excuses. It gives you outs. You can pull the ripcord and say, "Today I just don't feel like working. I'm a little tired." But when you have a goal that you have to hit, that is important to your business, and you're holding yourself accountable to that goal, then you do the things necessary to reach that goal, even if they're uncomfortable, even if you're tired, even if it's not something you want to do in that moment. You push through.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I am a wanderer. What I realized, trying to be incredibly self-aware, is that because of my predisposition to creating content, instead of doing some things that are uncomfortable for me but important, I would write a blog post or do a video. Now, I do not take this as that I don't believe in video marketing or content creation because I do. We're averaging right now three to four inbound leads off of YouTube a day. Take that in for a second. We've been in business since March 9th and we're just dominating YouTube already because you guys aren't. Take that as a slap across the face. I've been telling you guys to do YouTube videos for 12 years, 15 years, however long I've been doing this. Most of you have not done that. In nine or ten months, whatever it's been, I probably outpaced all of you. You should be ashamed of that if creating content and educating people is important to you, because this isn't rocket science. I am not a rocket scientist. I basically cheated my way through college because I had smart friends. Nothing that I do is something you can't do. There we go. That's my hardcore moment for you, at least for the minute.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So putting some goals in place. What are those goals going to be? I'm taking this time, these next two weeks between the Christmas holidays and New Year's, cleaning up a lot of stuff in the business and ultimately doing some more planning.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Gordon Coyle, who runs a great agency, he and I have been talking and working through things. We work in kind of similar ways, go after similar accounts, different markets. We've been talking a little bit. We actually took Benjamin Dennehy's Telephone Prospecting course together. I don't know if you've heard of Benjamin. He's an awesome sales guy — the UK's Most Hated Sales Trainer. He was on Cass's podcast. He's awesome. Kind of pissed me off that Cass got to interview him before I did. But we took that class together and I saw him in there. It was a Monday afternoon and there he was too.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We've been talking about that class and stuff. I let him know what my goal was. I could tell by his reaction that he was not impressed with my goal. I mean that in the most positive sense. Gordon's a great guy. He basically said, "That should not be your goal. Your goal should be this." It was about five times bigger than what I had set. I will let you guys know what my goal is once I set it. But I just wanted to share that moving into January 1st of 2021, I will have a clear goal. I will absolutely have a goal for this agency, for both my personal production and for the agency's production.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Obviously, the next point that Brent shares in his article, which is the next logical step, is I will have a process — a clear and consistent process that gets us to what that needs to be. Because I know what it is. When I worked the process, the process has worked. That is the crazy part. Why are we so nuts? Carruthers taught me this process for the most part. Killing Commercial — I haven't done a formal video testimonial for Carruthers yet. I will. I've kind of been holding off because I saw Cass had done one and Bradley had done one and some of the other men and women in the group have done video testimonials, and then the Protege came out. I've been keeping my powder dry because I wanted to have some really meaty examples to talk you through, and I have a few of those now.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I know the process. When I use the process, the process works. I've just never written it out and then put clear markers next to each segment of the process to say, "Do this 20 times a day, do this five times a day, do this," and then just executed it every day. I chase stupid things. Or I'm feeling a little tired, so I drop into what's easy — like creating a YouTube video — instead of doing the work I need to do, which is often cold email, cold calls, postcards, COIs, LinkedIn requests, working COIs and that kind of stuff.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm happy to in the future, maybe around the end of the first quarter, when I can set some metrics to the activities I'm doing, share exactly what the process is. I'm happy to do that. But I'm still in the process of outlining it. It's all up in my brain. That's always been the issue for me. One of the big takeaways I hope from this episode is: it doesn't exist if it's just in your brain. I've actually talked to Brent about this before and I've heard him say, "It's not a process if it's up in your brain. It has to be down on paper. It has to be on a Google Doc. It has to be on something you could hand to someone else and say, 'Here. You come in, you do these things, and you can get results.'"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: For so long, everything I've done, I've never slowed down. I'm always moving so fast that I don't slow down to document the process — documenting my YouTube content campaign strategy, documenting my blog post strategy, documenting how all these different brand strategies work, documenting my service strategy. I never slow down long enough to do those things. When I look at some of the most successful agencies and the agencies that I envy, they've done that work. They've slowed down to do that. I don't, and I'm going to fix that because that is a huge gap. If Rogue is going to become the agency I believe it can be, we're going to need documented process.