RHS 173 - You’ll Be OK, but Your Kids Are F@cked

Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you. A wonderful, wonderful conversation. A conversation that's going to be ear candy. Like really good ear sex filled with multiple ear explosions for you on this Thursday.

Ryan Hanley: And that is going to be a wonderful conversation with Billy Vangura. Billy is known for hot takes on LinkedIn and Twitter, being a tremendous agency owner, a wonderful professional of our space, and someone who challenges both the new thinking and the old think of the industry.

Ryan Hanley: I don't know too many people who are willing to take shots at both the kind of more progressive, tech-forwarded, sure-tech-focused aspect of our industry as well as the way the industry has always been done. And he's finding that middle ground. Just absolutely respect the hell out of Billy. Love every conversation I have with him because he always makes me think, and this one is no different.

Ryan Hanley: Before we get there, if you enjoy the podcast, you'll love the blog. Go to FindingPeak.com. Subscribe today. It's an email a week. You get a thought-provoking article. I'm writing all kinds of stuff about peak performance, about running your agency, stuff I've learned at Rogue Risk. I think you'll love that.

Ryan Hanley: And a big shout out to our friends at Tivoli, T-I-V-L-Y.com. Tivoli creates that foundational, consistent growth in your business when it comes to small commercial and middle market. I mean, we get some accounts through Tivoli that are occasionally $50,000 to $100,000 in premium. The key is Tivoli's delivering warm phone call transfers to business owners so that your team or yourself can take those leads and write them quick. They're consistent. You can really dial in all the triggers. You know who's calling from where. Love Tivoli. Love that they're a part of this podcast.

Ryan Hanley: But also, we've been a paying client of Tivoli's at Rogue Risk for more than two years. So not only a client or not only the spokesman, but also a client, I guess you could say. All right. So let's get past all this. Get on to what is one of my favorite conversations I've had in 2023 by far. This conversation that you're about to hear with Billy VanJurn.

[The conversation begins]

Ryan Hanley: I'm going to shop booze. Yeah, I don't produce the video anymore because one, it's just too much work. And, you know, I hate asking people to like, you know, people get kind of like, you know, which I get like when you know you're going to be on video, people kind of like want to look a certain way and they're worried about the way they look. And so I use the video just for the conversation so we can see each other and see our, you know, see our expressions. And I feel like the conversation goes a lot smoother when you can see the person, but I don't produce the video. I know some people do. I get it.

Ryan Hanley: I know that I know. And I, and what's crazy is, and, and I have never enjoyed this, but like personally, but there's a lot of people that like watching like podcast conversations. They like watching it on YouTube. Like you get probably, if you produce, if you produce your podcast and publish like this, like this zoom video on, on YouTube as well, you can add like another 30 or 40%. in some cases. And, you know, that, that could be a lot of extra views, but, you know, I still, you know, as much as I do this and I, you know, lucky to have Tivoli as a sponsor and that, but basically pays me to pay Cass and, you know, whatever. It's like, I don't really make that much money. I basically, basically affords me like a few dinners, you know what I mean? It's not like It's a huge thing, but, um, but it's appreciated and, uh, really, you know, it's still just fun. Like I just, I like bringing people on that. I like that. I want to talk to and sharing the ideas and stuff. And it's still just something that I do mostly for fun, uh, you know, for fun. Um, then it is like trying to make a business out of it, you know, like, uh, Bradley and Scott and the things they do. Yeah. I think it's amazing. And I think it's awesome how they've grown their audience. but you know, they have like a full blown studio with a production. I'm not interested in that. You know, I think it's awesome. I just, you know, it's the whole content thing for me. I'm a capitalist. I appreciate you earning money. However you choose to earn money. Good for you. You're not harming anybody. God bless. But I just got other things I want to do.

Billy Van Jura: Yeah. And I've recorded and haven't recorded something in a while, but it's like, if the quality is good enough, the audio sound you can hear it it's good like man all the other stuff is just fluff you know i like your intro music like i enjoy it it kind of leads into things it's nice it sounds good but like and all the other stuff like uh i was listening to one last night and the credit roll was almost like it was on tv like the amount of people contributing to doing it i was like yeah okay but it doesn't sound any better than the business pockets i heard with two dudes just with basic setups in their house.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. That's the tough part today is like, you know, you even think about the Joe Rogan show. This guy has what? 30 million people downloading his podcast every month. It's basically three people. He's got him. He's got his guy who does the pull-ups whose name is escaping me. Even those listening to Joe Rogan. Jamie? Yeah, Jamie. And then he's got one other guy that does like the production stuff. Like it's basically a three man show. And then he's got people that like run the building and some other stuff. But like the actual podcast is like a three or four person production crew, including Joe Rogan, 30 million downloads. And then you have like these other shows, like, like I, somebody sent me one. They're like, you gotta listen to this show on NPR. And first I, I fucking hate NPR, but, um, but you know, like you said, it was like in production with this and this media company and this and I'm like, Oh my God, like the amount of money that this show, which was, you know, I mean, interesting, but they could have done it sitting on a park bench, holding an iPhone between them. And I put them in just as happy. And like, I just, to me, there's no way for that to be successful long-term. That is an absolute loss leader forever. If you do it that way, there's just no way for that to be successful.

Billy Van Jura: And I don't, and that's like, because we're both in the insurance realm, there was a, there's a thread the other day and uh nick ayers and some other anonymous person was in there and it's about like seo and websites and stuff and you know this and i've got data that can back this up there are plenty my website is dog shit i have four websites they're all equal levels of dog shit but i don't need them i i sit in that camp of like craigslist is amazing you can bang on craigslist all you want he's sitting on his pile of cash and doesn't worry about your opinion and then you go to somebody's websites and I'm like man I've been into your office like I know where you are and who you are that website's just a front like that is just like it looks amazing you spent a lot of money putting that thing up there but it's like useless and like you said like the Joe Rook and stuff like before you go all in on all this production all this all just just be good yeah just just be worth listening to yeah

