From Survival to Thriving

Independent insurance agency owners balance tension between short-term pressure and long-term growth, trying to survive, scale, and stay sane.

This episode challenges why so many owners overcommit early, how comparison can distort progress, and why real agency growth rarely happens in a straight line. From snowball effects to the danger of panic-driven decisions, this is a practical reminder that lasting success is usually built more slowly than we want, but bigger than we imagine.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you not get out of the ballpark for your hosts, Shane Tatum, Danya Leed, Mike Basil, and Robbie Javore.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to IA Forward. And Shane has no idea what we are talking about today, even though it is on his calendar and an 18's message.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

It is not on my calendar. It is not on my calendar anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I sent it to you and it's in Mike's calendar and it's in Robbie's calendar. So I'm not quite sure where the technological breakdown is, but I'm just saying if it's three to one, it might be with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Unless you have the final veto vote and then it's one to three overrides very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Mike, did you finally get to your Hot Pocket yesterday, wondering what the topic was?

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Yeah. Yeah. If I don't know ahead of time, you know, I get real flustered. I do barely just like Shane.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Shane has done this podcast for four years not knowing what the topic is when we start. But today, today he has decided that this is important to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I don't really care. Like you're right. Like it doesn't really matter. We're just going to talk about what we're going to talk about. But I was just curious because we always ask, what are we talking about today? So I just was, you know, decided, I think, well, okay, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

So we're going to talk a little Bill Gates. And what's interesting is that this is a Bill Gates quote, but Tony Robbins did a session recently on this as well. And that is how we overestimate what we can do in a year, but we underestimate what we can do in a decade. And I think this is a really fantastic topic for us as independent agency owners, especially new agency owners.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

I know there's people in this house over here that overestimate what they can do in the 30 minutes we're going to have before we're leaving the house, but I don't think that's the topic here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I I concur with that comment about you have to give the 15-minute buffer rule, right? Like if you have to leave at 7:30, you say you leave at 7.15.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

You yes, you gotta know that, right? Like that's just something I learned years ago, years ago as a girl dad, right? Like that's just a reality.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And Shane also, I think, does this for me for for uh Integra events as well, because he's a girl dad and he understands how my mind thinks, and that's okay. I I totally accept that. Now, do you guys do the time check with your significant other type humans?

SPEAKER_03 3:02

I'm gonna go with no because I don't know what that is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

You know, like if you're supposed to leave at 7:30 and therefore you're leaving at 7.15 at like 645, do you start doing the it's 645 and it's seven o'clock and it's 710 and start doing the the time checks?

SPEAKER_04 3:23

I gotta do that with the kids in the morning because I'm the one that takes them to school every day. Shelly gets to work early. So yeah, 6.50, I'm announcing it, you know, 7 o'clock, I'm announcing it. Because we got to get out of the door at a certain time, and if we don't, then it really kind of messes up the morning. Uh kind of like today. Just a few minutes kind of changes the whole outcome.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Oh, if you start late, if you start late, you're you're doomed. Right.

SPEAKER_04 3:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

And that was saying yesterday, y'all. He started late yesterday, and I didn't get up.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

I get it. I I get up every weekday morning at 5 a.m. 5.15. Fudge a little bit there. And my day's great. Yesterday morning, Monday was the morning, and it I slept in till 6 15, 6 30, something like that. And I was tired. It was like not getting up, and my day was a total disaster all day. Stayed behind, running behind all day.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Why on earth do you get up at 5 15?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

That's his coffee time with Julie.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

No, Julie's walking, running at that time. Oh my gosh. So that's my uh, that's my um, well, number one, Mike, I live in Texas and it's not 40 below at 5 a.m. Um, so unlike, you know, four months, five months out of your year. And um, so I get up, morning routine. I know this is not our topic, but uh make make first little you know cup of coffee. Um, I do my uh quiet time, my Bible study. Um then I get ready for you people, right? Like for like 30 minutes, right? I I look at my calendar, I look at my day, I make notes, what did I forget to prepare for? So it's kind of it's kind of like my catch-all preparation for procrastinating to the day of. So it sounds really good on paper. Wow, Shane gets up at 5 a.m. every day. Shane gets up at 5 a.m. because he probably procrastinated the day before to prepare for what was going to happen that day, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I mean, if I was getting up at 5:15, I'll tell you what, you'd have to throw a handle on this for the amount of coffee I would need to function. That is that is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

