--:-- Ryan Hanley: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home... Hello everyone, and welcome back to the show, and happy 2022 to you. Hope you're already crushing it. This is the first episode of the new year and 2020 blue. 2021 was an odd year, I think, for all of us. We could say it's an emotional roller coaster of sorts. I'm sure some of you agree, disagree, but I know it certainly was for me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Absolutely love who we're kicking off 2022 with, and it's Josh Gurley. Now, Josh Gurley came to fame with an epic interview that he did on David Carruthers' podcast, Power Producers' podcast. Just listening to Josh talk about the business and how he approached it, I think people just responded to it. It was amazing. I got to know Josh after that interview and being part of the Killing Commercial community. Then we've just talked and gotten to know each other better and better. It was finally time to have Josh on the show. I told him, I said, "Man, you got an open interview. You just tell me when you want to come." And he wasn't sure. And finally, we got him on the show. And this is just a tremendous conversation. I think it is absolutely the right way to kick off 2022. And Josh is an epic dude. So partner at HM Advisors. You're going to love this one. You're going to absolutely love this one.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Before we get there, I want to give a shout out to the people that make this podcast possible. My friends over at Pathpoint. Pathpoint is changing the game, changing the game for ENS, making it easy to quote, bind, issue. Excess and surplus lines, coverage. Pathpoint's a big part of our strategy at Rogue with the diverse nature of risks that come in, being able to quote, bind, and issue ENS business in a way that makes sense, in a way that allows you to get back to your customers faster. It's changing the nature of small business insurance, and we're very proud to represent Pathpoint. Go to Pathpoint. Just Google Pathpoint. Go to Pathpoint right now. Sign up. Get appointed. Check it out. I'm telling you, you will not be disappointed. Pathpoint is a game changer when it comes to ENS business.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I also want to give a big shout out to Propeller Bonds, another company changing the game for us. Propeller Bonds makes the surety bond business a part of your day-to-day strategy. What I mean by that is, if you're not set up for bonding or you're not a bonding expert, surety can be a time-consuming item. It's something that maybe you don't offer because a lot of the premiums on bonds just aren't super big and it feels like a waste of time. Well, Propeller completely flips that on its head. Now, even a $100 municipal bond that you might make $10 commission on or $20 commission on becomes simple because you just send your customers a link and you say, "Hey, you need that municipal bond? No problem. We got you. I'm going to send you a link. You just fill out that form. You're going to get your bond in five, ten minutes." It's crazy easy and it allows you to become, it allows you to say to the market, "We are a bonding solution for you." So highly recommend Propeller Bonds. Go to propellerbonds.com. Sign up, guys.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Again, these tools, these digital platform players, these digital partners are the game changers. They create the efficiency for us. You're always going to have your standard markets and your go-to markets, and all that is great. But to become the true value provider that I think the independent insurance industry claims to be and is, bringing in digital players like this, digital tools like Propeller Bonds and Pathpoint just allow you to execute that in a more efficient and effective way. And that's what we're about here at Rogue Risk is providing max value in the most efficient and effective way possible. And we're proud to have Pathpoint and Propeller Bonds as sponsors moving into the new year 2022. All right, my friends, you're gonna love this episode. Let's get to Josh Gurley.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yo, dude, what's up man?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Oh, not too much, man. Just getting ready for some family photos.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Nice, that's exciting.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Yeah, yeah. So right after we're done, I'm gonna shoot down to this farm I think somewhere and get our Christmas picks made.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You guys doing like a theme or anything?
--:-- Josh Gurley: I don't know, man. You know, my wife used to be a photographer before we had kids, so she's probably got it all figured out.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Gotcha. But you're not wearing like, you're not all wearing like ugly sweaters?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Oh, no, no, no, no. No putting like suspenders on because you're gonna be at a farm or something. No, the closest I'm getting is this shirt. I mean, it looks kind of pink on the screen, but it's really red, so I'm getting a little bit festive for the season. But you know, the kids are gonna have their finest stuff on.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Very cool. So what's up dude? What's going down?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Not too much, man. I'm actually working on a book that I'm reading. It was recommended by Chris Paradiso, *Living Your Best Year Ever* by Darren Hardy. You heard that book?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I have.
--:-- Josh Gurley: So right now I'm doing my year in review worksheet and I'm on the top 10 happenings from last year. So I've written six down. It said that you need to take as much time as you need to write them down. So I'm going to think about it over the next little bit and get them all written down.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Any of those that you're willing to share?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Yes. Are we officially recording now?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Always. Always.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Yeah. So I'll just go straight down the list. So number one is we completed our house. We wanted to build our kind of dream house. So we started on it last year and we finished it up in March of 2021. I don't think that I will ever build another house, but it was really awesome to be able to move in. And you know, the kids love it. One of my very best friends is actually our next door neighbor. So he's got kids that are the same age as our kids. And so it's just been awesome. We bought the lot probably three or four years ago and just spent a lot of time trying to prepare and make sure we had everything right. So we moved in, man. It's beautiful. It's awesome.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's a good one. What else?
