SPEAKER_01 0:00

Tell us how you got into this crazy business of insurance.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

One thing when I got out of the army, I was like, I'll never work for other people ever again. But when I came into Georgia, come in smart, spend money marketing. I started seeing the fruits of that pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

What kind of things do you do to keep the team motivated?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

I'll really encourage the team, hey, hit this benchmark or something like that. Let's send you it somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Biggest obstacles that our agencies are going to be facing in the next few years.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Anytime there's a challenge, there's always someone smart enough to figure a way to overcome it.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

How about your number one recommendation? Anybody crazy enough to jump into this world?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

I am great about it. I am agent. We are agents. We are injured.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

The wildest thing that has ever happened in my agency. Wow. I think it was back in like 2014. Back then, all I pretty much I had like three staff. I'd been in business for a few years and uh, you know, spent all my money on direct mail, stuff like that. Uh and so around that time I started to not ever answer the phone. Uh, I let my staff do it. And then uh, but I kind of had this rule. I was like, three rings, and you know, I'm gonna be really upset. But uh I noticed it ringing, it ringing, it ringing. And normally I would just get onto them and let it go to voicemail and get onto the staff later. But uh this time I was like, you know what? I'm sitting around, I'm doing nothing. I might as well answer the phone, see if I can take care of somebody. Uh I pick up the phone, and then uh it was one of our insured, so like a current customer, and she was just calling saying, Hey, you know, it is is Trish available? I was like, no. I answered the phone. I didn't say who I was, I just said, Hey, thanks for calling, my carrier, and uh how can I help you? And she was like, Well, is Trish there? I was like, No, she's on the other line. Uh, is Christy there? No, uh, I want to say she's off at lunch right now. And then she asked, she asked for another person, I can't remember. And then finally I said, Well, I'm Shepard, I'm the owner here, you know, I can help you out. And she said, No, you'll just fuck it up and hung up. And that was the wildest thing that happened. And my name is and uh I'm in Cartersville, Georgia, and I'm an insurance dude.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah. Boom. Boom. I love that. How did you react when they told you that that was what you would do?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Well, that was the light bulb moment for me. It was like, okay, I did it. Like, you know, I wasn't a huge agency yet, but I at least had that part down, which current customers realized I was the most useless person in the office. The best.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

There's nothing more liberated.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. And so that that was, you know, kind of the moment I really moved from being an insurance agent to a business owner in my mind. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I remember I remember going to a conference in Texas, and the guy that would run it would say, he was older at that time, and so it was a while back because now I'm old, but he would he'd he'd always allude and talk about like, I don't even know how to log into the computer, you know. And I thought, uh, he's just joking, you know, like that's not possible. Thinking of all the stuff that I was doing, like being on the hamster wheel, and yeah, it's it's it's nice to be on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

It is. We Shepard and I were talking about that before you jumped on. It was it's like that, like that moment is the most liberating moment when you realize like like there's other people better than you, like at the things, you know, at all the things. It's like, oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Right. Yeah. In the beginning, you kind of want to be the best, you like it's this ego thing. You want to be the best at everything, and then you realize that that makes you the worst when you're the best at everything.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Cool. Well, I'm excited about this one. So, Shepard, um, for all the dudes out there, dudettes, uh, tell us how you got into this crazy business of insurance.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, so kind of just tripped and fell into it, you know, like probably most insurance agents. No one grows up saying, hey, I want to be an insurance agent when I grow up.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Uh yeah, so I was living in uh Georgia, or kind of backstory on me. Uh 17, joined the army, traveled the world, had a lot of fun, got to blow some stuff up, came home, got married, got out of the army. And uh my wife and I had uh some money saved up, so we were like, hey, let's go be ski bums. So we moved from our home state in Georgia. Like a week later, the Uha was packed, and we moved out to Colorado and uh tried to be ski bums. That didn't last very long because we ran out of money. Uh military does not pay that well. And uh, needless say, I was doing several odds and ends kind of jobs, doing this, doing that, trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life. And uh, you know, I started a business out of the insurance industry, completely failed. Uh, and uh, but in the course of that business, I bumped into an insurance agent with my carrier, and uh he kind of started pitching me on hey, come work for me. It's an amazing opportunity. I kind of got the hint like he was brand new, and uh, one thing when I got out of the army, I was like, I'll never work for other people ever again. So uh I did some research, researched that carrier, that carrier only, which uh, you know, who knows if that was a smart decision, but researched the carrier. I then became uh got got in touch with like a you know district recruiter, and he kind of did the whole spiel, the pitch of, hey, you know, here's what you could be making in five years. And so I was like, you know, I talked to my wife about it. She was like, I think you should do it. And I said, Are you sure? Because I don't really want to do that, but she said, You can do it. I was like, okay, so you know, go, got all my licenses. Uh back then they had a program where, you know, you could start as an agency owner from scratch and you know, and uh so got approved for that and just kind of hit the ground running from there. Uh did it out in Colorado for a couple years and mediocre, very low performing agent at that, at that point in time. Needless say, uh, you know, I sold that book back to the carrier and moved back home to Georgia. And uh one of the cool claims to like our folklore is I was the very first captive agent representing my carrier in our state in history in Georgia. Oh wow. No way. Yeah, I'm part of the you know, history of the company, I guess. Uh one to open their doors in our state, which is pretty neat.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