I love when Mike brings out the props. It brings me such joy. And this is why it doesn't matter if I give Shane a topic, because he's gonna talk about exactly what he wants to talk about. And apparently that is going to be what should you do first thing in the morning?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

No, we're not gonna talk about that because everybody's got their preference, you know. You you do what you do you, you do you, right? You do you.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I thought that was a fireable offense to use that term. It's like using a sticky note, putting a label on an envelope crooked, and you do you. Those are the three things you don't do in a time, or or close your blinds.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Why well it yeah, I'm getting older, you know. I used some sticky notes the other day. I'm saying phrases that I severe severely dislike. You know, it is strange, it's a new day.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Next time I'm down there, I'm gonna make a blind out of sticky notes. There you go, and put it on one of those windows. That'll that's all that'll get you rolling. I don't get hesitation.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

You don't need your coffee that day. I definitely have to say this though. I didn't have Bill Gates on my calendar. I'm just saying Bill Gates is not on my calendar.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

As the fabulous Deanna Cassidy would say, Well, bless. So our topic, why do we overestimate what we could do in a year and underestimate tenure? Try it.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Talk less today, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, you tried that last week too. It didn't you made it six minutes.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

You did good this morning, though. Your 30 minutes, I mean it it went over what, three minutes? That wasn't bad.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, we had an all-staff call this morning for 30 minutes, and it was 33 minutes, and that's perfection.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

That's awesome. I I think we I don't know. I think we overestimate, period. Like we overcommit, overestimate I'm terrible at this. Like uh squeeze too much in uh things that really should take a lot of time are they just take time. Like things take time. You have to the the the adjustments, um sometimes it's a hurry up and wait process. Sometimes you're uh you're just cramming too much into um into days and and you really don't get anything done. So I think it's just a overcommitment society, maybe that we live in would be uh one school of thought.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Hard to say no, you know, sometimes. Um but I think from a a new agency owner perspective, the overestimating is just, in my opinion, and um the desire to see a return on your investment quickly. You know what I mean? Like they've got to feed their family, you know, they don't want to turn away business. So it that that 10-year outlook where how you build your business initially, how you want to look down the road, a lot of it has to do with what how disciplined you can be up front. And it's hard. I just see it from agents that we bring on sometimes. It's just hard not to get in that mindset.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

I think that um, you know, there's two parts to that, right? We're starting what we're overestimating what we can do in a year, and we're underestimating what we can do in a decade, right? And I think your mindset within that has a lot to do with it in terms of, you know, when you're just starting, you have all this gusto and you feel like you can conquer the world, and then you get beat down, inevitably along the way, you get beat down a little bit, and now you start to question what you can accomplish over a longer period of time. Plus, you have all the low-hanging fruit that you can collect in that first 12 months, that's obviously not there anymore. And what you're not necessarily taking into consideration is the snowball effect. We talk about the snowball effect a lot internally. That you know, one client, you do well for that one client, that's fantastic. They they might tell five friends, okay, now you get a couple of those, then they tell another five friends. You have to keep that snowball effect mindset as you start thinking about law.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

In my bathroom, I have a um a plaque that a friend of mine gave me years ago that says surviving is important, but thriving is elegant. And to me, it's the idea that annual thinking is survival mode. Like I've got to do all of these things to survive. And then the idea of a decade or five years or even three years, you know, that is that is ownership mode. That's that's thriving and figuring out what does it take to go from survival to thriving. And our brains start to think differently, like, and they start to overestimate and say, well, if I double revenue this year, then I'll get to I'll get to thriving, or if I hire uh two or three producers, then I'm gonna be able to thrive, or if I can just get these these three carriers or this one carrier that I'm that I'm losing against, that's gonna solve my profitability issue, right? And so we start to think what will take us from survival to thriving, and then we start to focus on maybe even the wrong things or too many things.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