Ryan Hanley: You know, Cal Newport wrote a book back in I think 2013 called be so good. They can't ignore you. And it was based off of the, um, uh, wow. My brain is not functioning today. Um, shit from the tonight show from the seventies and eighties, um, or not the night, the Saturday night live, uh, uh, Martin, um, a Martin sheet or not Martin sheet, uh, Steve Martin, Steve Martin, Steve Martin is, is he, he, in an interview said, you know, someone asked him, what's your secret to success? And he said, be so good they can't ignore you and and and basically then cal newport took that pulled that quote out and wrote this really cool book i mean you kind of get the gist of the book from the title but it is a good you know kind of airplane read book and i enjoyed it um but like that's really the key and i think um you know i i don't anymore seemingly and i'm so glad that there's a new class of insurance talking heads who are willing to answer all these kind of what I call seemingly think think of as seemingly trivial questions about what kind of microphone you have. I used to get asked those questions incessantly. I don't seemingly anymore. I feel like those questions go to other people now, which I'm happy about because not not because I don't want to answer the questions, but because my answers are this microphone, which I have just off camera, which you can't see. This microphone is 11 years old. I bought this for 80 bucks on Amazon back in like 2012. And I've had the same, I've, I've, the only thing I've had to replace is I had to replace the arm one time that holds it because the arm springs just atrophied from being so old that I had to replace the arm. Other than that, the microphone, I've had the same microphone for more than a decade. I use a $40 Logitech camera to do these calls and zoom, which calls me, it costs me 14 bucks a month. And then I've switched from, I used to use all the Adobe products and truthfully now, like they've gotten so difficult and so time consuming and all that. I just use the free Apple shit that comes on the Mac computer. Now the iMovie and GarageBand. So like you think about like the, the setup costs, you know, that I do as a cost of the podcast, you know, for cast helps me put it all, put all the show notes together and all the publishing. And that is well worth what that, what I pay for that. But like, um, but just, it's, it's like, you don't need all that stuff to, to have a show and, you know, and whatever. And, and it, I feel like people get too caught up in the stuff and not in the substance. and that's probably a life thing, but certainly in a content production thing.

Billy Van Jura: You said this a minute ago and it parlays to so much stuff is they don't ask me anymore. I guess because you're a person that's asked a lot more than me, right? You are a known entity out there. You did a post on this somewhere. There's a blog post, there's a video. You already answered these questions and then they come ask of you, right? And now I get it. They're having a dialogue. It's the same reason I don't engage in any of the Facebook message stuff because the new people are, yeah, they're lazy. Don't look for the information. Now, if you find Ryan's post and you have a question about his post, by all means, you should send him a note. But the answer is already existing. And now you're going to waste my time by asking it.

Billy Van Jura: You know, and like you said about the substance part, I'm like, man, like I started putting some stuff out and I had a bunch of stuff backlog. And I said to somebody, it's like, yeah, you know, I didn't share all this. I spent two years putting all this information together. Like this is handpicked, hand curated, but no one's going to execute on it. So what the hell's the point of keeping it on my computer? Here you go. Like I said to a bunch of people and I was like, you're not going to do anything with it. So who cares? it's uh you know i don't um i don't know if you listened to the episode that i put out recently um it was the full keynote that i did from um the one city world tour oh it's so it was so spot on the second half hour i was sitting here we've we've interacted a bunch before i knew the first 25 minutes of the yeah yeah the second half hour is so and it's embarrassing that i get frustrated by it but it's like i think i wrote it it's 880 million dollars in funding yet they can't complete leads yeah like you're still i i did this and i i keep a separate email address if i see a new service i sign up just to see hey i left your call flow how's it work i think it was next i ended up in some shop in missouri they couldn't help and then they pass me off to somebody else. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How is that possible? Like, you're not even a broker. You're just a lead generator. Could you imagine in your world getting leads and passing them off? Like, we do it as brokers, right? Like, if you just don't have the right fit, if it's just a big commercial thing, I am just not the right guy. Here's some suggestions. But could you imagine just that's your business model? I'm going to generate traffic and then I'm just going to farm it out.

Ryan Hanley: So it, it, so I have, I have a bunch of feelings on this. Cause in, cause at rogue, I've had to solve a bunch of problems that I never had to solve before. And then I didn't necessarily see coming in looking back. I probably should have, but you know, and one of those issues was because of COVID and I talked a little bit about this on other shows, like because of COVID I kind of had to survive, right? Like I put like 40 K into this business, no idea COVID's coming. It's going to be a middle market, you know, high touch white glove shop. I'm doing all the killing commercial stuff. I'm working with Mick Hunt. Basically I'm using Mick's stuff and David's stuff and my own stuff and all the other people. And I'm mashing together and what I believe is like going to be this awesome, best in class, New York, you know, New York only middle market shop, right? This is what I wanted Rogue to be the original vision of Rogue. That's what it was. Right. And it's like me and like a couple, you know, a couple other service people. And like, we're writing accounts and being world-class boutique. That was Rogue. That was the original vision of Rogue. 40K, all the systems, everything I needed. I am ready to go. I'm excited, jacked out of my mind. One weekend, COVID happens. It all just, it's like I lit the whole thing on fire. Every plan, every piece of marketing material, half the tools that I had purchase to service middle market accounts. Just light them on fire. They're useless.

Ryan Hanley: Okay. So when I pivoted to the small commercial and I started doing all the content on YouTube, the unfortunate thing about that is it is incredibly difficult to target geographically. And also no matter what you do, it is very, very hard to target industry. So one of our biggest problems up until very recently, which I'm happy to talk about how we've, at least we're trying to solve it today is was dude I don't get to choose who contacts us right so it's like I got plastics manufacturers from southern Louisiana and you know shotgun uh retailers from east Montana and you know and all these and also shit that's kind of down the middle and stuff we really want to work with but like what do you do with them and to be honest with you you know I can see how like So I did an interview a few weeks back with the CEO of Tivoli. And basically what happened to them is what happened to us, but he chose a different path. And they were a digital shop, had a very similar challenge to what we had. And basically he just started to get frustrated with the insurance sales part and said, screw it. We're going to sell the insurance sales part and just distribute the leads. And so I can see, I agree with you. That's a really tough decision to make. And I obviously chose to go a different way, but I will say that there is such a large amount of frustration around where does the business go?

Ryan Hanley: You know, yes. You know, a perfect example is Hartford loves landscapers in about 35 States. Love them. Probably one of the best carriers in the country for landscapers is Hartford in 35 States and the other 15 States, they either won't write them at all, or they're not even close. How the hell do you know which States are the ones that they will and which ones they won't, you know, like, it's like these kinds of, these are like the crazy, silly challenges that you come up against that like, and by the way, anyone who knows how to code that wants to help me solve that problem, I will, I have, I have the solution mapped out. I just don't know how to make ones and zeros make things happen in the magic box. But like, you know, these are the kinds of things. So I can see it. It's not, I agree with you. It's not the business model I would want, but I can see how people get frustrated with that and go that way. Because especially in commercial, personal line is completely different, but in commercial, holy shit. It's just so dynamic. It's, it's overwhelming.