--:-- Josh Gurley: So next one is I surpassed my sales goal. I set a revenue goal for myself, new business, and I surpassed that goal. Did a really good job on my renewals. I had a couple clients that sold out to some private equity funds this year, but it didn't hurt me too bad and everything's really looking good renewals for the end of the year. So that was a huge one for me. It's always at the top of my list. So, surpassed my sales goal.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The next one is I traveled with my wife. We got going on a few trips together. We went down to Tampa for Innovation. We went to Key West. We got a trip planned to Vegas in February. I think we're going to Miami in May, and then we are going back to Key West in June. So I've got some stuff planned with her, got some trips planned with the kids, all that kind of stuff. So that's fun.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that. It's super fun.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The next one is my son James. He started kindergarten this year, and his first semester of kindergarten has been awesome. He's got a great teacher. Really cool little, it's a small little private school, nothing fancy. But they share a lot of the morals and all that kind of stuff that we have. That was really cool. He's doing so good in school. Got a lot of little friends and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter, she started her 3K this year, so she's three years old, about to be four. So really loved the school.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The next one's kind of off the wall. I learned how to one wheel this year. I wanted to do something different. So I bought a one wheel electric skateboard in January, and I've got probably 250 miles on it so far. So not quite a mile a day, but I've been trying to ride it as much as I can.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What is it that you like about it?
--:-- Josh Gurley: I like that it's just one of those things I can get out. I can do it early on Saturday morning when everybody else is in bed and I can just feel some wind through my hair and just think. It's just one of those times where I can listen to a podcast, look into a book, think about what happened the past week, kind of get my mind right for the next week. Just have some me time.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Why did you pick a one wheel mainly?
--:-- Josh Gurley: I just thought it was cool. I was in my neighborhood while we were building our house and there was this kid in there, probably like 15 or 16 years old, and the construction team was there. This kid was riding the one wheel down the street, and here I am a 37 year old man and I'm like chasing him down the street. I'm like, "Hey dude, I really want to try this thing." And he had his music on, he was like, "What?" I was like, "Dude, I want to try your skateboard. I want to see if I can do this." And then he, the good risk manager that he was, he was like, in so many words, "Listen, old guy, if you break your neck on this skateboard, this is not my problem." And I said, "Hey, no problem." So I jumped on the one wheel. I rode it around a little bit. I was like, "Man, this is kind of cool." And I was like, "What the heck?" So I went and bought one online. They shipped it to my house and the rest is history.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Cool. And you still love it?
--:-- Josh Gurley: I still love it, man. Yeah, I do. They just actually came out with a brand new one, so I have a little bit of jealousy built in there. But it's cool, man. Mine goes about six to eight miles. If I lost a pound or two, it might go a little bit farther, which we've talked a lot about that, sending scale pictures back and forth. But yeah, man, I can get about six or eight miles. And that's about all I want. Just riding around the neighborhood and different stuff like that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Do you get weird looks when you're cruising or are people into it? Or is it like now it's like a thing? You're the guy on the one wheel? What do the neighbors think?
--:-- Josh Gurley: So my neighborhood is pretty small. There's only about 50 houses in the whole neighborhood. And we have this pretty much private, some people call it a lake, I call it a pond, it's like 100 acres. So there's like a thing for the kids down there and a little boat ramp and you can put a little john boat in there and that kind of thing. So everybody has a golf cart because everybody's always taking their kids down there or whatever. And I don't have a golf cart, but I do have a one wheel. So the thing that I do, I'll get on the one wheel and I'll put the kids in the little wagon and I'll be pulling them down the road on the one wheel. And then everybody else is zipping by in the golf cart. So I guess I am the one wheel guy and people know me for that whenever I'm tooling around the neighborhood.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's cool. All right. What's number four?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Let's see here. The next one is going to be, I made some new friends who inspire me. So last year, I've always been a person, ever since I've been in this business, I've been so focused on production. I've been so focused on gaining new clients. I really haven't met a ton of people in the industry. I'm not super involved in the Big I or anything like that or the PIA of Georgia. Although I did recently join the Commercial Lines Committee for the Big I, which has been really awesome because I met a lot of super, super smart people in that group.
--:-- Josh Gurley: But when COVID came around, I feel like there was just this really weird time where everybody was trying to figure out what was next. Nobody really knew what was happening and people were thinking about, "Am I an essential worker?" and figuring out what they were going to do with all their employees. So there was just this totally dead time that was going on. So a friend of mine, another agent, was kind of like, "Hey, if you want to kill some time, join this group." So I joined the IOA Facebook group. I had no idea what it was. And then somebody put a comment out about workers comp and they were talking about return to work. I made a comment on the post, first comment I ever made. I'd been in the group for a week or so. Made a comment on the post, and then the next thing I know, I get this person that responds to my comment. His name is David Carruthers. And David Carruthers was like, "Well, this is kind of a watered down approach of what we do." And I was like, "Who is this asshole?" Telling me that my approach is watered down. That's most people's first impression of Carruthers, is "Who is this asshole?"
--:-- Josh Gurley: So he says this, and then I almost wrote something snarky back, like, "Well, do you really want me to take my full process and write it down? It would take me two hours to type all this up." So I didn't. But then we ended up becoming friends on Facebook somehow, and he reached out to me. He was like, "Hey, you want to come on my podcast? I think your story would be something that people would be interested in listening to." And I was like, "No, not really. I don't want to come on your podcast." And then I started thinking about it. I said, "Well, why don't you give me about a week or two weeks and I'll think about it and I'll let you know." Because I had no idea who this guy was. I didn't know anybody in the whole insurance influencer space. So eventually I came back and I said, "Sure, let's do it. Why not?" So we recorded a podcast.
--:-- Josh Gurley: And then from there, it was like all these people started friending me on Facebook. I bet I have 300 friends on Facebook. I've been somewhat selective of the people that I've accepted. But I've got all these insurance people that are my friends on Facebook now. And from there, I kind of knew who you were, but I didn't really know you. And then I started meeting you. I started meeting some other guys. Some of the people have podcasts. A lot of them are just insurance people. And I just started realizing, man, there are so many really awesome people that are out there. And then this year, when my wife and I went to Key West, it was all insurance people. There was like 20 some odd insurance people that went to Key West together.