I I don't, I mean, I know Bill Gates has been moderately successful financially, um, you know, somewhat. I I just don't know if I love these timelines. Like I I I understand the point of of a year and a decade. I do. But I'm thinking about the independent agency and certainly starting your own agency. Um I I just I I really like 90 to 120 days versus three years, 36 months. Um you know, we have we have benchmarks in our organization, in our agency network, and and and agents that partner with us can earn benchmark bonuses. And we have those benchmarks set. Uh, there's four of them, right? Nine months, 15 months, 30 months, and 42 months. And so we really kind of kind of uh cap that off at that that three and a half year mark. And we do that, we do that so that agents can kind of do this, what we're talking about, like not get overwhelmed, like do the little things day in and day out to how's their progress going. And the reason that there's you know, there's premium dollars at those time intervals, right? So it's both premium production and a time interval standpoint. Um, like I get the 12, I get the one-year decade kind of thing. Um, and you know, on the flip side of those time frames, and then you have like our benchmark, you also have the guys over uh the software company at 37 Signals who say, you know, they do everything on two weeks and six-week intervals. Like they're even really crazy about the way they look at time and and what can get accomplished and what people can get accomplished within a certain amount of time, right? Um, and then just this morning in our all-staff meeting, I was talking about it, just hit me during that call that a year ago we made uh an acquisition of a small agency here in our community that brought us two individuals. One of those individuals was who we uh you know realized during the interview process was a great candidate to be our service center director. And we were not planning to launch our service center until the fourth quarter or start preparing, start building our service center until the fourth quarter of 2025. And because of you know, the acquisition, because of finding Caitlin, we sped that up and we started working on our service center build out at the end of quarter one, 2025, and we're in pilot right now, a year later. Like what was accomplished in a year was was crazy. And um, I I actually thought it was kind of slow, right? Because let's go back to our point. I thought we were going too slow. Like, what do you mean we're gonna pilot first quarter of 26? Like, this is first quarter 25. Why can't we pilot in July? Like, like that was my brain. Like, why can't we do this? And uh Tara and Caitlin talked me into a longer runway, a more realistic build-out. And I I went with it. Like I, you know, I I took a step back, gave them a little more rope, and just sort of like, hey, okay, I'll go with your deal. And, you know, a year feels like a long time to a salesperson, but when you back up and look at it from an ownership standpoint, like the fact that we are here and that we are really foundationally built around our service center, we have a legit shot of this being really successful. And versus my approach, which would have been like get it up and running in four months and let's start piloting it in August of and let's be live by the end of the year. Like I would have probably run some people off, I we would have run people in the ground, we would have, we would have had some missteps with our processes, we'd have had some upset partner agents, because I'm a sales guy at heart, I'm a marketing guy at heart, and so I'm not an operations guy. And and I let the operations people take the lead and do this. And so I I think I think it's really interesting to think about this topic as in general, not just our own mindset, but just the realities of what we've experienced.

SPEAKER_04 17:28

You know, that's that's a really good the service center is a good point. If you think about it, Shane, 2018 was actually the first time you wanted to get into this venture, right? So, you know, we may have overestimated a little bit because we weren't quite there technology. I mean, that's the reason why I was hired is to to help develop and run the service center. And so we get into it and we realize technology-wise, we're not ready. And so we kind of scaled back, and now eight years later, we've got almost a fully functioning service center. I know we're in the pilot right now, but I mean that's that's kind of to the topic's point, you know, is that patience paid off.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Yeah, that's right. So when you're talking about like the 10-year, what's wrong with attaching an unrealistic goal to that and putting that up on the whiteboard, and then if you make it to 80% of that or 75% of that, you're in great shape. What's wrong with that?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I I have no problem with that. I know Tanya and I have had this debate for off and on for several years, and I know she's gonna have a take on it as well. I I love stretch, unrealistic stretch goal goals. I they don't disappoint me. Like I see it through that lens. Like, like let's, you know, in five years, we're gonna be a billion-dollar premium organization, right? Or something like that. Like we're gonna do X. And I that doesn't bother me. Like huge stretch goal, uh tenure goal of whatever. Um I do think that some people struggle with the stress that gets attached to that. Like it doesn't stress me out, but it does stress others out.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