Billy Van Jura: So, and even, and it's, it's, I think it's good that other people would hear you say this, because it's like, you are, you've crossed that hurdle where you've got your 50 States license. you've got a market in every state not necessarily for every risk technically speaking you have carrier representation in every state right yes yep what what i continue and it's and i go back to something and i paraphrase this because i don't know when it was but like you had said like who the heck am i you know to tell some billion dollar operation what to do yeah because you and cash just just going off on a ransom time and that It stuck with me because I fall into that trap. I fell into that trap last Tuesday I think it was I snapped on you know at my level I talking to the underwriter who did a field thing and they changed the rate And I like you know you just following corporate policy It's crap. It hurts me. I'm going to bear a brunt of this, but it's crap. Like, what would you do differently? I'm like, I'm not paid to do things differently. I'm paid to fill in the boxes you give me. I'm paid to produce business. You pay consultants for ideas that don't work. if you want my ideas we're going to have to figure out a way to do this and and it's but i fall into that trap of making suggestions because what i don't get is i remember talking with a large brokerage not too far away yeah i said i want to get to a billion dollars of premium and i was like well that's pretty easy your size like you've got this and this everything's already solved and they didn't get there and they're not there yet at least publicly right like at least the numbers that go up in the rankings yeah how does that happen like you have all the resources and you're just not putting it together like there's always this mismatch where like a guy like you has figured out so many pieces and then the guy with the other pieces just isn't interested in solving those problems yeah just like dude this is

Ryan Hanley: I'll tell you i i think i think you just i mean you just nailed a major problem right so like i sit here every day and even though si has been amazing. And I want to give them credit because they really have. And I know they get banged on a lot and I know they're not perfect. And I completely understand all that. And I understand none of them are none of them are. And I get that people will write me messages, Ryan, they did. I completely get it. I also know that the Matt Masiello version of SIA is a completely different organization than his father, right? It's just different, different, different philosophies. Again, not saying right or wrong, saying different philosophies. That being said, you know, they've helped us a lot, but they're also not, it's also not 20. It's not like I got a $20 million check to grow row, right? We still have an operating budget that is reasonable. It's, it's much bigger than when I was putting the entire payroll on my credit card and then trying to find ways to pay it off, you know? So it's a little different than that scenario that what it was beforehand, but, but you know, it's not like we have mega money. We have, we've, We're growing and doing great and all that, but it's not even making money.

Ryan Hanley: I look at these carriers that are trying to go direct. I look at insure techs that raised $5,000, $10,000. I just had a call with an insure tech that was launched in 2016 that some people would know the name of if I told you. That is now that we're considering acquiring because I want the tech. dude the the they raised 12 million dollars and if you saw the amount of premium and what they actually had for 12 million i think about what i could do with 12 million dollars i mean i could turn 12 million dollars into two hundred by the end of the year yeah yeah i could do by the end of the year yeah i mean the things that i could i mean i think about just just the simple shit that could just, I mean, just absolutely explode in the arbitrage that's available in the market, just a crush and, and, and like, and the, just the money that's been wasted. And like, I did 57 VC meetings back in 2021 and went over 57. And these jackasses gave this guy 12 million bucks and they got about $250,000 in premium and, and, and, and a platform that is pretty slick, but no idea how to use it. And now they're wholesome. And now they're like fire sailing. And I look at that and I'm like, oh my God, like the people with money, they don't want to either don't want to take chances or they want to give the money to these MIT Silicon Valley dicks or the people that have solved the actual problems. They can't get any money because they're not building proprietary tech. And I'm like, it's so wacky how this works.

Billy Van Jura: That's what I heard. 0 for 57 seven for one reason, no proprietary tech across the board, every email, every response, no proprietary tech, sorry, can't help you. I'm like, that's silly. That's crazy. I don't, I've got, you know, a bunch of versions. I've sat in the offices. I've said, listen, I appreciate what you're doing, but here's what you're going to run into. Now it's three, four or five years later. And you're like, Oh, I told you like, you know, I went through kind of like a self-audit and I deleted so, I mean, literally a thousand emails, either with no replies or sort of polite replies. And I'm like, look at where you are now. But at the same time, they probably cashed out okay. They didn't put any capital in. They didn't put their blood, sweat, like to really get things going. So they probably ended up okay. But seeing that continue to occur is just baffling.

Billy Van Jura: And even on your side, I'd wager like, if you were like a next, and it's an ongoing thing in insurance, you would struggle to find people, because you remember you talked about this with like trusted choice. You're actually in a probably a very similar scenario, like states, the dynamite manufacturer in Missouri, like maybe you shouldn't be touching that. But there's 10 agents in Missouri who have the markets. And depending on the premium, can't be bothered. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you make me want to vomit. Like you just like, but, but I respect you. I respect you making your money and doing your thing. But like, holy cow, it's a layup. It's not even a sale. It's a help this guy buy and they're going to ignore it. it's um

Ryan Hanley: Dude our industry is is so i mean this is what i find so dynamic and interesting and the you know these frustrations that we're discussing are also what make this so interesting a place to work right like like you know people come in and into the space and you meet them and they're they're fresh and they're doing things and they have these opinions and and and i love it because we always need fresh perspectives you know as long as people come in my perspective my first filter is always, do you have respect for the fact that this is a 440 year old industry that is not broken? Like, do you operate from that mind frame? Yes. Okay. Now I'll hear all your crazy ideas, you know, because, because, because if you come in and your first thought is this is broken or you're, you only understand like three to five years of history, or you think that it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, I know I can, I can, that filter alone. If you don't pass that first filter you are and that is so many of the 2015 2016 insure techs that came in and told us all that we're toast they're the ones who had no respect for the industry no respect for where we came from and the people that are in it and how it works the people that do um or the ones that spent even a small amount of time in agencies those are the ones that i you you look at their products and whether the product works for you or you agree with the product they're sticking around they're doing good stuff.