--:-- Josh Gurley: So for me, that was one of the things that came out of COVID that was interesting. It was like I made all these friends from all across the country and I started realizing, hey, these people are just like me. They're not so bad. These are not competitors. These are people that are trying to figure this thing out. So if I learned one thing from COVID, it was that all these people, they're just really good people. And it really set me on this path of having an abundance mindset, of like, "What can I do for the industry?"
--:-- Josh Gurley: Both of my parents were teachers. My mother taught kindergarten for 30 years. And my dad, he was actually a school superintendent, administrator for many years. So growing up, the only people that I was around was educators, because all my mom's friends were teachers, and I was always hanging out at the school late. My dad was always going to school board meetings and different things like that. So I just think over the past couple years, this whole idea of helping provide education to people was something that was exciting.
--:-- Josh Gurley: And so the thing for me about coming on your show and any other podcast or event that I've been a part of over the past couple of years is, I just really want to help provide education to our industry. Because I think we're in one of the most honorable industries that a person could possibly be in. We help that business, that company, that individual that comes to somebody's rescue when their house burns down. How cool is that to be the person that can show up, calm people down, talk them through the process, and help them get to a better place on the backend? And so that's something that I take really seriously. And I think it's why whenever I talk to people, I really talk a lot about the blocking and tackling, all the different fundamentals that are involved in this business. The relationship aspect, the education aspect, just being able to advise people in a way where you're not afraid.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Because I think a lot of times we run from things that cost money to customers because we think that the client thinks that all we're trying to do is sell them another insurance policy. And that may be true for some people, but for me I try to relate it all back to people. You think about workers comp, I think about how it's our duty as an insurance agent to advise a business and say, "You want your employees returning home in the same condition that they showed up to work." And so that's why it's so important to have safety programs. That's why it's so important to have workers compensation. That's why it's so important to have return to work and provide that environment. Because at the end of the day, they have families just like we do. So I try to change the way that people view our role in the industry and the way that they view the actual insurance transaction product, whatever it is that you want to call it, in general.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. The way I talk about it, sometimes I think there's a lot of different ways of positioning it. Insurance is the foundation upon which business owners and entrepreneurs are able to take the risk that they need to take to grow their business. You can't hire another employee unless you have comp or you have other insurance in place. You can't buy a new building. You can't take on a new line or produce a new product unless you have the proper insurance in place. Because otherwise, you're extending out without the foundation. So that mentality I completely agree with, and obviously it's why we connected.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think to your point about a lot of times we can feel like all the client sees us doing is trying to sell them another policy. I think it's unfortunate, but it's definitely true. And it's also completely just in our head.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Yeah, I totally agree. It's just in our head.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And that to me was one of the hardest lessons to learn in selling insurance was that 90% of the stuff keeping me from selling was in my head, had nothing to do with the client. This was all garbage that I was projecting onto the client, like what they thought or what their assumptions were or what their motivations were versus what that client actually wanted. And getting past that or kind of detaching from the outcome, I guess, is probably a better way to put it. Once you kind of figure that out, man, you ascend to a whole nother level in a sales position, especially in our industry.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I think you have to be brave enough to tell people the truth. And I think that's the difference in that order taker mentality that exists in our industry and really being an advisor, a person that is looking out for not only the interest of the business owner, which is obviously the primary goal, but secondly, the interest of the employee and making sure that the employee is taken care of. At least in my experience, I think that people, business owners especially, they respect when you push back on them a little bit. They respect that you think enough of yourself and your position and your job to be able to tell them what they need to do from a recommendation standpoint.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I was thinking about this. You go to the doctor's office and the doctor says, "Hey, you need cholesterol medicine." People grumble about that all the time. Nobody wants to take medicine every single day. Knock on wood, I don't take any medicine, thank goodness, but people don't want to take medicine. And they think, "Oh, I'm young, I feel fine, I don't want to take this medicine." But the doctors are looking at their blood work and they're saying, "Hey, you really need to take this medicine." And so people take their medicine because they know it's what's best for them. And those doctors have to be bold enough to say, "Look, you might have a real problem if you don't take this medicine. Let me tell you the road that this is going to go down. Your arteries are going to get clogged up. You may end up having a stroke. You may end up having a heart attack, heart disease, all these different problems that happen if this stuff builds up in your heart. So you got to do something about it." And ultimately, most people respond to that and they do the right thing or they modify their lifestyle. They eat different. They exercise. They spend time working on themselves.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The same thing is true. We just have to be bold enough to look at somebody and say, "I know that you don't believe me, but ransomware attacks happen every single day. So not only are you going to be down trying to get your data back up, but you're going to have to go figure out how to get some Bitcoin or something like that to be able to pay that ransom." And I think people respect that. And that's really how I've always operated, out of just a place of trying to speak with authority when I talk and not be an order taker. I think the ability to walk away from a deal that doesn't make sense to you is a powerful thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So I'll give you, I'll just pile on to what you're saying because I couldn't agree more. I get a lot of questions about our business model, which is unique in many ways. We've only met two of our customers in person ever in two years. And a lot of people will say things like, "Well, how do you... what about the relationship? Insurance is about relationships. It's about relationships. You're not building relationships." Well, I wholly and 100% agree that insurance is about relationships. I just don't agree that you have to breathe the same air to develop a relationship.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So how we establish what you're saying digitally is by over communicating and being highly transparent. So what I'll say to the customers is this comes in during the part where we're setting expectations for a video proposal. So after I've gathered all the necessary information and I know that the next step is to go quote them, I'll say, "Well, I have all the information I need. I'm going to explain to you the next step in this process. So what comes next now that I've gathered all this info? I don't want you to think it's just going out into the ether. We're going to take this information, and I already have a pretty good feel for the markets that we should go to based on what we've discussed. But we're going to hit all the markets that we have and make sure we have a good feel for coverage and price. We're going to come back with our recommendation to you and how we deliver that is in a video proposal."