I love goals. I am I am the queen of goal setting and planning to hit them. Um I do have to have a goal that is somewhat attainable. Yes, I I love a stretch goal. My years in sales management, working with people to achieve those, those stretch goals, that is fantastic. But I do know for a lot of salespeople and um producers, agency owners, if you set a goal and don't hit it and have it in black and white, it can spiral in a very, very negative direction. That just goes back to personality type, what works best for you. Some people respond to a coach telling them what a piece of crap they are. Some people need uh a little bit of positive reinforcement, right? And and different people respond to different things. And I think ultimately it's not about the goal. Ultimately, it's about the consistency of the plan to create the goal. And if we're just setting goals, we're never gonna reach them. We have to actually know how we're gonna hit it. But part of this to me is is asking the question the right way. Like, are you asking yourself, what's my goal for 2026? Or are you asking the question, what kind of agency owner do I want to be in 2036? And by asking that little bit longer term question, this is the kind of agency I want to own, this is the kind of owner I want to be, this is the ultimate goal where I want to have myself with my organization. Well, then you can work backwards to set those yearly goals as you need to down to one year.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah. I and and I I agree. Like that's not a disagreement, um, just kind of a thinking uh kind of comment there is is just you're always salespeople are really good at saying, you know, I want to sell a million dollars and then they work their way back, and what kind of time do I need to do that? And this is where we probably overcommit ourselves and in in in what we can do in a year, right? Um maybe we didn't build a foundation very well, maybe we didn't do something. I I will probably always air to the side of just this Bhag, right? Big, hairy, audacious goal. That's that's just kind of one of those things out there in business books. You know, what is your what is your B Hag? Um almost almost to the point of unattainability and and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna say that's because of my experience with failure through the years. Not that I love failure, right? That's not what I mean. But like I've accepted that failure is part of the progress. I've I've accepted I accepted early on as a baseball player that I was playing a game of failure. Like um it's just that way you know we talk about that sport and there's other sports that aren't necessarily a game of failure. There's other sports that are kind of built around a lot of perfection in some cases. Subjective judging subjective judging sports I've never been involved in right so I don't have that perspective. I have the perspective of you know were we winning at the end of nine innings or not right? Like what did we score more than them?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

And and so you know I I understand why Tanya and I have always had this friendly debate on this topic because it doesn't bother me right like it doesn't you know and I and I don't I've never counseled people that were in that realm that had to deal with that type of subjective judging um I've counseled people the opposite of that like hey you got you you were successful four out of ten times you're on pace to be in the hall of fame you know you failed six out of ten times and you're potentially an all-American you know I mean so these are it's just a weird different dynamic right about that kind of I think I think it kind of structures the goal setting frames the goal setting uh based on your experiences in life what you what you did right what is your background and and and it structures around that the idea of looking long term sometimes I forget that we think um I sometimes I think we forget that things compound right and so we'll we'll say okay I'm gonna do this in one year and then next year I'm gonna do this and next year I'm gonna do that but things compound over time and we forget that as agency owners like like discipline compounds and and talent and client trust and and reputation and so when you look at doing things consistently going back to Mike's idea of things snowball or and Shane uses the term you know pushing the flywheel out of uh good to great right and I believe that if that that slow and steady agency is going to be worth more in the end than that rocket ship that takes off um unless you're trying to create some kind of hockey stick growth to have an immediate sale right but if it's something that you're building for yourself you're creating a legacy you want it long term I just really prefer that idea of building it slow and steady and as things compound you really grow. Now I understand you have to feed your family you have to pay the light bill right so finding that balance early on is really important.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Yeah I think when you're well first of all let me say this to circle back to Shane's point about umpires congratulations to major league baseball for straddling the fence in the most insane way possible this year. Because who doesn't want baseball games to be longer? So allowing people to challenge balls and strikes seems like the optimal idea for that.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