But that's I got a lot of insurance. Wow. So a lot of stuff happened in that time. When did it when did it take? Like what was the earliest fire that kind of was lit under you, and you're like, ah, this is this is it. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah. Uh it was definitely when I started making pretty decent money. Uh, or at least gross, gross income was doing really nice. I, you know, I when I was out in Colorado, I was a mediocre agent doing all the wrong things, and you know, I would, you know, I was making enough to get by. But when I came into Georgia, you know, I was like, okay, come in smart, spend money marketing, you know, do all that kind of stuff. And uh so, you know, I started seeing the the fruits of that pretty quickly. And uh, and I thankfully I had the foresight to reinvest every single penny I was making back into the agency to keep that growth going. And so, you know, it I would say probably a a couple of years, like maybe two years in to my you know tenure in Georgia as an agent, that's when it just everything was on fire. I was like leading our state, entire state in you know, total new sales, you know, just one of the top of the you know state for a couple years in a row. And so that was nice, you know. And uh, you know, and then I just kind of plateaued and hung out for a while until I, you know, decided, hey, let's grow some more.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Right. About four years to really have it take and kind of figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

I would say yeah, because you know, I mean, the carriers don't teach you anything really on how to build it. And so you you know, you do a lot of trial and error. And if you don't, then that's where most agents you know struggle is they're they don't take the risk of let's see if this works. And if it does, great. If not, we just lost a bunch of money, but let's keep trying.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, the carriers don't tell you about the business hat, they only tell you about the agent hat. And uh it's crazy because you know, uh of course the motivation of the carriers is to uh you know constantly reach out to the clients and and everything for the clients, uh, which is awesome. Uh but at some point you I mean you have to justify those costs with sales and like growth and everything else. So it's not like it's it's it's you know, you want to do everything right uh that the carrier wants, but you just you can't invest uh uh you know your uh all of your time and your staff's time in on those things because uh that's gonna kill your business.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

It is interesting. They they sell the concept of being the business owner, and you go with that and you think and we're gonna give you the support, and then it's we're gonna support you as the agent. And it is what it is. You know, I think everybody goes through that journey and learns from it, and the ones that make it through it are better for it, usually.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Right. Well, so Shep, you you Shepard, you grew up, you I man, I I keep wanting to call you Shep. Um Shep. You're gonna make me start calling you Chep, too. So you uh you know, you kind of hit you you hit the ground running, um, but then you really started scaling up. I know that your your numbers now are just incredible. So um describe your team like currently, how many members, what did they do, what are their roles, and how's that set up currently?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Well, so beginning of this year is when I kind of changed the model. Uh and what I did was I really went and separated that true outbound agent team and inbound agent team. And uh, you know, I took that off some other agent, I can't remember uh, you know, the idea, but uh it's where, yeah, you know, you want to work the lead game, stuff like that. Those people don't need to be answering the phones that are service calls. And I had made that mistake in the past where yeah, I just kind of had the hybrid sales slash service, and they tried to work leads, and it never worked out that way. Uh and so, you know, now right now I have three, you know, basically inbound, you know, service agents that they're responsible for cross-selling, upselling, and just overall handling, you know, everybody, you know, all our customers, whether they're brand new uh and or uh, you know, eight years in. And then the outbound team is just, yeah, they work directly on our leads that you know we purchase, work with the TMs, uh, you know, and really master just closing new business and bringing new accounts in. And uh right now there's three uh on that team with two more that are starting next week, uh, which is really nice. And we're we're trying to rapidly grow uh over the course of 2022 and 2023.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