Ryan Hanley: You know, I think about like, here's a perfect example. I actually just liked this post on LinkedIn, Aaron Steffi from propeller bonds, right? Some people like the model, some people don't like the model. I think it's brilliant. We use propeller bonds for a lot of stuff because especially for the smaller shit, man, they're so easy. They're great to work with. But Aaron came from a family agency outside of Philadelphia. He got a taste for the business, found this thing that he was interested in, that he thought there was a gap in the market. He had the expertise and the guy took a shot and here they are. You know, he, the post that I liked was a cameo from the guy that played shooter McGavin, like one of those. Yeah, it was pretty cool. But I'm like, you know, and the announcement was that they have 2,500 agencies on propeller bonds now. And I'm like, you know what? That's an idea that if he attacks the market, the Silicon Valley dick takes that idea and goes, I'm going to cut agents out and write all the bonds myself. Right. Instead, they never went direct. They, every bond they've ever sold has been through, through an agent or through, you know, a licensed person. And here they are 2,500 agents growing like crazy, great business. And I'm like, these, like he passed that first filter, understood the business, had respect. And here they are. It's just that kind of stuff to me is that, you know, that that's what excites me is that for every five, 10 companies that are just garbage, that will never actually make it as loud as they get, you get a propeller bonds, which is really a value add to our industry as a whole, in my opinion.

Billy Van Jura: See, you've covered like two things there at once where it's the, they see the size or size potential. Like, eh, I don't know. Instead of realizing what insurance is, is that you take that bond and that bond's probably in place for three to 10 years. Yep. No service, just write a check every year, done, finished, whatever. And they look at the 2,500 and they poo-poo that. I'm like, you know, all right, good. That's your economics. Except had you invested in that, you're looking at a conservative five times return on your investment. If you could just be patient, if you just give it a couple of years to get those agents on board and get that there, all of a sudden you're going to look and be like, huh, I got this drip in recurring revenue. All right, what else can we do and that's where i think uh if you take that model i i can't understand what's next i told it to a guy i'll tell you offline it's probably not fair to say about like 500 million dollars premium all sorts of locations and he said something interesting and i've known this but then to hear it from his side a guy who's acquiring agencies doing things it kind of like comes to me in the face he's like yeah but what is an actress you're going to do now you've half acquired a bunch of operations you've fully acquired a bunch of others what are you actually doing this is where i've personally maybe sabotaged myself on a few occasions where i said i respect your role but it's not enough for me because it's actually not that challenging you have money you have a process you're just going to apply effort to that and be a little patient and you're going to roll up businesses it's it's wonderful it's good for you you're going to make your money. But what next? That's where I think the propeller bonds in the world. That's where I think the MGA's program kind of business becomes really super interesting because at some point, carriers have to push back. Like they have to. And at some point, somebody smarter is going to get ahead of it and say, you know what? I bought up all these operations. I've got 50,000 customers. They weren't cross sold. If I've got the best bond set up in the world, I probably got a thousand bonds in my book. I just don't even know that they're there. That's where I think those things get really interesting is when the people with the existing books, like I've tried this for a number of years. Everybody wants to sell you a social media set up. Everybody wants to say, I'm going to get you more traffic. And I come back with, cool. I've got 6,000 prospects already in my system. I've got 3,000 of them that respond to my email or my phone call without even a question. Make me money off that. Go find me 6,000 strangers. Take the data I have and drip new products to them. Now you'll get my attention and I'll split the revenue with you. If you're so good, you shouldn't be worried about it because your system works. And it's always a no. It's always a no. I want you to pay me to set this up and this up. And I'm sitting here saying, you make this platform and there's 2,500 agents that will sign up for that platform because you showed it works. I don't know.

Ryan Hanley: You know, you're completely right. Book optimization and revenue per client max maximization is the key. And this is one of my major beefs with the agency management systems in general and why, you know, I don't, we can't, you know, they've just so missed the mark and there's so much friction. And bitching about agency management systems is tired and I don't mean to do it. But like, these are some of the things that they completely miss on, right? It's like, it's today, how do you build a system that allows me to know who has a bond, who doesn't, and send automated messages to those people and then get a response to them? Why can't I send an email that says, hey, do you have a bond need? Yes or no?

Ryan Hanley: If you say no, I'll never send you another issue about bonds again. But if you say yes, one of our team members can reach out and show you the examples. Or, hey, you want to do it yourself? We have this do it yourself option through one of our partners that allow you to buy the bond yourself. So we're testing.

One of the things I believe is a major missed opportunity for many, especially larger shops with a decent amount of clients—you know, thousand plus, 2000 plus clients—is do it yourself options for quoting. People go, "No, no, you need an insurance agent." I hear that. But there are products, and small bonds are one of those products. I'm not talking $5 million performance bonds. You probably need a surety specialist involved for a lot of that. But these little $200, $250 municipal bonds and janitorial bonds—why can't that person do it themselves? Semitores need bonds. Semitores need a basic bond.

[Ryan pauses for a direct address to listeners]

Ryan Hanley: I'm finished. What's up guys. 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. Leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review. 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.

Real estate agents oftentimes need bonds in many states. There's all these little bonds that people have to buy that should just be bang, bang, bang, bang. And then they auto renew every year. You take a company like Cincinnati, their surety department rolls up to your contingencies. So now you build a surety book with a company like Cincinnati, and you're essentially building a zero loss ratio product, unless something really terrible happens. You build a substantial amount, think about how much that pushes your loss ratio down. These are the types of agency optimization techniques that as we continue to grow at Rogue, I look at how easy new business acquisition is. That's one of the biggest jokes to me—how is new business acquisition hard? If new business acquisition is hard for you, honestly, this may not be the business. New business acquisition is not hard. It's work, but it's not hard. It's just work.

Billy Van Jura: Would you agree it's easier today than when you started? Forgetting the knowledge part, I believe it's actually easier. Exponentially easier. Not even close. Because with social and branding and email and cold drip—dude, I was doing... there's this tool I was looking at. Let me look up the name real quick so people can check it. Actually, part of me wants to not tell you guys, but I'm going to anyways. Windsor.io. This tool allows you to record a video one time. Let's say I was on here and the video was like, "Hey Billy, just want to say thank you for purchasing insurance through Rogue Risk. I am the founder and CEO. It means a lot to me that you're here. Our team is going to take care of you." 45 second welcome video. All my team needs to do is plug in the person's first name. I never have to record that video again. The AI takes it and makes it look like I am saying it, recalculates my voice so it sounds like I'm saying your name. Then Jason and Sally and Tammy and Tommy and whoever—it's the same video, but AI generated voice and mouth movements so it looks like a personalized video every time to every customer. You can scale that out to every customer every time they purchase. Now it feels like they're getting this incredibly personalized thing, but you literally did it one time. That kind of stuff is solid gold. That's our business. You want to grow huge and have people love you? These are the kinds of tools that do that. Not the Facebook ads or whatever. Pay somebody to do your Facebook ads if that's what you want to do. This is the kind of stuff that takes our game to the other level and helps you optimize your book because it makes people feel the warm and fuzzies.