So kudos to you MLB fantastic hey is there a challenge limit I'm sorry there is there is you get you get so many 700 and they literally take five seconds I have to say that um it was actually really neat seeing it um at the Durham bowls they were one of the one of the betas and it almost gave the audience this extra cool thing to do to root against the umpires like that they're gonna be wrong and then like the audience actually got excited over it when they were wrong and um it did add a a neat um kind of a new thing to the game itself when you were watching it live I'm just disappointed that Angel Hernandez is already retired and we're not gonna get the pleasure to see him and how many overturn calls he gets and absolutely melt down or what a crash out that's what they call it now crash out crash out anybody remember what I was talking about when I sidetracked myself sorry no that I don't I don't really know what what you were talking about so uh do you yeah I'll I was just kidding you know the other thing I when we're talking about planning more in the long term one thing that we never really give ourselves the opportunity to factor in my opinion is the unknown of what opportunities could come from just doing well and doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

You know maybe you get three years in and you're known pretty well in your community and the guy that has an agency a few blocks away decides to retire and he comes to you and wants to sell you his book. Well now you've got some exponential growth there because of you know the fact that you've always done the right thing but you wouldn't have planned you wouldn't have necessarily planned that in for a long-term goal but you know that I think speaks more to you know the debate of which side of this do you want to be on it it I think it really depends on your personality. You know for me I'm more like Shane I I would rather see a a really difficult goal and if I get to 80% of it like I'd mentioned before then I'm happy. But Tanya I totally understand what you're saying where there's a personality type that would see that you're okay I'm three years in but I'm only 15% of the way to this and they start shutting down.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Right right and part of this to me goes back to like figuring out okay if I'm if I'm working on this today is building this process will this process work in 10 years or the way am I doing it? Is that going to work in 10 years? Or um I think sometimes early on we make decisions out of panic because things aren't moving at the speed that that we want them to move at um and so that goes back to Shane's idea of responding and not reacting um am I being panicked or am I being patient right and ultimately to me it's does this decision make sense if I know my agency is going to be successful in 10 years? Am I doing this because it's going to be good for me today or is it going to be good for me 10 years from now and and I always love my mom uh my mom every every December in the kind of law that my mom practiced um December was always the really rough month right like like not a lot of revenue came into her law office in the month of December and my mother did not do divorces like absolutely no did not do divorces and and every year this divorce would come into her office and it was you know uncontested and it was going to be an easy one and there weren't going to be any problems and mom would be like well you know I'll do this one and then she wouldn't regret it for all the next year right because nothing in a divorce is as easy it look as it looks like on paper right so you know seeing a very professional successful businesswoman fall into this trap every December and I would be like don't do it don't do it don't do it she's like yeah but but and every time we yeah but in our business there are long-term repressions there's so many things we talk about on this podcast that kind of come into that statement you just made like right dabbling or you know getting out of you know doing too much get it spreading too thin in terms of the types of business that you're that you're gonna try to write especially within commercial in that first year because you just want to get something on the books you you and I get it I totally understand the the mindset I get it but you you really have to fight against it.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah and you know I go back to unfortunately a lot of our goals as independent agency owners come from comparison um and this is one of the things that I I probably spend as much time on this topic that you know this sort of idea talking with agents that feel like they're plateauing uh they they feel like they're you know that they haven't reached some some next level they want to go to the next level so I would kind of classify those agents as what I would call enterprise builders um and what's really interesting is the conversation goes a little something like this man I am I've never made this much money in my life I I wish I would have done this years ago I wish I would have left the exclusive system I wish I would have you know moved from producer to agency owner sooner um I I've never been this successful I've never done this well I'm so frustrated about how I'm plateauing like it's like those they don't reconcile it's it's it's like you know I I wish I feel like I got to do something different and and yet right before that it was I've never been more successful in my life like you know and so I think that comes from comparison I think that comes from you know going to I'm not anti-conferences right we go we go to conferences we we host our own conference like but going to a conference and then hearing somebody talk about how great you know they're doing um or seeing someone something on social media uh and so it's like you know you see through that lens and comparison and you get into the comparison game and um and and then you you start feeling like you're not where you're supposed to be when in fact if you look back and really look at where you started and where you've come to and it might be five years it might be three years it might be eight years but you're looking at it going kind of like we are right now with the Service Center program it's like wow I've come a long way wow this is really really awesome and so um I I think I think there's a lot of a lot of things that we have to keep perspective as agents um and as business owners we have to keep that perspective and uh and and not let that get away from us and and start seeing us in a negative light like man I'm plateauing okay well you know are you are you happy you know it is that's the salesperson coming out in us you know what if I plateau if I stop growing is that does that mean I'm not a good agent anymore like you know what does that mean is you know maybe the the mindset has to shift into uh more more of a CEO more of a uh an ownership standpoint and the well look here hold on the other thing everybody has to keep in mind picture time your growth is not going to look like this yeah okay it's just not there's a zero percent chance of that right so you there's gonna be peaks and valleys and there's gonna be stumbling blocks along the way you cannot let you can't get down when things like that happen when those lulls come because it because mindset is so important to this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