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The next hires to this agency — it's highly unlikely they're going to be in the Albany area. There's a certain part of me that would love to have some teammates here locally just for a little human interaction once in a while, and I do love office culture. But that's most likely not going to be the case. If I'm going to hire the best in the business who believe in the Rogue methodology and believe in what we're trying to do, they don't necessarily have to live here. It's not a necessity. So I have to have that documented.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The last piece that Brent had was accountability — holding yourself accountable to these things, tracking. I have a couple of people I talk to on a consistent basis that are accountability coaches to a certain extent. But the truth is, as much as an accountability coach is amazing, you have to actually track what you're doing and be consistent with it. At a macro level, there are certain things I'm very consistent with, but on a micro level, I'm not. I'll time block something and then plow through the time block or make an excuse why I'm not making my cold calls during my blocked cold calling hour because there's some fire I have to put out that ultimately could be done after the cold calling hour is over.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Things like that really bug me about myself and bug me about what I've done in 2020. Just a general lack of consistency, a lack of a clear goal, a lack of accountability. I chased a lot of different products. For the most part, the technology piece is just terrible. The technology in our industry is really, really difficult. Nothing does everything you want it to do. Nothing does even 50% of what you want it to do. That's bothersome. I still struggle with it every day. The tools I use right now, I like for what I want to do, but then you're mashing things in and patching, and you spend half your time patching things versus just being able to do what you want to do for your agency. It takes a lot of willpower to not focus on fixing technology problems that don't help me sell today.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I know many of you are probably listening to that and agreeing. But because I want to fix the strategy first, I don't do the work. That's a problem.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I hope some of this was useful to you. I wanted to share this with you because to me, 2021 is an enormous opportunity. COVID is still going to be around. Yes, COVID is still going to be around for sure. COVID is going to be here. Trust me, our leadership is going to milk COVID for everything they can get. They're never going to let the liberties they've taken away go. Trump, Biden — it doesn't really matter. I have my views on where I would have liked to have seen us go. But I think the politics part of it, I'm just glad it's not in our face every day. I'm glad the mainstream media on both sides doesn't really have anything to report about, so they're not as obnoxious as they were. That part I'm very happy about. The economy? Who the heck knows?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I mean, it makes me a little nervous that the economy has not reset yet, or at least a little bit in terms of the stock market, because right now, small business and Main Street is so disconnected from what's happening in the market. That feels very odd. I'm not an economist, so I don't understand all the dynamics there. But just from a purely visual standpoint, to see what's going on.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I drove through this kind of industrial office park the other day that is normally filled with businesses. There were like 17 for rent signs or something like that. It was astounding. I was driving, it was a cut through from when I went and got a cup of coffee on my way to my wife's office. I just cut through this side street, and I couldn't believe how many signs there were for rent. I'm sure some of it is people going remote, but when business is booming, people aren't putting their buildings up for rent. People aren't vacating their office space. So that makes me feel a little nervous.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But I think in general, 2021 presents an enormous opportunity for the people who are willing to focus and do the work. As much as I'm not unhappy with my performance in 2020, I feel like I underperformed. That will not be the case in 2021. How we get there is focusing on product, focusing on process, bringing people in who are hungry, who believe in what we're trying to do, who want to have a long-term future in a brand and a methodology that I think is both highly lucrative while also being tremendously valuable to our clients beyond just the traditional product offerings and jargon that gets thrown at people.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If those things fall into place, at least for Rogue Risk, it will be a tremendously successful year. For you, wherever you find yourself, focus is the key. The internet is only going to get noisier. That's why I wanted to have Peplage on last week. If you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend you go back and do so. It is going to become more and more difficult to stand out unless you are really, really good and concise and consistent in what you do and who you do it for.