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And they may have a question about that. And I just say, "Look, it's super easy to get into. We use Neoteric Agent just for anyone who's listening. There's a bunch out there. That's the one we use. Had perfectly fine success with that. You're going to get an email from me and you're going to log into this website. And it's super easy to get in. So don't even worry about that. It's super easy. But what you're going to get is this email that has three parts. It's got a video, which hopefully you'll watch, two to five minutes tops. You're going to get a high level breakdown of what I found. And then you're going to actually be able to download the reports right from the carrier."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, there's a reason that we give carrier reports. [Breaking the fourth wall, speaking to the audience] There's a reason we give carrier reports and not our own proposals. And the reason is it makes it feel more real. If I were to take it—now again, middle market different. We're talking about $25,000 in premium and under, vast majority of our accounts. So the reason that I do that is I want them to feel like they have all the inside baseball that we have. If I were to take it and scrape it and put in my own proposal, they could be going, "Well, who knows if this is real? This is something this guy put together." But because it's a printout, some of them are ugly. Some of them are nice, depending on the carrier. It doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't even rename them on purpose. I want it to feel like it came right from the carrier.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: [Returning to the customer conversation] This is what I say to my customer. I say, "The reason that we do this is I want you to have as much power as I have. Most insurance agents are going to withhold the information, the proposal, until they have a chance to box you into a corner. To get you sitting at your desk or on the phone, and then they drop the proposal on you because they feel like in that moment, they're going to be able to convince you that you should purchase this thing. That's not what I do. What I'm going to do is give you what I think you should have based on almost 20 years of experience. And you have all the information I have. So the next time we get on the phone, we can have an honest, straightforward discussion where you have all the information that I have. How's that sound?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: "Ryan, that sounds great." "Awesome. You'll have that for me in a couple of days." Done. Now what happens? So what I've just done, and I always say, "I want you to have as much power as I have," because people love that. Who doesn't want to have power? It's like the used car salesman who doesn't try to sell you every single car that you walk by. That's the whole point. You now know everything I know. So when we get on the phone, we can talk openly and honestly about your questions. One, it drastically reduces the amount of time we spend on the call because they've already watched the video in most cases three times. The average is like 2.3 times when I send a video proposal out. People usually watch the video two times or three times. And as I've gotten better at doing the video proposals, what ends up happening is they don't even want to have a phone call. They just email me back and go, "Hey, can I do monthly payments?" "Yes." "Okay, we're in." Done.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Yeah. I mean, I think what you've done, and I do this in middle market, is I call the next move. Like we should be willing just to say, "Hey, here's what's going to happen next."
--:-- Josh Gurley: I'll give you a great example. We hired a new producer in our office and he was working on, or is currently working on, an account that's with a direct writer. So I told him, "Look, this is a direct writer. We can't BOR this. We got to go in. We got to quote this thing. But here's what you need to ask them. You need to ask them, 'How many times have they tried to sell you life insurance?'" And he's like, "Why is that?" I said, "Because I know people that used to work for this company. This particular company, they are a life insurance company that sells PNC insurance. It doesn't matter what you say, all of their awards, all of their stuff. Commercial lines only care."
--:-- Josh Gurley: So I said, "Ask them, 'How many times have they tried to sell you life insurance?'" And he went in and he asked the question. He said, "How many times have they tried to sell you life insurance?" And they said, "They try to send me life insurance every single time they walk in the door. A whole life insurance policy." I said, "And then the next question you need to say is, 'How often do they talk about what you're actually there to talk about, which is your business insurance?'" And he asked him that question. They're like, "Never. They just want to sell the next policy." I said, "Exactly."
--:-- Josh Gurley: And so when we had our coaching call after that, I said, "This is what I call calling the next move. You just say, 'This is what the person's going to do.' You're like Isaiah the prophet. You tell them what's going to happen, then it happens, and then you look like the hero in the story. And it's because you're transparent about what's going to happen next. And whoever else is dealing with you, they're just trying to get to the next sale. And it doesn't matter if it's middle market, it doesn't matter if it's personal lines, it doesn't matter if it's small commercial. You're just calling the next step. And then they're digging their own grave because they're doing every single move that you predicted."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show in exchange for that. I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment. If you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales—the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right. I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It just, to me—and I used to say this 10 years ago when I was talking about content marketing—the days of us as insurance professionals being the gatekeepers to information are over. It is over. We're not the gatekeepers to insurance information. They can Google and find everything we know. Everything that we think is intrinsic knowledge that's up in our brains and we're so smart? They can Google it and find it out. Now, granted, could they apply it as well as we can apply it? No, they're not professional. They haven't done this for a career. But can they know it? Sure, they can.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So for us to still act in an insurance transaction in this wedgie-style bait and—I don't want to say bait and switch—but like, "Hey, I'm not going to tell you when I'm going to call you back. And when I call you back, I'm not going to give you the quote number because you might take it and BOR." Screw that. They can take my whole proposal and BOR to their current agent if they want. You know why? Because if they do that, they were not a good fit for us. That means they would have been a terrible client. And the other side of it is—and this speaks to abundance versus scarcity mindset—we generate so many leads because we're constantly doing the work right in our marketplace. For you guys, it's the same, just maybe less volume, but the same kind of flow for a middle market transaction. So don't—I'm not talking that you can't do it one way or the other. For us, we constantly have new leads coming in. So if we just work our process, set expectations, deliver on the expectations we set, and continually do that with someone while asking the right questions throughout the process, we never make them feel like they're boxed in. It's a partnership, right? It's a service request that ends with a transaction versus a sale. And that small nuance, I think, plays a large role in how we treat people.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Because our service team is loving and caring and compassionate and patient. Our sales team is like, "Buy this policy now or I'm going to lose my mind." But if you can just switch that mentality to more of a service mindset where at the end of the process you're transacting a policy versus doing a car change, I feel like that small tweak, with good flow, gets you the clients you should have that fit your process. The ones that don't automatically fall out, and you just keep cranking. And I feel like that methodology can be applied to every line, every vertical, every geographic region in our country.