You know you bring it back to sports I think I've used this example before but like I know there's probably not a lot of hockey fans uh that listen to this podcast but the NHL team up here the Buffalo Sabres have been terrible for effort they started out the year rough this year they it was leaked out that the general manager was going to be fired they won the next three games the general manager got fired they won the next seven games and they're like 25 and five since then okay nothing really changed right this new GM hasn't made a single move but the mind the mindset shifted because they thought that guy he was the first time he was doing that job they thought he was a joke they weren't working change was made all of a sudden the same people are experiencing this glow up and they're in second place in their division but it's the same you you your mind is so important.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah just to go back to what Shane said about comparison you know my my favorite quote is by Theodore Roosevelt and it and he said comparison is a thief of joy thank god you didn't say something about Brady Brady came out with a new version I'll find it for you and send it your way but anyway I you know I mean that is just so true and then it all goes back to mindset and maybe being satisfied or being in that mindset where you're happy like like you said Shay you know you you've you've you've got a good thing going you've built a really good book making the most money that you've ever made I mean it just all comes back to that mental space and and and being comfortable yeah it it does and I you know Tanya mentioned the flywheel and and the book Good to great and um it's kind of the compounding is included in that like you you know in in and the way they describe it in the book um is you push on this you know the visual is you got this huge flywheel and you push and you push and you push and then it never moves and you're like man and all of a sudden it moves an inch and then it moves two inches and then at some point it moves pretty regularly. Now you're pushing and every day it's moving at some point there's what's called a breakthrough and at the breakthrough the weight and inertia to use a big fancy word uh we don't use those words in East Texas very often so um inertia yeah inertia takes over and the flywheel starts spinning itself right that's the visual that in the book Good to great talks about businesses that have gone from good to great you know independent agencies that start from scratch and build and build and go from good to great you you look back and it's like where was that breakthrough? And and everybody has it may not be a breakthrough exact moment in time but it's a breakthrough year. It's a breakthrough couple of years right where things start happening you know that's the compounding that's the same thing right we're using different analogies and different terms but you know you start getting more referrals because you got happy customers because you had great customer experience and you know um a really really cool example that's very real to me right now is is my youngest daughter is going through um going into a ministry program for two years and going to be doing her master's degree at a at a seminary and um she has to do what's called support raising like it's part of the program. So basically in ministry right uh people giving offerings tithes whatever in in in various circles what what they would call it um but she has to support raise right she has to and one of the things about support raising is you want people to connect you with more people right like it's not about like talking with someone and and someone saying oh I would love to fund your whole two year you know ministry you know I that that's not realistic number one but it's also not what you want right like what you want is you want you want one person that turns into 10 people and those 10 people turn into a hundred people and so like people connecting you with other people is just as important as people deciding to partner with you in the ministry from a financial standpoint. It's the same thing it's it's the inertia of the flywheel it's the same thing that happens in an independent agency with centers of influence referral sources clients that become referral sources I call them blabbers right that's that's my slang term like you want to if you can get a new client that's a blabber that's going to tell everybody how great you are you need to take care of that person right you need to be you know like whatever customer experience needs to go through the roof because it doesn't take a ton of blabbers when you get down to it I don't think I've ever heard you use that one before.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah another Texas term blabber I want to go back to Robbie and and that comparison is the theater of joy and comparison is a is a one year disease to me and and what I mean by that is social media makes everything look immediate right I mean I can go to social media and people are yelling at me that all I have to do is give them$10,000 and my agency is going to be successful immediately. Right and I I'm so tired of people yelling at me for you know various amounts of money or I can give them$97 a month the rest of my life to tell me you know what they did to make their agency successful. But what we don't see on social is the the eight years before it worked right or or if I'm just looking at someone else's agency that's super successful it's somebody that I know I really respect them um I love hanging out with them and and I'm seeing the success they're having but like what did it look like 10 years ago like what did it take you know what kind of debt do they have what what what mistakes have they made how have they pivoted what processes have they created that have taken time and I'm comparing year one or year two to someone else's year 12 year 20 or third generation and you're you're not even talking apples to oranges you're talking apples to alpha romeas right I mean like they're not the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

