More than a Green Jacket: Lessons from Augusta for Your Agency

Shane and Tonya tee off with a conversation about what The Masters can teach us about agency ownership. From Rory McIlroy’s daughter reminding him, “You already know how to play golf,” to recognizing the value of your own strengths and systems, this episode is about presence, persistence, and trusting yourself.  

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Transcript

Announcer: [00:00:00] This is IA Forward your Playbook for Success as an independent insurance agent. Here to help you knock it outta the ballpark are your host, Shane Tatum and Tonya Lead.  

Tonya: Welcome to IA Forward. Shane, we got some feedback from some of our listeners recently that we don't talk about sports as much as we used to. 

What's that about?  

Shane: Hard market. We're distracted by craziness in the insurance market and nobody has a hobby anymore because. We don't have time for that. We probably forget to stop and talk about the things that are a little more fun and lighthearted.  

Tonya: One of our greatest cultural sporting events happened recently, and that is the masters. 

I will never forget the story of my dad flying into Augusta. He went several times and. He always talks about, but the point that people's favorite players would start to lose, people would just start [00:01:00] arriving and leave. He always talked about getting to fly in and out of Augusta and what craziness that was, especially their on Masters week and weekend. 

And some of the stories are probably not safe for work podcasts, so we won't go there. But watching the Masters this year just seemed a little more special than usual.  

Shane: Have you seen the flight graphic about the number of private jets in and out over the course of that week?  

Tonya: It is crazy. There are not that many parking spaces. 

A deer force, you are pulling up a several million dollar jet on grass. Next to another several million dollar jet, and they're basically parking you in airplanes just like they do at a high school football game.  

Shane: Is there a valet process when you get in there or is it like park your own jet?  

Tonya: Insurance companies don't let other people do that. 

Shane: So it's a self-park. You have no choice but to choose the self parking option. If [00:02:00] you arrive late, then you got. Bubba with the flashlight guiding you to the overflow parking out in the practice field?  

Tonya: Absolutely, 100%. That's the  

Shane: visual I have in my head right now.  

Tonya: Yes, that's exactly the visual you should be having. 

Shane: But to your point, yes, it was special. I'm a roaring McElroy fan. I guess different people have different opinions there. I love Scheffler too. He's a tea sipper, as we would say in Texas, meaning he's a Longhorn. I'm married. And have a house full of Aggies, so I have to root for him quietly. So much there. 

In terms of the story behind the story and stories within the story around the incredible event, I knew the masters were their own thing. I love golf, but I've been on a golf fast or golf sabbatical since my girls entered. Playing sports a decade ago. I've been chasing them, following them, and involved theirs. 

I put my clubs away to be resurrected eventually, but I've moved away [00:03:00] from following as much as I used to. I missed that. The masters, while it's its own thing, while it's has its own TV deal, all this stuff, I miss the fact that they forego TV revenue as I understand it, so they can control the. Commercial breaks so that they can control the coverage. 

Tonya: Not only do they forego the commercial, they forego course sponsorships, like you don't see all of the signage there at the Masters. It is all about being in the moment. I love the no cell phone rule. I think that is so fantastic. I love the chair rule. I love everything about that. I love the master's gnomes, and I am not a gnome girl, but I love the fact that people will line up to try to get one of these masters gnomes every single day. 

'cause they only put out, what, a thousand a day or something, [00:04:00] and looking at the amount of money that they make. On merch. It's unreal. Like absolutely crazy.  

Shane: Yeah. You're gonna have to elaborate on the gnome. I miss that. I know about Amen Corner. I know about the pageantry of the Masters. I know about the way the TV deal is structured. 

The exclusiveness of Augusta National. I have no idea about the gnome  

Tonya: every year of the masters. If they create a gnome figurine and they're different every single year, it is the biggest master souvenir that there is. They put out a thousand a day first thing in the morning, and people are literally lined up to try to get one of these gnomes. 

If you don't get one the first day, you come back the second day, and if you don't get one the second day, you come back the third day and you stand in line to get a nu and every single year. They're a different design. It's a big master's thing.  

Shane: Are they hidden? Can you just grab 'em off the shelf or are they [00:05:00] hidden? 

You  

Tonya: grab 'em off the shelf, yeah. Okay. I  

Shane: think I could enhance that a little bit. Let's hide 'em around the course and you gotta go find them. Maybe that's a way to do that. Is there anything other than a garden on, is that what they are?  

Tonya: The little garden gnomes. This year's, he was in a, a little peach sweater last year. 