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We could go so deep on that. Scroll all the way back to the early episodes when I had Anne Hanley on, Marcus Sheridan on, and Tamsyn Webster on this feed. Scroll back into those early episodes and listen to them again, even if you did. They're from basically September, October of 2019. They outline what it means to stand out in your messaging and your tone. That is going to become so incredibly important. Even if you're referral-based, why should someone refer you? Even if you just work with COIs, why should that COI choose you over every other agency that's going to be calling on them? Because everybody knows homeowner COIs is the most profitable personal lines business that you can get on a consistent basis. You can buy leads. That's great. That's really tough business. You can go out and do snail mail. That's really tough business. Referrals are great, but they can be inconsistent unless you have a clear strategy.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The COI game is only going to become more competitive. You're going to have to find new partners. You're going to have to work harder to get those partners. If you don't have a clear brand, strategy, and messaging, it's going to be incredibly difficult to stand out.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Additionally, I do think that technology is going to continue to space people out. I can tell you today that there was no impact by COVID on our business. There was never a day when I was like, "Oh man, COVID is keeping us from operating." That never happened. We had zero downtime. If your agency is still stuck in a world where something like COVID or remote work is keeping you from being optimal, you need to make that change or you are getting outpaced by your competition.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I do think those types of tools — tools like Donna for Agents, the Arius Analytics tool that is starting to come out. You've seen Paradiso talk about it a little bit. I've spent some time with those guys. I first met them at a mastermind that Paradiso put on with Tom Larson, and have gotten to know them a little more. We haven't yet implemented it into Rogue, but that will happen in 2021. I've spent significant time with them because I do think that this tool, what they're doing from a third-party data integration standpoint into your agency and their centimeter score tool, these are the kind of things that are going to take you — even if you have tremendous retention, even if you're looking at a 90 to 91% retention — these are the tools that are going to get you up into that 92, 93, 94% retention range.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: We're talking about the ability to add points of retention to your business, which is just as good as sales. It's actually better than sales because this is low cost stuff. This is someone had a bad interaction and you as the business owner didn't really know, and you would never know. If you're on TAM or one of these tools that doesn't give you any insight into your business, something like Donna comes in and says, "Just so you know, this guy over here that's got six policies with you, his last four emails — the tone and the words that he's using — man, he is not happy. He is highly likely not to renew his policies." Now you as an agency owner, as a leader, or as a producer can dip in and give that guy a call and say, "Hey man, what's going on? It seems like there's some friction here. What's happening? How can we solve this problem?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That kind of tool is going to separate businesses. They're going to separate agencies from others. I look at tools like Donna. I look at tools like Tarmica. Obviously, Neon is coming along every single day. I look at the usage of VAs and Agency VA. While I've been sitting here, I've slacked a couple. I'm talking to you guys. There's a part of my brain that's slacking. I'm slacking with my VA because he asked me a question about a COI. I'm able to produce this podcast for you because I have a VA who's already logged in, who's already operating, who's already producing results for my clients. When I was doing COIs myself, it took me time. I had five other things going on. I might not get to it until the afternoon the next day. He's getting them out within an hour.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: These are the type of tools and methodology and process that is not traditional, but is absolutely going to start separating agencies. In 2021, the keys here are: set big goals, set process and procedure that gets you there, focus in on the things that are going to help you hit those goals and say no to everything else, and find the tools. This is number four, not number one. Find the tools that backfill into allowing you to do that work. That's how 2021 becomes the best year ever.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's what I'm doing here. I know that it won't be perfect, but if I'm sitting here next year and I have a full-time agency administrative and operations person and say three producers killing the game spread throughout the Northeast or wherever, that's where we want to be. I think it's very likely. I believe that it's possible and I believe in the process. Being clear and concise and consistent will get it done.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: All right, guys, I've probably beat this up a little too much. Hopefully you'll connect with the tools that I talked about, connect with Brent, Kelly. Finishing out the year, I want to give just a couple shout outs to some people. If I don't mention your name, please don't take it personally because I'm just coming off the cuff here.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Huge shout out to Jason Cass. I know most of you know that he's one of my best buddies in the industry. We've been friends for a very long time. His support of me and taking my phone calls when I have crazy ideas and telling me — most of the time telling me that idea is nuts and I should just not do it. Even though I don't listen to him half the time, I wouldn't be here without him.