--:-- Josh Gurley: There's nothing like seeing the light bulb pop on in somebody's eyes when you're talking to them, whether it's on Zoom or in person. A lot of people probably don't know this about us, but we operate in 23 different states. Not that we have offices there—we don't have producers there—but I have clients in 23 different states. So I spend a lot of time on Zoom and any other video conferencing app, talking to people all day every single day. But it's always the same. When you can provide somebody with enough education to make their own decision, come to their own conclusion, and choose to do business with you, then you're going to keep that client for a lot longer. I'll knock on wood, but I have not received one single loss run request. I'm not sure that I've received a loss run request in 2021, except for somebody that's looking to sell their company to a private equity firm.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I went to a class very early on in my career with Scott Addis. Scott's kind of like the OG sales trainer, been around forever. It was up at Cincinnati home office. I remember I ate dinner next to JF Share. He was sitting right next to me, and he was the president of the insurance company forever. At the time I was so young in the business, I was like, "Hey Jeff, I'm Josh Gurley. Hey, what do you do?" And he was like, "Oh, I work in the PNC side." Then I go Google him and he's like the king of the kingdom. Yeah. But at this thing, Scott broke it down—and I won't say it as good as he does—but he basically talks about this whole thing being four steps. Collect some information, come up with a strategy, implement the strategy, and then monitor the strategy. That's what you do in the business.
--:-- Josh Gurley: But I think the difference in what I do—and it sounds like what you do—is I tell them, "Look, you can do this with anybody that you want to do it with." If I'm bringing in a quote from Cincinnati, I'll say, "You can do this with anybody that represents Cincinnati. You can do this with anybody. I hope that you do this with me." And I think, to your point, you give them that choice because you want them to choose you freely. And I think when people choose you freely and you're not just selling them to get onto the next thing, your retention goes through the roof.
--:-- Josh Gurley: And that'll bring me to my next point. I don't know, this could be five—we didn't get to number five yet. Well, I think I really learned a lot about technology this year. This may be a controversial statement that I'm going to make, but for me, technology is an add-on. What we talked about—the client relationship, the education, just being that person that acts in utmost good faith—it's in the first page of the book that you learn insurance in. It says this is a business built on utmost good faith. So everything else is just an add-on, right? Everything else is an add-on.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Everybody was talking about, "You got to have this tool or that tool." But at the end of the day, if you were to put a saw in my hand, or put me in a wood shop—we have a client that has a wood shop at his house that costs like $400,000. It's got every tool that you could ever imagine having inside of it. But if you took me and the most beautiful piece of white oak wood and said, "Make a table," whatever would come out of that place would be kindergarten. It would look like something a five-year-old made because I have zero skills at woodworking. And so I think the same thing can be true a lot of times. We don't really look at what's right in front of us.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The stuff that we use in my agency—we're on Applied Epic. That's just what we do. It's great for commercial lines, great for the way we transact business. And we're on Salesforce. We use Salesforce to attract and find new clients. We don't really use it on the back end for a client reaching out to them or anything like that. And I'm not really sure that's even all that important with the kind of business that we write. I think a lot of the stuff that we write should be more manual touch anyway. Somebody commented on something, they were talking about this, and I made a comment. It was like, "Well, your margins are probably higher than other people because you're writing larger accounts," which is true. So we can afford to be a little bit more hands-on because there's not as many accounts to go around.
--:-- Josh Gurley: But one of the things I realized was that I don't have to have every cool gadget that every other person has. I just have to have what works for me. I played music professionally for some length of time. Guitars have all these guitar pedal boards. There was a time when I thought I needed to have every guitar effects pedal so I could sound like anybody from The Edge to Jimi Hendrix to whoever else. I needed every tool that they make. So I used to carry around this pedal board that had like 20 different things on it. I started thinking to myself, "I don't even use this stuff." And in the back of my mind I would say, "But I might one day, so I need to go ahead and have it." Then one day I just said, "I'm done with this."
--:-- Josh Gurley: I keep my guitars and stuff in my office right now. Underneath my desk, there's a pedal board that has probably five things on it. But all the things that I have are top of the line. It's the best stuff that money can buy, but I only have like four or five things. It's funny how I went through the same thing when it came to my music career, and then I get in the insurance business and it's like, "I got to have all this stuff." Then I woke up one day and said, "No, I don't. I don't have to have all this stuff."