How many people on the sales team?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Uh there's gonna be five total starting Monday. So cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Cool. Cool, cool. Awesome. And we'll we'll dive in. I'm so curious of of their numbers and everything. You I know you're a high performance dude, so um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Uh so have yeah. Talk why why don't you talk a little bit about the culture that you've created there and and how that's been an integral part of doing what you do and getting the results that you're getting?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, so the culture really definitely for me started uh when I was recruiting people. You know, I was like, okay, my recruiting strategies over the years had never really given me given me good results. And uh so it all kind of started with a setting a standard, you know, which I know I used to fail at, you know, setting that up front. Uh, and I really do a hardcore time now trying to paint them a very, very, very, very detailed picture before they're even hired. Uh, of that, hey, we're focused on, you know, continuous learning, continuous growth, uh, and just really uh hardworking, hard playing, you know, kind of you know, office setting. But you know, some of our uh uh producers, they're fully remote and started with me fully remote from day one. And uh, you know, so we kind of have that mixture of in-office and remote. And I haven't found any problems with it. Uh it's been really good. I like it a lot myself just because it's so much easier to sit in front of a computer and talk to everybody, share the screens, you know, because anytime we got to troubleshoot something, it's so easy to do it over, you know, uh via Zoom or whatever. Uh and uh, you know, that's kind of been the environment that we focus on. And then just myself trying to lead as like a servant leader, uh, you know, really trying to coach them as best as possible. I mean, uh, I have the attention span of a goldfish, so it's really hard for me to continuously day in, day out, uh coach them, uh, but I am for now. And uh, you know, I it's funny, someone once told me that uh workers that feel appreciated are always the most grateful and are always the hardest working. And uh, you know, and so far that's you know, since I kind of changed my model and started focusing on that, I really see a major difference in just the quality of people. And it's not like these people are any better than the people before them. It's just that they have that, you know, support, true support structure that I'm trying to provide. And that's my main focus day in, day out, is is just them and making sure they succeed. Because if they do, I'll succeed or go bankrupt due to not being profitable. One or the other. Yep. But more likely, you know, success will breed more success. And that's that's what what we really try and focus on.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

When did that shift happen?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Uh I mean, gradually, then all of a sudden. Uh, you know, is is really the best way to say. I mean, it's happened over the years uh in my mind and realizing it. And then when I, you know, listen to podcasts or talk to other agents that are successful, uh, you know, you really start to pick up on the ideas and then you go to the drawing, you know, go to the drawing board and say, okay, look, where do I want to be and work it all out from there, whether it's talk pass scripts, you know, marketing spend, how many employees you need, yada yada yada. It all just kind of like you gotta take all that information, bring it into one, you know, room and put it all together like a puzzle. And uh so that's why gradually over the past probably two, three years, uh, but you know, instantly back in January when I really said, all right, let's pull the trigger and execute everything 100%.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Love it. And then how do you recruit for that now?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Uh so you know, a variety of things. I mean, it's just like the lead game, you know, you or you want multiple marketing sources. Uh, so recruiting is the exact same pathway. Uh, no matter who comes to you, though, they all have to have that system in process where your hiring portion is the exact same. So from interview, first interview, second interview, things like that. I've used a variety of recruiting companies, you know, uh corporately. I work with our uh corporate recruiters uh that are trying to recruit agency owners, but you know, they send me lots of quality people that may not, you know, possess the startup capital uh to go, you know, scratch agency by themselves, or they just want to work with an existing agency that's been around for a while that can teach them. And so I kind of work, you know, in those lines, uh, you know, and then you know, sure, traditional job postings, spending on those, uh, anything really, just to gather people's attention. And then, you know, you know, headhunting yourself, reaching out to, you know, other agents, staff, you know, letting them know, hey, here's our opportunity. You know, you you may be a better fit here and give them something to think about. And if they are, then they'll apply and you know, uh, you know, you you may have success with them, you may not. Uh, I don't necessarily put any major priority of someone with experience over someone without, but they definitely don't have their learning curve is shorter though. Uh the only thing you have to worry about is, you know, if they bring a bad attitude or bad. Which you can usually filter that out, or at least I've been successful in filtering that out in the hiring process.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah. What about once they're on and then ensuring that they're successful? What kind of what what sort of framework do you have for that?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Uh, so that's like a fluid document. Definitely. That's always changing, trying to you know be better, improve on that. Uh, you know, we really try and hit hardcore with you know a week or two of you know product training, system training, you know, how to talk training. No matter if someone just came to me with 15 years of selling insurance, you know, we still want them on the same standard as everybody else. And so we really just kind of put that framework in and then a continuous daily training, you know, 15, 20 minute morning huddles every single day, whether we want to talk about a specific product, talk about objection handling, or just overall, you know, just you know, hey, who had wins, who didn't? That's that's proven to just really, you know, be worthwhile for us to spend that time to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And what would you say out of all of that is like your number one most effective trading tip that that any agent could just take and run with?