He wore an argyle sweater. He's. Dressed for the masters every year. He, one year he was in his little cargo shorts. Yep.  

Shane: It's just so incredibly interesting to me about the way that they have created this mystique through the decades and back to the cell phone policy since you brought that up. That to me is, is one of the most incredible things. 

There's nobody sneaking that. You see the pictures. You just see people as it used to be. It leaves me wanting so much more of that in society. I don't know where we're gonna get it from.  

Tonya: Beyond Rory winning the Masters, which I was thrilled for him. His daughter, poppy, got [00:06:00] some interesting airtime throughout the week, and she was not prepared for this. 

I don't think he was prepared for this. She had a fantastic putt during the three par family game that just kicked off publicity for her throughout the week. But my favorite moment was after the mattress was over and Rory was talking about something that she had said to him. He had said that he was telling her that he needed to go away for a few days to take a golf lesson, but he would be bad. 

Her response was, but Daddy, you already know how to play golf. And he said that was the best piece of advice that he'd gotten in years when it comes to mindset and thinking about that as a business owner. Thinking about that in your agency, how many times are we taking outside advice from so many people? 

When we really already know how to be successful,  

Shane: that's a [00:07:00] huge issue for our agencies in the world today. So much hype around things like ai, so much hype around people selling their consultation services, selling their. Advice, their guidance, those individuals are loud because their message has to be, they're excited about what they have to say, and many of them are saying good things. 

I'm not bashing on that. Subset of the industry to Poppy's point, however, and to your point, there are a lot of really successful agencies and agency owners maybe that don't have the confidence that they should have. They're good at what they do. If I put myself in Rory's shoes at that moment, as he's taking that advice from his. 

Three-year-old, it hits him. I'm pretty good at this game. Everybody's talking about. I haven't won this one. I've come in second. I've been [00:08:00] so close. The career Grand Slam is right at my fingertips. This subtle reminder from your three-year-old says, you already know how to do this. To our agency owners listening, you really do already know how to do this because you're already successful. 

Now, those starting out in their first few years, definitely need to understand what you don't know and always be a lifelong learner. But don't forget what you've learned and what you know and what you know not to do. There's so much pressure that goes into this feeling of being left behind, this self-imposed pressure that we need to be able to block out. 

Sometimes we have an agent we work with, one of our partners, Sean Nunley. Sean is primarily still a solopreneur, has an incredible book of business. North of 6 million in premium and continues to grow that [00:09:00] book of business. And he struggles with making that leap to to hire people. And I recently talked to him at conference and I said, why are you worried about it? 

You don't have to hire anybody. He has a virtual assistant through our VA partner, and that works for him. He's talked about hiring a producer or figuring out which path should he go. Should he hire some support staff? Should he hire another producer? He's been at that crossroads for a while and I've encouraged him to not be in a rush. 

It's okay, like you make a incredible living. You have an incredibly valuable book of business. And like it's okay to drown out the noise from the outside that's saying you gotta do something different or you gotta look like what everybody else traditionally looks like. It's time to hire people. Captive organizations force this on their agents. 

Hey, it's time to hire someone that just cuts into your profitability. What if you're more [00:10:00] efficient than the average? What if you're better than the average? That's the thing that comes into play here. You already know. How to do this so. Take a deep breath and keep going. You don't have to follow the crowd here. 

Tonya: Let's unpack Sean A. Little bit, talking about not following the crowd now, talking about the size of his book, how successful he has been. Sean is the antithesis of this shiny object guy,  

Shane: 100.  

Tonya: I think Sean still has the same website that he got 10 years ago when he came on board with us, and it's never been touched. 

He's not a big social media guy. He does business his way and he's successful at it.  

Shane: It's the basic website. That's the funny part. It's, it's basically his name and a little background and how to get in touch with him.  

Tonya: There's not even a picture of him on there.  

Shane: He opted out of the picture. He has a system. 

And he's committed to his system and his system is very efficient. And [00:11:00] I once at our conference, heard an easy links product manager, say after an agent panel, Hey, can I talk with you? I want to learn more about your system. His system, very offline oriented, anti-tech oriented,  

Tonya: right? He has 31 folders in his desk drawer. 

Shane: He's committed to it. It works for him. He's obviously efficient with it 'cause he has a predominantly personalized book of business. Fanatically fantastic at serving his customers. He also does a really good job of understanding what not to do for a customer in terms of which customers. He's figured out who his customers are. 