--:-- Josh Gurley: We send out Georgetown Cupcakes. It's a cupcake place in Washington, D.C., one of the most famous cupcake places in America. They got 5,000 or 10,000 five-star Google reviews. They're everywhere. It's like $55 a dozen to send out. So instead of me buying some kind of thousand-dollar-a-month customer retention software, I send out 20 dozen cupcakes a month. And it's not tied to a holiday. It's not tied to anything. It's just like, "Hey, I was thinking about you."
--:-- Josh Gurley: I had a client this week. He made this joke, and it was hilarious because a lot of people fell into it, including me. This guy is in Oregon. Jack's Facebook said, "Jack is 116 years old today." Well, Jack's like 60. So all these people were telling him happy birthday. I knew it wasn't his birthday because I got his driver's license in our system. I said, "Wouldn't it be funny to send him some cupcakes and say 'Happy 116th birthday'?" So right then, we were like, boom, Georgetown Cupcakes overnight to Oregon. We flew them all the way across the country. They got to his office the next day. He sent me a text. He called me. It was hilarious. He loved it. It had nothing to do with his birthday, but it was just the fact that we were thinking about him.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I would just say if anybody's listening, if it makes more sense to spend a thousand dollars a month on cupcakes, go do it. That's a great tool. That may be controversial, but that's just how I feel about it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I don't think it's controversial. I think it's the maturation of the space. We all have fallen prey to it. I think it's a natural evolution that everyone goes through in every piece of their life. If you golf, you think, "I got to have the most bad-ass set of golf clubs." Then you realize you don't—you're going to stink regardless, or be good regardless. My friends that are good pick up wooden clubs that their grandfather had in his bag from a hundred years ago and they hit shots right down the middle. And I can't—I'm hitting it in the woods regardless. So I completely agree with you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's easy when things aren't going well, or you're not producing as much as you would like, or you find yourself in envy of someone and their production—or at least their perceived production online—that you start chasing the next tool that's going to get you there. I have been guilty of this. I've had five CRMs. I'm on my second agency management system and I've only been around for two years. I've tried a million tools. I haven't changed in a year. I'm proud of that. But I agree with you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What I definitely agree with—not that I'm executing on this today—is buy best-in-class tools for the tools that you need, because you get what you pay for. You absolutely get what you pay for. I use NowCerts as an agency management system and it's very cheap. They'll have two hours from 10 a.m. Eastern to noon Eastern on a Tuesday where they just go down. They'll send a Facebook message: "Hey guys, servers are down. Hopefully they'll be back up soon." And you're like, "Oh yeah, so my agency management doesn't work for two hours during the middle of a workday." That doesn't happen with Epic. It doesn't happen with others. And I know it just happened with AMS 360 the other day. But you get what you pay for.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think maximize the tools that you use versus using like 5% of 20 tools. Pick one tool and absolutely pin-max your usage of it, and then move on to the next thing. There's only so many things that we actually need. We just don't need that much.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Well, that's what we do with Salesforce. Our annual spend on Salesforce between the software and the development is probably $40,000. So I just say, "Let's have a system that is just rockstar for what we're trying to do." So we pay the development costs. We have the email marketing system that goes along with it. We have the lead scoring. We have all the tracking that we do online. And then when I'm prospecting, I know who's the most likely person to answer the phone. And that's half the battle, right? Knowing who's your most likely customer.
--:-- Josh Gurley: But the other thing I want to say about that is I think that what people need to understand about technology is that you should do what works for you. My agency is not a high-volume personal lines agency. We haven't been for a long time, probably not going to be for the future. So a lot of those things are not super important to us. Our agency is not a high-volume small commercial agency. So the ability or the need to automate certain things is just not that important to us. Now, there are some other people that probably need all of those things in their agency, in their business, but they have a legitimate reason for needing those things. And I just don't think that our agency does at this moment.
--:-- Josh Gurley: What's the most important thing for our agency is the fact that we can have CSR 24 online for our people to go do their certificates if they want to, for us to deliver the policies, endorsements. We have a really good sales tool that manages our sales process in Salesforce. And then we have some other resources through some different vendors from HR, safety, self-service portals, and that type of thing. And so that's what's really important to our clients. So I just really think that everybody should figure out what is really important for their client and what is really important for their agency.