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Oh, consistency. Hands down. Uh if you don't do anything consistently, it's not gonna work. Yeah. And and that's the that's the number one thing. If you just do it, like Nike would say, you know. But uh they were right on the point of that one. Uh is if you as long as you do something, you're better off than doing nothing.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Right. Yep. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

So how about how about motivation? What kind of things do you do uh to keep the team motivated? Anything that you could share that's that's worked really well in your office?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, so I mean, definitely we're big on celebrating. Uh celebrate any win, you know, whether it's, hey, I overcame this objection, that was awesome, even if they didn't close that deal. You know, we love to you know hear that. We might share that, you know, if it's recorded, we might share that in in one of our next meetings so everybody can hear and and and work off of. Uh, you know, I feel like I might pay, you know, offer a little bit better of a comp plan than most uh right now, but that's probably just because I'm just trying to attract everyone as possible. Uh but uh, you know, I love the work-life balance aspect. I love to see my people, you know, hey, go take a trip, go do something fun. I love to travel. My wife, my kids, we all we love traveling, we travel a lot. And uh, you know, so that's really fun. So I really encourage the team, hey, hit this benchmark or something like that. Let's let's send you somewhere for the weekend, you know, have have a good time. And uh so, you know, travel incentives and just overall, you know, compensation too, you know, the more they produce, the more they make.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Love it. Love it. What is your what what are you doing for marketing these days?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Uh so marketing these days, you know, I'm really focused on, you know, the lead game. Uh that's that's really, you know, I used to do a lot of direct mail postcard. Man, I grew really fast back when I first started with postcards. But, you know, the thing without with that was, you know, hey, you're throwing money up against the wall. You can't really track it that well. And uh you don't know all the time, you know, who's calling in from it. No matter how, you know, you try and do a separate phone number, they may have your postcard, but then they look you up online and they call that number. So it's kind of a challenge. So the lead gain for us has just been what we're doing primarily, because it just also just gives us endless opportunity uh to get in front of people. And so far, you know, the per you know, the the you do a lot of work for maybe not a lot of sales, but it's a machine that you can truly track the metrics down to the T, which I love a lot uh just from a business standpoint, because trackability is huge.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

It is it is awesome to know like numbers for everything. The more numbers you know, the more you know how to like it's like saves you an incredible amount of time. It's like you know exactly what levers to pull at any given time just based on set of numbers.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

As a paid lead source, what what's your what's your go-to?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Uh well I got turned on to you know a broker ILB. Uh I would say going through one you know broker like that has been really nice. Uh, you know, I've done direct with all the big name guys, you know, and stuff like that. And I still do because our carrier, you know, co-opts us, you know, on certain lead vendors. So we'll do some with them, but you know, only enough to max out what what we get co-opt for. Uh but the bulk of ours has come been coming through ILB, and I like it. You know, you you you can do massive amounts, and you know, you get a low cost per you know lead there, and it's it it makes it a lot you know more flat across the board on cost, and it's the same quality, absolutely same quality.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Yeah. It's funny, yeah. Yeah, it's all the same. It's funny because because the agents always ask, and I talk about this all the time and and think it's kind of funny because it's a question I used to ask is hey, who are you using? How's you know, uh company XYZ, or how's this? And it's like that's not the question to ask. The question is, you know, what what contact rate are you seeing that that is good, or what should I be looking for, not you know, the company? Because it's all data, right? It's all just forms people filled out with their information.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

It's funny and it does, and it fluctuates. Like no matter who you're with, one one week something's good, another week somebody else is good. Like it's like it's kind of a it definitely fluctuates. Yeah. As soon as you think it's amazing. Um awesome. So so uh moving on to referrals. Are you what are you doing for referrals? Are you tracking that? Are you having your team reach out um and trying to get those?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So we kind of have for right now a loose tracking you know system on referrals. Uh we we do do have some, uh, but you know, they definitely focus a lot after every call. Uh, we actually encourage massively. We just started doing like, hey, Google review. Whether we close them or not, you know, the agent, the producers are literally just trying to say, hey, you know, I know I could or could not have helped you out today, but at least did I, you know, make you a little bit smarter about, you know, what you need and you know, and things like that and coverage. And when because we've made that switch, you know, it's adding, you know, people that are actually writing reviews on Google, and they may not even be an actual paying customer, but uh that's been something we've been trying to do. Uh and then, you know, referrals, building like referral partnerships is always a wonderful thing to do. Uh, but you know, from lenders and realtors and stuff like that. One of the issues there is they have pretty high turnover and they're, you know, uh just like insurance agents. So therefore, building those relationships sometimes we struggle with just because those people move and bounce around.