It's huge. Charles spect millionaire producer recently published a social media that says You don't need 5,000 or something like that. You only need 50. He's a commercial lines producing Co producer coach has a training program and he, he's basically talking about you only need 50 clients and. There's truth in what he's saying, like [00:12:00] you don't have to have 5,000 clients. 

You don't have to have yourself spread thin. Sean has figured out how to do this with. Policy per customer ratio and how to be efficient and how to be married, so to speak to his process in such a way that he can do it in his sleep. It gives him capacity back. A low tech method that you do really well can actually be better than an automated process. 

That you have to spend a lot of capacity in dollars monitoring. Okay? I'm not anti automation. I'm very much for automation. We use a lot of it, but in his case, and it could be your case if this is you, there's another way. Agents that struggle the most are the ones that are a little more in Sean's camp of how to do business. 

But they try to be the automated guy and it's just not who they are. It's not their culture, it's not their [00:13:00] personal knowledge. They don't necessarily understand it, and they get frustrated with technology. Why are you forced in the square peg in the round hole? That's what Sean's figured out. That's what I love about and applaud. 

His approach is he knows who he is. He's not trying to be someone he's not. He already knows how to do insurance. He already knows how to run his agency. He's not anti learning. He's just not chasing the latest shiny object. He's doing what he does really well over and over again.  

Tonya: Do you think the chase after the shiny object, it's because people are trying to achieve an idea of perfection that doesn't exist. 

They believe that new piece of technology, that new scheduler, that new thing is gonna get them to that perfection.  

Shane: Yes, there's that. My opinion done is better than [00:14:00] perfect. That's something I heard several years ago. I, I believe in that people are chasing this perfection that may not exist. But I also think people are being told over and over again that it's out there that X, Y, Z agency's doing it. 

That to me, where the friction starts, they're chasing someone else's dream. They've adopted someone else's dream. This is a term that I've seen start to surface over the last few years, stopped chasing someone else's dream. This is something that I was guilty of early in my career. And find myself at times having to manage against falling back into that spot comparison, the comparison game, the peer review of what's going on, what's your competition doing? 

There's a lot of folks that have found a consulting business in. Teaching people about these dreams and helping people chase that [00:15:00] dream, and that sometimes agents don't want to do it, but they feel compelled to do it because everybody's feels like they're doing it and yet they're successful doing what they're doing. 

And if they would just do that a little bit more, they would be ultra successful. Without going down that path, and so there's a lot of perfection chasing that comes into play here. We're all guilty of it. We gotta be careful about that. Contentment doesn't mean you don't strive for continued success or growth. 

It's just something my youngest daughter ate, taught me recently is being content in that moment. You can be a driven person, but also find contentment in your moment. That doesn't mean you're settling. That's the problem that we interpret contentment as settling like I give up, which is a no-no for driven people, I can't do it. 

Settling makes me feel like I'm giving up. It makes [00:16:00] me feel like I've have nothing left to strive for. That's always been my problem with contentment, especially scriptural. But that's not really what happens in true contentment. True contentment is about being content in the moment in the place you're in. 

It doesn't mean you're settling. That is an area that we struggle with as agency owners 'cause we live in vacuums. The adage at the executive level, the agency ownership level is it's lonely at the top. A lot of truth to that. Not a lot of people that you can talk to that understand, and so that's the other thing there is. 

You see this person that puts out this image on social media and you assume their world is perfect, you assume that perfection does exist. You go and you say, I want that, and I'm gonna chase that person's ultimate dream, instead of realizing that you got a pretty good thing going on, that if you would just double down on that, you would be really good. 

Tonya: [00:17:00] Going back to Master's week, I. There was this incredible putt that Poppy had during the par three family game earlier in the week, and when she made this putt, the crowd went wild. Everybody that was playing went wild. Another little girl that was playing ran up and grabbed Poppy and swung her around. I love that Rory was so present with his daughter in that moment that he went over and spent time with her. 

It wasn't this, oh my gosh, you just did the greatest thing on the planet. It was. Are you okay? I'm proud of you. There was a very intimate family moment between the two of them while everybody else was going crazy. And that's one of the things, as agency owners, we truly have the opportunity to have that presence with our families and we get so caught up in all of the other stuff that we [00:18:00] forget that presence. 

Is the most important thing, whether it's presence with our clients or presence with our family, presence within our spiritual life. Wherever we need to be. We have the opportunity to have that  

Shane: huge, important thing that you're talking about that is a struggle. Let's just be real about the struggle, social media comparison like. 