This stuff is coming. If you're not thinking about this, can you survive today? Yes, you can. Can your kids survive? No. I'm going to eat your kids' lunch and put your kids out of business. You will be fine. But that's the way I think. Not just me, there are other people, other rogues out there. There's guys like you. There's people out there like, I'm coming for you. I'm going to do what's necessary. You'll survive. Your kids will not. Sorry. I'm just going to chip away at you.

Ryan Hanley: And even like you said, personalize that. I need the self-control to stop asking the carriers for these things. We've acquired four businesses. Through these businesses, I now have five American Modern codes. Average premium is like $100 a policy. I'm not a big hitter with them. But nobody will allow me to consolidate it to one code that I can manage with one login. The guy says, "Can you do $250,000 of business this year with me?" And I say, "You can't even make it so I want to do business with you. Did you look at my average policy cost? It's $100. It's classic cars, jet skis, snowmobiles. I can't even tell from the policy I'm looking at." They say, "Well, we can't help you." So I talk to the companies that have the codes. They're like, "It takes a year. You need to sign a broker record." I'm like, "You're paying me $7.50. I'm not going through the effort of signing a broker record just to consolidate that stuff."

If they're not willing to do that, and then I charge for them—if I could pull the data by your name and your address, there's ways to pull stuff up. We could bang on the management systems all the way up to PL Radar and Google. I could get a pretty good profile on 90% of the households. I know you can look up who has a car older than 1980 registered. Why don't I just give you my 6,000 addresses, you run it across there for two bucks a pop, find the classic cars, and we'll literally send them a quote? We'll get a massive... well, that'll cost us a couple dollars each and we're not sure. But the information is available. You want more business from me? I can't prospect for classic cars because you don't pay enough for me to prospect for classic cars. You do nothing with it. What am I supposed to do with that? What are we supposed to do here?

That's where, to your point, at a big shop... a friend of mine is just smoking out. I've researched the state of New York. I can show you maps. I can show you everywhere I've driven. I can show you the agencies I've seen. I feel bad saying it, but I don't need you to sell me your business for me to take your business. I can run it off zip codes. I know who your carriers are. It would take a little longer, but I can put you out of business. Like you said, it may not be you, but your kid's not taking over when I chip away half the revenue. It's doable.

Billy Van Jura: It's interesting stuff. The AI stuff you said—I'm sure you've had your own version of these conversations. I've seen stuff that scares me. There's a company in Europe. I've met with them a few times. They were in Manhattan and they showed me. They said, "Give us a list. We're not going to do anything with it. We're going to show you what our product does." The stuff they can pull on you just on your Google address, just under your email—it's freaky. It's downright scary. But I get it. The challenge I told them is probably the same thing you know. Carriers aren't ready for your data. Same as Hazard Hub, right? They've been bought by Guidewire. Their biggest challenge is not that they've got the right information, it's that the carriers aren't ready for information. I'm still picking protection classes with billion-dollar companies. How is that possible? The data exists, the correct data exists, and you're still making me guess based on who has a well and who has public water.

This is our industry, unfortunately, just like our government—run by bureaucrats, not by leaders. If you're a middle manager and someone comes to you with a project—"Hey, let's make sure the protection class is right for every property across the country so when one of our agents pops it in, they don't have to put in 1 through 10. It just pulls automatically. It's not even a question. We just know." The only thing that can happen to that bureaucrat is that the project costs too much, gets screwed up, or doesn't work well, and now they're in trouble. So they go, "Meh, I'm good. No thanks." So we just keep moving along.

I'm a big fan of Michael Leibor and what he's doing at Insurance Gig. He's got an enormous project ahead of him. The things he's trying to do are worth our effort. The core concept—I know it's much bigger than this, and Michael, if you listen to this, please don't think I'm trying to diminish what you do—it's kind of a Zappier for insurance products for agents, agencies, and carriers. He's got Hazard Hub linked up, Fenris linked up, Relativity 6 linked up, and a couple other databases. I was talking to some carriers about similar projects. I was like, "Okay, can we pull small businesses in this state of this class, rip in Fenris, rip in property data from Hazard Hub, rip in the Relativity 6 data, pull it all together, and then just batch quote all these guys? Then I'll cold email them with introductory quotes. 'Hey, we need to clarify a few things, but based on the data I have, we could potentially get you a workers' comp policy for X amount.'"

There are certain carriers right now that have LCMs that are literally 1.01. You're basically playing flat rate, or in some cases even less than that. It's crazy what workers' comp rates are with some carriers right now in certain class codes. This is a way to absolutely scale and dominate. The carriers can't put it all together. They're like, "We're not sure about that data source." Who do you believe more? Me, who will lie to you in 10 seconds if it gets a policy written? Or the data that comes off these big, huge databases? It's a job to be accurate. It's crazy to me where our mentality is and our lack of willingness to take risks on some of these things.

Then you look at a Coterie. I don't think Coterie is perfect, and I don't love that they went direct. I really don't love that they went direct. But their product, the ease of their product, is so crazy. It's so easy. The policy forms are good—again, not perfect, but good. I say to myself, "Coterie, it'll be decades before they're ever able to actually make a dent into some of the big carriers." Scale is the problem. But the things they're doing are so far out ahead of these companies that seemingly should be leading it. It boggles the mind.

Ryan Hanley: Do you get fatigued by the whole thing? I've got all my own stuff I got to work on. You said it with the data. Frisk is the company that bought them. This guy Piyush showed me everything you just described years ago. I said kind of what you just said—the problem is what are you gonna do with the data? At Hazard Hub, I remember meeting those guys in Hartford and seeing their demos. This is amazing. Well, nobody's up to it. I still don't know why I'm so long on View Spectrum. This guy out in Arizona, he owns a property inspection company. He's been correct for years. Yet I still have companies spending $400 or $500 to send a human being out to a property to take pictures of a house. I'm done. You're going to pay me for my time or some other arrangement. I have other stuff I need to be working on. It's just so fatiguing when you know the answer is available.