You are not in the same I consider myself a bit of a social media expert. So I think I'll read in here. Um I don't understand why everybody's laughing.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Oh my gosh, my eyes just teared up, y'all. Seriously. Uh well fine.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

No, I'm not gonna say it.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

No, please, please teach me oh OB1 and OB of social media.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

No, to your point, like you just cannot base your success or your perception of your success or your failure on anyone else's, especially if you don't even know the person.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

You know, people are creating illusions on social media every single day.

unknown 44:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

I mean, I was trying something new last night, y'all, and and I videoed it. I I was in the day at the in the studio at the dance studio. And when I tell you I looked like a baby giraffe trying to learn to walk, it was like the worst thing on the planet. And um, I'm like, you know, I should actually put this video on socials and say, look, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years, and when I try to learn something new, this is what I look like, right? And I mean, I don't know how many business people will really put something out there and say, hey, look, I tried this and I failed. I'm gonna try again tomorrow, and I'm probably gonna fail again. And maybe in six or nine months, will I be able to do it, right? We don't put that out there.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

That's what Shane would have looked like last week in his chair, squirming, trying to get through those six minutes of not talking. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

That's right. I just I don't know. I just have this visual of this this older commercial of uh you know the guy in front of the beautiful house with the beautiful lawn and um riding the really cool lawnmower on a beautiful sunny day, and he's got you know really expensive cars in the driveway, and he's got this big smile on his face, and it's like it's basically like a credit repair or bankruptcy commercial or something like that. And he's like, you know, I have all of this, and how do I do it? I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, right? And like it it's an older commercial, and I'll have to find it, and we'll have to shoot. What I was picturing in my head when you're saying is someone walked up and put the foreclosure sign on it. Right. Uh, but you know, that's kind of what happens with social media. People portray themselves, you know, a lot of times better than it is. And um, you know, and I think that's what sometimes causes others not to want to do that, right? And it's it's uh it marketing's changed, uh, social media's changed, the marketing game, and uh we do a lot of video and have moved to video on social media, and um it really kind of comes back to a previous podcast about telling our story, right? Like just part of that is our effort to tell our story so somebody else doesn't tell our story, and and you should do that as an independent agency owner, you should tell your story. Um, I think video is a really good way, and social media is a really good way to tell your story. What you just have to stay grounded on is is uh is that comparison game. And and and that's where the the sales people in us, the the competitive person in us, um, we allow that comparison thing to actually take us down instead of driving us forward.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Yeah, if you can if you can harness it and use it for good, by all means, but this comes back to your personality, right? And we talked about it earlier, too. You know, you have a baseball team, you can't coach everybody the same. Some people, like Tanya said, you have to tell them that was terrible, go try again. And there's other people that you have to say, okay, you just brought me a big pile of doo-doo, I gotta find the silver lining in that thing and tell you how great you did at that one thing, so that we can start turning this around. Right? I got both on my baseball team, but you gotta you have to recognize that and and work with what you got. So if you're the type of person who sees other people are are successful and that makes you work harder in the proper way, go ahead, go do it. But if you think that's gonna make you start gambling and doing crazy things and making stupid decisions, well, then you need to, you know, put the phone down.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Yeah. You know, and I think it's important not to confuse, you know, comparison from learning from others, right? Like it's important for you to understand the difference when you're looking at a successful agency and you you want to see how they got from A to B, right? I mean, it's different than looking at them and saying, man, well, they're doing they're they're here. Why am I not here? Right. So I think it's important to understand the difference between the two.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