Incredible tool, credible business tool. Social media is the marketing capability of it. The problem is that there's very little boundaries around how we use it, what happens to us, how we get sucked in. There's documentaries on this and. Rory was able to be a dad in that moment and separate himself from really glamorizing it in a way or raising his own image through that process as one of the outspoken ab sustainers, the LIV tour, the PGA thing, and [00:19:00] how all that went down. 

It's not shocking. It's not shocking that he was able to stay in the moment and be present and be a dad first. He's obviously in front of cameras, a huge amount of people he's at. The most prestigious course in maybe the world, and it's easy to try to shove yourself forward at that moment and generate better image, maybe financial, more money. 

And his natural response was, I. To be a dad. My interpretation of his daughter's response to this crowd noise, which is very natural, was to withdraw and be a little bit upset. I'm not so sure that she didn't actually get upset.  

Tonya: That was my interpretation as well.  

Shane: If you watch it just a little bit,  

Tonya: you're like,  

Shane: oh, that upset her. 

She's upset, and here he comes, being full dad mode, comforting, securing. It's okay, baby. You did a great job. Whatever he said. That is the theme [00:20:00] being present in the moment for us. It's probably not going to be in front of millions of people on TV or a YouTube video that gets in views. It's probably going to be a quieter moment of being present. 

Those are growing moments. Those are wins. Those are quiet wins that we can build off of. As just who we are. It's really sharing it with the people that matter most to us. If you can stay more present, that's it. That's the thing for me, the way I see it, uh, the lens, I see the world through. Why do I work to be successful? 

If you know anything about me, it's not my wardrobe. I wear like the same five shirts. It drives my wife crazy. I have a couple of pairs of jeans and some Duluth. Pants that I absolutely love because I found pants that fit short legged guys, and so that's exciting. And I bought three colors and I bought two pair of each color. 

Right. [00:21:00] It's really three pairs of pants, but it's six pairs of pants. It's efficient, my whole wardrobe, and I constantly get encouraged by my lovely bride to wear something different. Occasionally, I'll get a great Father's Day gift for a new shirt or a birthday gift, and Christmas gifts for new shirts. 

I'm not. I'm using clothing as a silly object lesson around I don't strive to make money to be successful financially, so I can spend it on myself. I do it so that I can take my family on vacation, prepare to continue in the empty nest life, travel with my wife, spend time with my family. Those are way more important than. 

What gets created in the realm of celebrity status or the social media realm of what life should be like. It's not real. There's enough people listening to this podcast today and maybe even in the future who feel that same way, and that's why [00:22:00] we do what we do. We know that. Everybody's not going to say Shane, Tonya, I agree with you. 

We know that there are plenty of people out there that are gonna be like, I want a billion dollars and then I want $2 billion. I want more and I'm never gonna be satisfied. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that.  

Tonya: We were both there at one point.  

Shane: Absolutely. I've been there. What really matters, and Rory McElroy and Poppy showed us a lot about what really matters was not the point of winning the masters. 

For him, it was this. Striving, I guarantee you financially, if you were to ask Roy McElroy, Hey, do you need more money? Are you continuing to play golf for the money? He makes a great living. He's a multimillionaire, and I guarantee you the answer is no. I'm trying to just be better every weekend. I'm trying to be better every year, and his pursuit of the masters championship and the green jacket. 

What'd you say? 12, 13 years. How long has he been, how long has he been chasing that thing?  

Tonya: He's been chasing, he's been [00:23:00] playing the Masters for 20 years.  

Shane: He's chasing this career Grand Slam, which is the four majors over the course of your career. It puts him in one of five or six people to do this chasing. 

That had nothing to do with the money. It had nothing to do with a better celebrity status. It had nothing to do with what you would think it had to do with in some circles. It had everything to do with. Winning. Achieving a goal. That's the thing that made me resonate back to why do we get up every day and go to work in our agencies? 

Why do we own independent agencies? Why do you continue to do it? I continue to do it because I think it's the best business in the world. I don't continue to do it because I'm trying to beat the guy next to me and don't continue to do it because I'm trying to beat the largest agency network. That's out there or be equal to the largest agency network. 

We're not trying to be the largest anything. We're trying to be the best that we can be, and that's better tomorrow than we are today. That's what I love about [00:24:00] watching the masters and watching Rory and the pursuit. I did catch it live when he was on the 18th and he missed the putt. He hit it, hid it in the sand. 

He got up and down, missed the putt. Here we go again. The agony of, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go second again. The risk that he fell into, there's a mental strength that showed up that you could see him, you could see his focus. He's even been criticized because he wasn't chatty with his. Playing partner that day. 