--:-- Josh Gurley: That's half the reason that I'm going through this year in review right now and this "living your best year ever" thing. It's like, "Hey, what do I need to add? What do I need to cut out?" And then the other thing is just developing my own leadership. I'm starting to learn that just because I'm a good producer—and I would label myself as a good producer—if you just open up the best practices guide and see what the average producer produces in this country, I produce a fair amount more than that. So I would consider myself a certainly above-average producer. But that does not necessarily mean that I can impart my knowledge on other people in my organization or train other producers in my organization. So that's when I've been really spending a lot of time. I'm reading the book *Traction* right now and trying to grow the leadership side. And I think that's just as important as anything else.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Boom, there it is. I think that's just as important as anything else that we could do—develop leadership, develop our people, help them be more and more efficient, and not necessarily rely on the computer or the software to do it for us.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: One of the things that I became self-aware of in the second iteration of my producing or agency career here is that I'm not a great producer. I'm certainly not a great producer. I may be a good producer, but I don't love producing. I don't love it. It doesn't get me jacked up. I've written a policy every single day this week. One day I wrote two. I could give two shits. I wouldn't even list any of them as a highlight of my week because I just don't care.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: To me—and this is speaking to what you're saying—you kind of have to figure out what your strengths are. It might mean that you should never be the person who's doing that stuff that you just said. Honestly, if you're a tremendous producer, an absolutely tremendous top-flight producer, and you like it, why would you ever stop? Just go hire a COO who will do all that stuff for you. Why would you take yourself out of the thing that you love and are good at and are literally probably world-class at to a certain extent, and go, "Now I need to learn all these other skills to be this thing that I feel like I should be," but maybe isn't even what you want to do? And maybe you do want to do that. I'm not saying you don't.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I had to have that conversation with myself because I could produce. I absolutely could. I just—to me, my value—every policy that I write, I consider a loss in our agency. That was a loss. That time that I could have been working on our onboarding process, I could have been refining who we're quoting, how we're quoting them, getting a better feel for that, digging deeper into new markets that we need. There's a million things that are more where I specialize in than that thing. If I were to go try to teach one of my current producers—we have three producers—if I were to try to teach them how to produce like you can, I would be doing them a disservice because I don't know that I'm even as good at that stuff as them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So we all have to figure out—and I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you're doing because you should if that's what you feel is right. But I think it's worth considering. And this goes to your technology thing, right? Like feeling pressure to take on tech. You probably feel pressure to lead.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Dude, I do not. I think it is a misnomer that just because you're the owner, you also have to be the day-to-day leader. I think that's a complete misnomer. I think as the owner, or an owner, the freedom that you get is to choose to do whatever it is that you want to do and be wherever it is that you add the most value, and find someone else to do all the other stuff that isn't either what you want to do or something that you're good at. And I feel zero pressure to be a producer. And when I walk into a room full of agency owners, I know that they look at me like I'm crazy.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I've sat at a table before and said, "Every policy I sell is a loss," and watched guys literally stink-eye me. Like, "What's wrong with this guy? He's not a real agency. What's he talking about?" Literally their eyebrows, that face—no one watching can see, but that face that I just did, I've seen that face from people when I say that. And it's because I know at best, I'm a good producer at best. That's me on my best day. I'm a good producer. I have never been a great producer, nor will I ever be. And so that tells me my value to the organization is not production. It's something else. And that's why I do everything I can not to produce.
--:-- Josh Gurley: One of my business partners said something to me recently that hit me like a ton of bricks. He said—and this is the whole reason that I'm reading the book—he said, "Do you know what the most valuable thing in the insurance industry is?" And I said, "My ability to produce new accounts." And that's really what I thought for a long time. But he said, "It's not the most valuable thing. Equity is the most important thing in the insurance business. Building your balance sheet is the most important thing in the insurance industry because we can produce a book of business, we can create cash flow through that." And I've certainly done that, and I've enjoyed that, and I've had a lot of fun doing that. It's been awesome. I've gotten to go to trade shows all over the country. In fact, I'm going to Iowa next week. Sunday, I'm going to Iowa and doing a little tour through there and through Missouri, going to see some clients and some prospects. And that's a lot of fun.
--:-- Josh Gurley: But I think what you're really saying is you're trying to build the equity of the business. You're trying to build the value of the company. And I think as an agency owner, whether you own 100% or whether you're a minority—I'm a minority owner in my agency, so it's not like I'm the president or anything like that—but what can I do to help grow that balance sheet? If one day I end up owning a super significant portion of our agency, then those will be the same priority. But right now, the most valuable asset that sits on my personal balance sheet is my agency. That's it. That's the most valuable thing I have.
--:-- Josh Gurley: So I think from an ownership perspective, if growing the value of your agency is through personal production and you can do that, then do it. If it's through creating systems for other people to produce, then do that. There's no right way to do this.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: 100%. There's no wrong way to do this.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I disagree with that. There's absolutely a wrong way to do it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think to the point that you just made, the wrong way to do this is to put yourself in a position that you think you should be in that you shouldn't actually be in. You're reading IOA posts and you feel pressure to do this or to do that when really your value is here or there. I feel like that is the cardinal mistake.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Here's a common example. The cardinal mistake that I see is an agency principal who is a rock star producer. Just has all the connections in town, knows the coverage, knows the carriers, crushes business, does a great job. Customers love him, love her, whatever. Just dominates. Never hires an operations person. Never gets a COO. Never finds the partner to run the business. And what happens is, outside of that agency owner's personal production, the rest of the agency is in shambles. And you see that over and over and over again. They never had enough self-awareness in the moment to say, "I'm just going to crush forever and build a team around me that allows me to do that." And that, to me, is the mistake. Or the great producer who stops producing—and I'm not saying this is what you're doing—stops producing to go chase technology and process. If you're a great producer, keep producing. That's my thought process.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Well, I guess what I mean by "there's not a wrong way"—let me explain that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You're being very nice. I get it. You're Southern. I understand.