By the way, I think most people are somewhere in the middle of everything is unicorns and roses and glitter, and you suck at everything you do. You know, most of us are somewhere in the middle, and um, so so I do want to go back and and um say that because if you know, I mean, like we need to be corrected, we're gonna correct ourselves. Probably we're gonna be harder on ourselves than anybody else is. Um, but sometimes uh we need somebody to say, hey, look, um, I watched this video of what you were doing last night, and this one thing looks really great. So let's build off this one thing that looks really great. But yeah, you know, yeah, it sucked. It was terrible. But you know, you can usually find something uh to to build on to give yourself some hope, right? And I think sometimes we as as new agency owners need somebody to point out, yes, you know, you are not where you're not where you thought you were gonna be because you underestimated your expenses. Because that happens and and Shane, Shane can talk to that, but you know, you're gonna you're gonna underestimate your expenses, you're gonna overestimate what you're gonna sell in your first year.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah, the one of the things that um I learned early on in in business, had some people, uh my dad told me this, I had some other people kind of encourage this as well. Is you know, when you have an idea, like I was Mr. Projection, I was Mr. Sales guy, right? Like, hey, you know, if we do this thing, we're gonna generate this many sales in this time period. Like this was the 25-year-old chain conversation. I'm constantly like doing doing these projections and making it look great. And uh, you know, it would always be like my dad would be like, Great, you know, um, if we're gonna invest in that, I'm gonna need you to uh cut your sales in half and double your expenses. And if you still like the return, then let's do it. Right. And it became sort of a thing for us, like, you know, hey, you know, cut the sales in half, cut the revenue in half, and double the expenses. Does it still work? Does it still make sense? Um, or in starting a new agency, it prepares you a little better, right? Like it prepares you to kind of see it through a different lens. And and I don't think that's like lowering the bar. That's not what the point is. The point is to be a really good um financial, you know, preparation around starting a new business. Some of which, some agents, many agents that we work with, they've never owned a business before. Like starting the an independent agency is the first business they've ever started, they've ever owned. And so there's a lot more that goes into that than just, you know, writing insurance business, writing policies, you know, building a book of business.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

If you are an agency owner or wanting to start your own independent agency and you're looking to build for a decade, right? Find that long-term success. And you want a partner that's gonna think long-term too. We would love to talk to you here at the Integra Partner Network, carrier strategy, profitability, systems to make you efficient. Um, that's what we do. And and we love helping agents become successful and build a legacy with successful agencies. I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Kobe Bryant, even though I was really, really tempted to go with a good Tom Brady one, but I'm not going to, Mike. Because, you know, I'm I'm I may need your help later today. But Kobe Bryant said the moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Attitude's a choice. Make a great one.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Bye, y'all. 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 today's challenging market. And with our comprehensive resources, profit sharing, and bonus opportunities, technology and peer support, all where you retain 100% of your book with no penalties to exit. Integra is ready to empower you and your agency to find sustained growth. Find your way to Integra. Visit IntegraPartner Network.com today. That's IntegraPartner Network.com.