Billy Van Jura: Back to your original point—this is how unbroken insurance is. They're making so much money we don't need to make these changes because we're good where we are. I'm 100% certain the best thing any national or even super regional company can do is audit their books right now, shrink the overall premium size, probably lose some policy count, and profitability will follow. But they don't need it because they're already profitable.

Ryan Hanley: I know maybe you're not right in the weeds with the quotes necessarily today, but the stuff I'm replacing—I kind of stopped looking at debt pages because if it's better than books for four, five, ten years, whatever it is, there's nothing accurate about what was rated four or five or ten years ago. Nobody's correcting this stuff. I got pushback when I lost a little over 12 grand like a month ago on a profit sharing thing. The book shrank. Well, I raised deductibles. A couple of accounts went to another agent from an acquisition I did. So you didn't actually lose the premium. You saw the dozens of policies I rewrote correctly to correct premium. Then you dig the profit sharing number. I went down from 40 cents to 28 cents. We went down like 20 cents. You saw all the paperwork, all the adjustments, and you're going to screw me out of profit sharing contract? That's the dirty little secret. Quality of coverage only matters in presentations. It does not matter in truth. It's premium, premium, premium, premium, premium. Loss ratio comes in at some point, but all that really matters is top level premium because that's what most of these people are getting bonused on. Loss ratio is a conversation that uses a tool against us.

You could go into a book. Let's say you had 100 clients. Their deductibles are all super low and out of whack. Their coverage sucks. You go in and raise their liability limits. You push their deductibles up on property so they're not going to pay out nickel and dime claims. Ultimately the premiums come down in aggregate. What you just did was create a highly profitable, much more sticky, much more retained book of business that's going to be great long term for you. And you're going to get screwed in terms of revenue to you and to your agency. I guess that's part of just the way the world works.

Billy Van Jura: I think you said it. There is a point where I have saved a lot of these types of conversations for just the podcast because I am fatigued. I like having them here in these venues because it's fun and you get to talk. But all the Facebook posts and the LinkedIn threads—I'm fatigued by it. There is a reality of the way the world works. I have a business model that I'm going to execute because I think it's the way that I can leverage that world to do right by customers and make money. That's what I'm going to do. The days of trying to convince people that the shit you and I believe is the way—done convincing. You believe it or you don't, or figure it out on your own. The convincing days are over.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Yeah. No, it really is. Even like you had said before, when agents and leads and stuff—I've driven around this state a couple of times. All my focus is New York. I've met dozens of amazing agents who you don't even know they exist. They barely have a Google profile. They don't have a website. But they own their building. They've been in business for 35 to 65 years. Maybe they took over from a parent. They've been making 100 grand a year in some rural village for decades, writing everything off through the business. They're even as garbage as you think. Yet they're better than you and your new company. They're actually some of my biggest challenges because the math is just not there. They are correct. Their business doesn't go anywhere. By our standards, they treat their customers like shit. They're overpriced. They haven't remarketed a piece of business in years. Nobody questions them. If they leave, they've already done the math in their head. They don't really care if Sally leaves because they've already made money on Sally. It's beautiful and disgusting all at once.

Billy Van Jura: That's been my biggest challenge for years now. The lifestyle agent. I say this—whenever I get pulled in by a carrier and they ask me some questions about this or that, I know what I'm talking about. I'll say to them, "Are you building this for growth agents or lifestyle agents?" That's the question I started asking. "Don't pitch me something. We're going to do this whole thing. Is this for growth agents or lifestyle agents?" Some people will get it. A lot of them will look at you like, "What do you mean?" If you're looking at your agency plan and you haven't carved out lifestyle and growth agencies, then this is screwed day one. Lifestyle agencies could give two shits. If their spouse has a new seven series, if they have a house in some place they like to go other than their hometown, and their lights are on every day, they run every expense to their business. They could care less about losing a client. They know Tammy's going to refer her niece in, and they'll get that back over the year. They don't run their agency to be great insurance agencies. They run their agency to finance their lifestyle. That agent could give two craps about this new thing, even if they supposedly need it. They don't want it. Most of these new things we talk about are only for a very small subset of agencies versus the larger ecosystem who are growth focused, who are pedal to the floor, going as hard as they can. Everyone else could care less.

Ryan Hanley: Two things along that, because I'm just your choir at the moment. There's a guy closer to you than to me. Three locations. I'll send it to you afterwards. I finally got him on the phone. I said, "If you are interested in selling..." He says 900. I said, "Give me a few minutes. I've got a private finance, so you gotta make a phone call." I call the guy back. "What do you like? When could we be?" He says, "You got to show me some numbers." I said, "No, no. Hold on a second. I've got Derek who's been with me for a while. You're not changing anything until I got my money." I said, "That's not exactly how it's going to work. But if you want 900, which is really like one times revenue, that's giving it away." He says, "I don't know. Let me think about this." Exactly what you just said—kids are older and don't need his money. Owns two or three buildings that have his name on them. He started calculating. He knew at that moment, "Oh wait a second. I'm 80 something years old and I'm so good. But now a business person is offering me this much money." He's probably starting to do tax calculations. What is all the crap that I'm not showing anybody that I'm writing off? I admire him. I really do. At the same time, back to your lifestyle agent versus growth agent.

Billy Van Jura: How are you kind of questions of stuff? They're looking to maybe appoint some agents and undo some clusters. I've done this before. I pick up some of our URB companies—I don't know what they call them in other states. Little co-ops. I've never heard URB anywhere other than New York state. If you're in another state, you're under $50 million in premium, some cases under $10 million in premium. You tend to operate in one to six counties even though you got a statewide license. You go on their websites, pick out a grid of zip codes. I got a couple of guys on Fiverr that have done some stuff for me. They pull down all the agents. You look at it and you can identify pretty quickly who's the lifestyle versus who's the growth. But then I realized those aren't even accurate because what would happen is a Brown and Brown or out in the middle of the state a couple of bigger operations just relabel it. There would be nine entries for the same agency with nine different addresses. I'm like, "What are you actually doing there?" The answer is nobody cares. The guy that said he wanted his information—it was cool to see because I put it on the map and you can see just how clustered they are in one area. I think it's a huge opportunity to get me four hours away to buy one of those agencies because now you've got some spread. You're already geographically screwed at this point. But they don't care because honestly, some of these corporations—I can show you through their lifestyle companies, actual insurance companies that are lifestyle.