--:-- Josh Gurley: Well, what I mean by that is—a year ago, I was in St. Louis. I've got a client that's not too far from there. Jason Cass is not far from St. Louis. Carruthers was going up there to hang out with Jason for a day or two, and it just happened to be the same day. There was a guy that we ended up meeting up in the lobby of a hotel, and we were all just talking. The guy that was already in St. Louis was there, and he was telling me he was a personal lines guy, and he was talking about getting into commercial insurance. I said, "Man, tell me about your agency." And I gotta be honest with you, I expected him to say that he was like a one-man shop. To hear the guy talk, he was so humble. But then he drops these—they got like a zillion employees and a gazillion dollars in revenue in personal lines.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I just told the guy, "Look, you may think that you're doing something wrong. But dude, you are crushing. You are crushing. If you're writing this much personal lines, if your agency is like $3 million in personal lines revenue in commission, why don't you just do more of that? Why would you stop doing that and decide, 'I want to be a middle market insurance agency'? No way, man. I would just keep doing what you're doing." I was just trying to encourage him and say, "Hey, you're not doing anything wrong, dude. You're doing everything right."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think this has been a narrative throughout this conversation. It is very easy—and this is a life thing too, which is why we make a lot of the bad decisions that we make throughout our life, not just in insurance—we look out at the world and go, "Man, I get this thing I'm doing right now. Ah, man, geez, I'd love to be doing that thing too." Or, "Listen to this guy, he's selling life policies. I need to go get my life license and become a life expert." Or, "Man, if we only had text automated text messages," and all this different stuff.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think a big part of it is self-awareness. Just double into your strengths. What are you good at? If you're good at that thing, be the absolute tippy-top world-class best at that thing if you can be it, before you ever consider moving into other spaces. I've learned this lesson the hard way so many times in my career. And then I had to learn it again, probably the first year that Rogue existed, when I made a million bad decisions and pivoted 15 times. Where we are today—this episode is going to come out after an episode that I kind of explain the maturation of where we are, which isn't necessarily different as we continue to evolve and what we're doing. So you can go back and listen to that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: But at heart, I'm a hype man. I support people. I get people jacked up. I put them on the path. That's what I do. I'm good at process. I'm good at getting people excited about things. I'm good at culture. I'm not a great insurance guy. You know more in your left pinky finger about insurance than I probably do. I know enough to be dangerous, but I have to own that. That's not who I'm going to be. And I think we all have to figure out that thing. Once you figure out what your thing is and you double into it, that's how you really get to the next level. Because then other opportunities do come.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Like you may find from being the absolute best and pinning your niche or a couple of niches that there's this third niche that you can get into because it's a natural fit and it's easy and they're aligned with the business you're already in. But the only way you get to that, the only way that materializes in a meaningful way, is if you really pinned in that one place.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I feel like how we get in trouble is we get kind of good at something and we hit our first real plateau, and then we go, "Ah, this thing's dead. I gotta go do something else." And it's like, no, you just hit the first of like 17 plateaus on the way to being great. I don't know if that makes sense or not.
--:-- Josh Gurley: No, it definitely does. I mean, I know that that's just what I tell people all the time. It's just like, hey, you do the thing that you're really good at, and then everything else is going to work out. And you don't have to self-promote that hard because people can see through the bullshit, if you want to know the truth. They can see people that are really genuine and really want to help other people. And that's just all over the place.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I mean, it's just kind of like the podcast that people listen to the most, insurance people listen to the most, are the ones that they feel like people are just being real. And the people that buy these products from us, that we create these relationships with, they want to deal with the people that are real. So that's why I've just always kind of been a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy and not been a really fancy word salesperson. So I don't know, man. I can tell you this: I've enjoyed talking about this.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. So I want to be respectful of your time, but real quick, you only got through the first five. What was number six on the list?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Well, number six is something that I think that everybody should do. I mean, golly, it's Christmas time. I don't know if it's the fact that I've been listening to the Counting Crows "Long December" on repeat, or if it's just the fact that we went and saw Santa Claus last night. I don't really know. But I want to end this the way that I end everything, every talk I've ever given, everything I've ever done. And this is really one of the things that I'm the most grateful for: that no matter what I have done throughout this year, I have not delegated the things that are the most important to me.
--:-- Josh Gurley: I'll give an example. I'll give you three things. The big three gifts that we got our kids for Christmas this year: we got a GoPro. Thank goodness they're like six and three and they can't listen to this. I got them a GoPro because my son loves to swing his golf club. He loves to be outside. He loves to make crazy videos. So I got a GoPro so we can take it to the beach and do family stuff together. I got my kids a 3D printer. My daughter loves little jewelry and all this kind of stuff she can make. So she's got a 3D printer. And we got them this big, massive jungle gym that my neighbor, who is awesome, is going to let me put together inside of his garage and keep inside of his garage until Christmas day.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The reason that we did those things is because we like to do stuff that's active. We like to do stuff where we're not just sitting in the house all day long, get out and move around, whether it's using our mind or using our body. But I would tell everybody that's listening, and I set it up to say this: there's two things that you can't delegate. I don't care. Two things you can't delegate, you can't automate.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The first one is the relationship that you have with your spouse. That's the most important thing on the planet. You have to walk in every day, kiss your wife or your husband before you kiss your kids. If I could give people one piece of advice, do that. Kiss your wife or husband before you kiss your kids. That's where it all starts. Don't try to make that relationship not as important as something else.
--:-- Josh Gurley: And the second one is the relationship with your children. You can't delegate that. Nobody else can do that job but you. So if you're planning for next year—and this may come out in 2022, but for 2021—if you're planning for next year, no matter what, don't delegate those things. Don't put those things to the side. Make those things a priority. Plan out that time with your family. It's the most important thing that you have.
--:-- Josh Gurley: The girl that I sit next to at college orientation has got incurable bone cancer. It's crazy. Incurable bone cancer. For her, she spent this time, became a nurse practitioner. And at the end of the day, she's a 37-year-old that has a terminal disease. So I think you just have to keep it all in perspective and say, this is fun. This is something that I get to do. But the most important thing is not what you do, but who you race.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Amen to that, man. Amen to that. A hundred percent. That's a great way to end it, dude. I appreciate you so much. Getting to know you and the conversations that we've shared—and never will and shouldn't—over the course of the last year plus have been very meaningful to me. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show, bro. I'm so happy for your success. Thank you for sharing what you have with us. I wish you nothing but the best, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Crush 2022, right?
--:-- Josh Gurley: Same to you, my friend. Same to you. Cheers.
--:-- [Outro music begins]
--:-- Narrator: 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 masteroftheclosed.com. That's masteroftheclosed.com. Do it today. Bye.