Come on, let's be real. It's not a time to be the friendliest guy on the course you're trying to focus. So just for that mental toughness to be able to go through that day, be in the driver's seat, lose it, and then win in the playoff, you could just see the emotion over his face. There's so much to learn from that in our businesses, the way he went about his day, his weekend, his week. 

That's the thing that caught my attention the most.  

Tonya: I really saw that moment as a reset. When it comes to golf. You [00:25:00] can't let a bad hole define a round. You can't let a bad round define the entire tournament, and that last round wasn't his best, but he took a breath, did a mental reset, move forward, and he did what he needed to do, and through this hard market, I think that's the definitive. 

Thing that agents that have been successful realize this tough day doesn't define who they are or their journey towards success. This tough year, this tough 4,692 days, does not define who they are. It does not define their agency, and it does not define who they are as a person. And that toughness is there and has grown. 

Sometimes our agents and our agency owners forget to give themselves a pat on the back. Give yourself some grace. You've made it through a lot and you're still going, as Simon Sinek would say, you're still in the game. You are playing the infinite game.  

Shane: There's [00:26:00] all that energy that so many agents spend chasing someone else's dream. 

I wanna challenge you and encourage you to spend that energy working on your own development. When I think back, and then I got a long ways to go, but when I think back over the last 20 years, I read a lot. I still read a lot, but I read a whole lot more earlier in my life. I learned over time that I had to be better at discerning what to apply and what not to apply. 

There's a lot of stuff in books, some good, some not. The challenge becomes taking the good nugget. Out of the stuff you read out of the stuff that you do, developing yourself as an owner, as a business owner, as an agency owner, as a person is where we should be spending our energy more than, how can I be like that agency across town or how can I be like that agency that I saw on social media or the Rough Notes Agency of the Month? 

It's still a thing, but it was a really big thing 20 years ago is get the Rough Notes magazine in and I would be [00:27:00] the. Agency of the month, and there was an agency of the month, and I read about these agencies and I would be like, let's do that. And then it wasn't necessarily who we were, and that's not what we need to be doing. 

The conferences that are just over the top and all the different speakers talking about, if you're not using ai, you're dead. If you're not on the forefront, there's just, that's the latest shiny object thing, but truly working on yourself. In terms of personal development, my wife makes fun of me because we go to Barnes and Noble and I go to the self-help section, is what she calls it. 

Yes, in a way, but really what I'm looking for is the next nugget I'm looking for. The thing that maybe I. Is a weakness of mine and being objective about that weakness, like being honest with yourself. Where are you weak? I have weaknesses and I know that, and I've learned that over time. I'm [00:28:00] constantly trying to get better at those weaknesses. 

That is going to pay you way more dividends. Than chasing someone else's dream. You're already here. You're already committed. You've made the financial investment, the sweat equity investment. Just do what you do and grow yourself. Sure there's things you'll learn along the way that'll help your agency become better, more effective, more efficient, possibly. 

Or you may figure out that you're pretty good at it already and you just need to double down on what you're doing. And that's the part that I think we always forget about is we forget about the doubling down or tripling down on what we already do. And that's where I get into this thing where. I get accused because we help so many captive agents move into the independent agent space and they are naturally personal lines agents. 

That's what they've done for years, and so I'm like, just do that. It's okay. You don't have to be a commercial lines agent. You don't have to [00:29:00] write commercial lines. I love it if you write commercial lines. We love growing our commercial lines business. That's not a prerequisite that you get into the independent agency space and you have to start doing commercial. 

That's not required. There are a lot of agents who have taken that to heart and they're incredible personal lines, agencies with incredible books of business that are worth a lot of money, and there are those that get. Distracted and dabble in commercial and it disrupts their whole operation. Not looking across town or across the social media spectrum and going, I want to be like that other guy and chasing someone else's dream. 

Tonya: I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Roy McElroy. You learn a lot more from the lows than the highs. You don't learn much from winning  

Shane: attitude to choice. Make a great one.  

Tonya: Bye y'all.  

Announcer: At the Integra Partner Network, we understand that carrier access is the key to your agency's success. That's why Integra offers direct access to top rated personal and commercial carriers. 

Ensuring your agency thrives in [00:30:00] today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing and bonus opportunities, technology and peer support, all while you retain a hundred percent of your book with no penalties to exit Integra, it's ready to empower you and your agency To find sustained growth, find your way to Integra. 

Visit integra of partner network.com today. That's integra partner network.com.