Ryan Hanley: I believe the sooner we kill the romance of the independent agent, the better. You distribute insurance. Get past anybody giving a shit about you being local because it's just not important. Doesn't matter. You said earlier, "Listen, I appreciate that you have a job running a state association or running a national association, but the reality is you're a lobbyist. In New York, I hate you because you couldn't even get the photo inspection thing passed after 10 years and millions of lobbying. Don't talk to me anymore. Don't ask me for more money because more money didn't solve your problem."

Billy Van Jura: There are actually lifestyle companies at this point that you and I probably work with. You're like, "Gosh, how can you tell me you want this, but you're not even optimizing your company because you're making so much money?" Have you ever driven by Community Mutual?

Ryan Hanley: When you say Community Mutual, I don't know. Community Mutual barely has an office because they're really in Vermont, right? Is that a community? It's part of an aggregate of mutuals that was created with shit.

Billy Van Jura: What's the one in Vermont?

Billy Van Jura: It's in Vermont. You know who it is because I know. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. But Community Mutual is literally a raised ranch. Yes. It's a raised ranch. You could go look up Franklin Fire, Cherry Valley, Walton Firing Cooperative. You look at the addresses like Otsego. But then there's a chart out there and I got rid of it because I kind of felt like I'd get some trouble if I hadn't. It shows their profitability. They're making 50 cents out of the dollar. They're destroying profitability numbers, but they're run by a board of eight to 20 people. God bless them. I am not, this is not a criticism.

Ryan Hanley: No, no.

Billy Van Jura: At the same time, oh my gosh, what I could do with your customer base where you're here. And I'll say them out loud because we don't do new business with them. They came in an acquisition. So not mutual. They're what you described. They sold their building because things are kind of tight. Now they rent the space. It's actually a really cool old converted building. It's out 90 just before Amsterdam, Fulton or something like that.

But they did something really cool like 30 years ago when I was looking up prospects. They made websites for older agents. Now, if you go look up agents now, you're finding Safeco, you're finding Travelers, you're finding Progressive. Those are your big three that you see them. And let's not even talk about how the agents aren't even using that tool. They're not even filling out the sheet completely. You've got this really, their search is better than your search and you're not even bothering to fill out the profile like it wants. But full month mutual made websites for their agents. I think it was in 2000, it's like before you and I even did the business.

Ryan Hanley: Yet the search is still beating Progressive and Travelers. It's insanity. I'd have to look at my notes, some of the pictures, the humans are actually dead. They're not even physically alive anymore, but the website exists. And it's like, how do I shit on you? I can't. What you did 23 years ago still works today and you're making your money. That's the thing, man. There's just New York is so odd with the history of New York and mutuals. Do you know Dave Iadonza from Dryden? He used to be like the number two, number three guy. And they recently kind of, I don't want to say pushed them out, but it's one of those bigger, we think we're bigger than they actually are. They show up on that Generals partner side and it's kind of weird. But people like Dryden, I like John, I think they're a good company. But Dave is a buddy of mine. He is New York insurance. You and him, what you would love having coffee with him. He just, it's New York insurance. He knows the mutuals. He knows the games. He knows the numbers. He knows all this stuff because he's been in the mutual game for so long. And he sent me some stuff. He probably sent me a similar chart to what you saw on profitability and stuff.

Billy Van Jura: These mutuals, I don't want to sound like I was knocking Community Mutual. I'm not. Community Mutual is a highly profitable company. It's just insane that there is this company, probably 20 million in premium tops, sitting in Skodak, New York, in a raised ranch that's just making ungodly amounts of profit because they have this niche market. They write just property in the eastern half of New York and non-flood zones. The rates are great on those particular properties, but they don't do anything else. And their loss ratio is nothing. You look at this and you're just like, oh my God, these people print money.

Ryan Hanley: We're going to bang on them. And all these young kids are gonna say, "Ah, you know why they don't do this? They don't have tech integrated and download." I'm like, yeah, except they print money. They absolutely print money. New York Mutual, not New York Central, but New York Mutual, is right over here in a strip plaza. It's in a freaking strip plaza. The comical thing, I'll kind of wrap three things in here. The first time I met them, you know who was across the hall from them? Effectively, how is this amazing technology modern company directly across the hall from this company that I have to fill out a PDF and email it to them and hopefully get a quote back this afternoon if Cindy's not busy?

Billy Van Jura: So when you say Community Mutual, I guess I say them out loud because who knows who's going to listen. I would love other examples. They can't figure this part out. Kid is down in Florida, direct property, et cetera, et cetera. Eventually they're going to pivot. We know what's going to come. Hippo did it openly, started that way. He'll have to pivot eventually. So Creek Valley, S-A-U-Q-U-O-I-T. If you just head out 90, you'll run into it. Like four employees. They are direct property insurance and like farms. It's amazing. Simple website. It's probably, like you said, just in a simple ranch building somewhere. They know who they serve and they do it amazing. They don't give a darn about any of the web stuff.

Ryan Hanley: But what I get stuck with is the what happens next. I think the sands or Iroquois or any of these big aggregators, the sooner they really develop an MGA program, the sooner they really develop their own carrier, the more interesting it gets. But then I get stuck. When I was out prospecting, inevitably down the street from so many of them is a community bank. You got some community banks around where you are?

Billy Van Jura: Yep.

Ryan Hanley: But they have an insurance operation. They have an insurance brokerage. They're probably doing 100 million dollars a year in premium, but they don't... Who are they? They're nothing. They just bought little operations, they run it efficiently, it's just another line item on their stuff.

Billy Van Jura: And you're saying nobody cares.

Ryan Hanley: They're just turning profits over on top of each other. I looked, and shame on me for not having the courage to do it. Generations Bank bought an operation. They're a public company, so they have to file. And somehow they're losing money on their acquisition. They have to file their stuff because they're a publicly traded operation. You read through the reports, like, how is it possible with all that infrastructure, you're losing money? How does that happen? Now they sold their operation to a Northwoods. Northwoods I've heard of it. I look at that and I'm like, how could you not figure this out? You have this infrastructure in place. Banks, I think, are the future. If you're a bank, a bank should be banking. That's the right word. Banks should be knocking down the door of regional SIA and similar situations and saying, "How do we work together?" Because I think there's just such a huge crossover.