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: David Carruthers has been a mentor for me. I didn't even know David a year ago. I met him for the first time in January in San Diego at IAOA Innovation. I talk to him almost every single day. We Slack — or not Slack, Facebook Messenger — every day. He's been a tremendous mentor to me and Killing Commercial has been a wonderful community. I wanted to thank him.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to thank Chris Paradiso, who has been a friend for a very long time and has been instrumental in helping me make Rogue a success at all. His support — he supports the industry in so many ways. I just feel blessed to be able to call him on the phone when I have questions and have him pick up the phone and answer. He runs an agency that we all could be envious of in terms of the quality work that he does and his commitment and consistency.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to give a shout out to Matt Namoli, who's been a tremendous help for me. Matt is the antithesis of me in so much as he is the kind of person who really thinks about a decision and weighs the decision. I am the type of person who just leaps at things. To be able to text Matt and just say, "Hey man, I'm thinking about doing this," and have him say, "Maybe you should sleep on it," has allowed me to realign my thinking on different topics. His support for Rogue and his willingness to pick up the phone when I call, even though half the time we don't even end up talking about insurance stuff, it's just nice to have someone in the industry who's willing to help you pump the brakes on crazy ideas.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: There's so many others. I just want to maybe end with my wife, who I probably do not give enough praise to. She has to put up with me. Right now I'm in a startup business, so I'm not making any income for the family, which is a hard thing. Thankfully, she is gainfully employed and has been very willing to take on some of that burden in exchange for her belief in what I think this agency could be someday in a not too distant future. She's a partner that I don't deserve, but certainly the perfect person to keep me out of trouble considering all the craziness that goes on between my ears.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: 2020 was an emotional roller coaster for everyone. Certainly not me, but certainly me included. She has been an absolute bedrock for me and a grounding force. Otherwise, I probably would have flown off the handle a long time ago. Rogue would not be possible without her and her support. I know it's not easy on her. I know that there are definitely days when she wakes up and wishes that I wasn't at 4:30 in the morning in the basement and then back in the basement once the kids go to bed, working on the agency. My office is in the basement. That's why. Nothing weird, just working on the business. Well, I guess that is weird.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's not easy for her. My mind is always on the business, so sometimes I'm not always as present as I should be. I know that's not easy either. She deserves so much. Whatever ends up happening with Rogue, indirectly, she will be an enormous part of that for so many reasons. I don't praise her publicly as much as I should, although I do try to give her some shout outs on the gram every once in a while. I'm blessed to have such a smart and beautiful wife and someone who's willing to put up with my nonsense. I wanted to give her a shout out as well.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: To everyone else who's taken phone calls, who talks, who's been willing to work with me over this last year, please know that even if I didn't mention you, it's just so much appreciation and love. I wish you guys a Merry Christmas. I wish you happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, whatever you're celebrating. I wish you nothing but the best. I wish peace, happiness, all that kind of stuff.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I hope that you're able to connect with your family. I don't know that I philosophically believe in the fact that we are legally not allowed to group in more than 10, at least in the state of New York, because I find that to be fascist. But whatever's safe for you, I hope you're able to connect with your family. As much as virtual is nice, nothing beats breathing the same air as people that you love and care about and sharing a laugh in person. There's just something special about that. The fact that we are growing comfortable or more comfortable with being separated makes me very nervous because I hate it as much as I believe that it's an inevitable part of our future.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That being said, as always, if there's anything I can do for you, if there's anything that I can help you with, I'm always here. Thank you so much for listening to this show. This was way longer than I expected it to be. I love you guys for listening to this show. I know that I can be inconsistent with its production. That's going to change in 2021. Big, big announcement coming in 2021. We're going to get more consistent, a little more professional, a little more polished in 2021 with the show. The format will still be the same — me talking shit and cursing and having people on and talking to people and stuff — but ultimately, hopefully a little more consistent, polished, pro. That announcement will come.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm super happy. I just thank you guys. Thank you for everything. I wish you nothing but the best. I'm out of here. Peace!
--:-- Ryan Hanley: [singing along] Yeah! Take it! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Take it! Yeah! Take it! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Ah!
--:-- Ryan Hanley: [in character voice] You go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass. Do you want to have a few drinks and smoke a joint, Bubbles? Yes. Take it.
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