Billy Van Jura: There's been Sheffy and Avi over at Coverager have been writing a lot lately about embedded insurance. I said on somewhere or the other, who the fuck knows where I said it, but I said sometime recently, I was like, I never believed that the shit that was going on in 2015, 2016, 2017 was going to disrupt our market. I do honestly believe that if there is a, I don't want to call it a technology, but if there is something that can truly disintermediate the independent insurance, and not everybody, but make a major impact, it's embedded insurance. I see it because we are doing it. We have partners that we're getting in front of and we're the insurance provider before that company even sniffs insurance. Before they even think about insurance, they're buying something else. And then Rogue is being presented to them as, "Do you want an insurance quote?" And then that person is being sent to us on a warm referral plate. Here's this company I just did a bunch of research on and bought shit from. And they're telling me to use these guys and it's being handed to us. That's never going to get down to the baseline local agents. That business will never get there. I'm not even the best at this. I'm a C player at best right now. Obviously we're trying to improve, but there are companies now, most of them right now are still run by the Silicon Valley dicks. But as soon as we get some insurance people and some of these embedded companies, dude, that's the stuff that scares the crap out of me. Think about how many people use Venmo. Think about how many people use PayPal. And now every single one of those tools is saying, "Hey, if you need insurance, we have a provider." Every time they use a function, they're being hit with it. Every time it's being thrown in their face. And then Sally on your team has one bad day. She's in a bad mood. Her husband gave her a ton of shit as she's walking out the door. She shows up, kind of bags it, does something shitty. That person looks at their Venmo and says, "Get a quote." And they go, "You know what? Fuck these guys." Beep. They get a quote, and now they're gone. And you're like, "What do we do?" And it's because they just got hammered over the head 17 times in every platform that they're in to buy insurance, and they decided to give it a try.

Ryan Hanley: And then the purists among us, and this is why I love your perspective on this, the purists among us are like, "Ah, you know, we're all our expertise." Yes, there are some very complicated, larger accounts that need our expertise. I get that. But more and more as the products become more and more commoditized. And guys, I have 57 markets. I have a pretty good feel for how commoditized our industry is, even at the small business level. There's only a certain level where we need that expertise. I'd say 10,000 under in premium. You don't need a human. You certainly don't need an experienced 30 year vet with all this expertise. I just don't think you do. There's not enough there. There's not enough risk there. You can package it up. It's all mashed across a hundred thousand accounts. It's easy for the carrier to distribute the risk. They boiler plate it and off you go.

Billy Van Jura: So you're human optimized. You're probably one of the first places I've heard that. You need to be able to do that. You need to reduce the options. A million dollars is a million dollars. New York State sets the rules. I don't care what policy the whole header has on there. You have a million dollars in liability. You have a million dollars in liability. Stop offering 300,000. They can be choose. It's a million. Take the numbers. It is what it is. So you're embedded. See, here's, I don't understand why it continues to be ignored. Munich Re has Hartford Steam Boiler. I know you're not looking at your service line endorsement, but let me break the news to you. It's not coming from Safeco or the other carrier or whoever. I just said Safeco because it came to mind. It's coming from Hartford Steam Boiler. They've already shown you how embedded works and white-labeled works. Take another one. Not far from you, and it didn't pan out because the guy sold his business, which is fine. Good for him. Sharon Springs Garage. You don't know it. I don't know it. When I say Sharon Springs Garage, like, what is it? It's a hardware store. Three locations. Very successful hardware stores in Troy, Sharon Springs, and one other location. Kubota tractors. I don't own one. I don't expect to ever own one. But they're financed just like cars. If you buy a Kubota tractor and it's financed, guess what? You need insurance. Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to add your Kubota tractor to your homeowner's insurance policy? Colossal. If you're listening, you know it's not necessarily the easiest thing. And it's also not super quick. So if you work with Komodo, who has Allianz, I believe it's Allianz behind the scenes. You have Allianz paper insuring that tractor. The guy just bought a tractor worth more than your car. You think he's a good prospect? You don't think we could sell more into that? Allianz partnering up with a... I just don't get why the brokerages are still spending so much money on advertising. I think you just need to partner with Holly Hans and say, "This guy's got 13,000 customers, emails, mailing lists, everything's in place. What are we doing?" So you take the embedded and you leverage it already exists. So don't tell me it's not going to work because it already is working.

Ryan Hanley: It's beautiful though. It's exciting. I love all this stuff, dude. I can talk to you about this shit forever. I want to be with you time. My time we're way over. This is, I love these conversations. We'll have to do this more often. I'm glad you took the time. We went all over the place. But this is somebody likes it.

Billy Van Jura: Oh, no, they will. And if they don't, they can screw off because I loved it. I appreciate the hell out of you, man.

Ryan Hanley: If people want to just connect with you, is LinkedIn the best place? Where's the best place if someone just wants to connect with you?

Billy Van Jura: Most of you don't like me on Twitter. So it's like, I tell you, there's a couple of us that like talk and avoid it. You're in there like we have dialogues. I said this, I caught some flack over something a few months ago and I really kind of recoiled a bit. I was like, "Gosh, you just attacked me personally." It wasn't attacking my idea, it was like they came at me personally. I got it, it was like one message and it was one comment, it was one message. But I was like, "You didn't attack the idea. You came after me as a human being." I'm out. I'm just not gonna bother. I'm not questioning anybody. I don't root, I don't have time to root against you, nor would I give a shit to root against you. We're just asking questions. We're just two people that like to think bigger. And now I'm gonna listen. I'm gonna put my head down and go do some freaking paper applications and just point a bunch of business. I know what I'm talking about because I've done years of work. You've done years of work on this stuff. I get frustrated with, like you said, Sheffy before. She's been around for seven years. Where have you been? You were aware of her. You're aware of the accelerators and stuff. This stuff's been happening. You don't have to pay attention, but it's been there.

Ryan Hanley: The thing I love about Avi and Sheffy is that I know they think about what they say. They do not say anything on a whim. They have proven over time and they both come with pedigree even before they start a Coverager. What I love about their perspective is they're always pushing the bounds, but I think they do it in a respectful way. And also you can disagree with them and they will have an engaging conversation with you. There are things that I have disagreed with both of them on, and we have awesome conversations and then you move on. That's what it should be. I think both of them are wonderful. I'm a huge supporter. People will dismiss them. And I'm like, yeah, at your peril. Dismiss their perspective at your peril for sure.

Billy Van Jura: Hey man, it's good stuff. Appreciate you.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Be good, buddy. Later, man.

Billy Van Jura: See you later.

Ryan Hanley: See you later.

[End of conversation. Podcast outro begins.]

Narrator: Three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call closed 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.