unknown 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

But uh customer referrals, that's you know, a whole nother animal. Uh, you know, our inbound team once one that once a new agent sells something, that's where our inbound, you know, and then our service team really kind of focuses on getting those referrals during the onboarding process. And uh, you know, then that that's ways that they can make you know extra activity happen for the agency.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

So you just said two of the words that that uh encompass the next question, which is the onboarding process. Like what do you do when you're onboarding new clients and and how has that changed the game for you in your agency?

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah, so you know, we used to always do absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

And right, consistently.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, consistently we used to do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

So you know it was working.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And speaking right now, you know, we've kind of been doing it round robin to the service team of like, hey, here, you you you do the onboarding for this one, this sale that they just made. Uh you know, I've realized that that's that's just you know not a smart method. And I'm in the process of converting to where literally there's one person in the office and their job is onboarding. And uh, you know, obviously they have other duties, but one service person to really onboard, really like take you know that extra step, you know, make sure all the documents are signed, make sure you know all the discounts are applied properly, you know, really make sure the person, you know, is super ecstatic and happy to be a you know a new customer of ours. Help them with cancellations, uh, you know, their their prior insurance, all that stuff. And uh, you know, so it's starting to got getting a little bit better for us where one person has that set system process and they're improving their ability on, you know, generating a live conversation or you know, getting another referral or a Google review if we hadn't already gotten one. And uh so that's that's been kind of you know the process that we're starting to do that I can really see like a huge you know boost you know in customer satisfaction there.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

I love that. And how are you? I mean, this kind of goes along the same lines, and it's probably this very similar answer, but just in in general, a lot of agents want to know, you know, I I know out here in California the like the loss ratio is a big issue. Um so like how do you approach like retention and um just everything with your agency? Like, how are you just containing it? You're you're bringing in a ton of clients now. How do you just overall look at that?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah, and so with that, you know, there's only so much you can do to retain business. Uh, and so when you put a lot of effort into retaining someone, it's like, come on, if our carriers really wanted this customer, their algorithm would rate them accordingly. Uh and so is that's my belief, you know. So we can only do so much as an agency to retain someone. Uh, fortunately for us and our carrier just bought another carrier, so we now have like two preferred markets auto home umbrella. So that's been a huge lifesaver uh this year. Uh and so, you know, will that continue? I don't know, but now you know we might be able to round robin them uh kind of with with that aspect, and and that might help out. But uh in the end, you know, leave on a really good note. I mean, help them get canceled. Like try not to, you know, but hey, you know, if they're getting the same exact coverage, decent service at half the price, who are we to say, okay, don't you can't do that. That's terrible. Why not let them go, keep in touch, and just write them, bring them back two, three years from now. Create the forum. And and that's really the approach, as long as we're remarketing those win backs, then losing them for a couple of years isn't the end of the world.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

So this is very interesting. I guarantee you there's a lot of agents out there listening, like, what the heck? Like, we spend so much time. I know so many agents that spend so much time on retention that it spills over into sales. Sales becomes uh 10% of you know the agency's uh efforts, and uh 90% is uh retention and and everything else. Right. Um there's a conversation I had with someone. I've never said this on here because it's definitely gonna be controversial. But uh we when I first came into the agency, somebody said uh we're talking about sales. And I said, What's the swing on retention? Like, you know, you you have four service agents, right? What if you just flipped them all to sales, did no service? Like, what do you think the retention difference would be? Uh so we were talking about it, it might be a 10% difference. And I said, Well, if you did flip your four people into sales, how much faster would you grow? And wouldn't that net a better result? I I mean and and the thing is with that, it's not a realistic scenario, it's not something you should do. You should be empathetic to your clients. There's no, this is not a this was just an exercise in thought. It wasn't like a hey, you know, don't ever help anybody again. But um the reason why I said that was because you know, a lot of uh agents, especially the more negative ones, are just so focused on just I gotta keep it. I can't lose two autos this month. It's like, dude, don't lose the two, who cares? Get four autos, go get four autos, lose the two autos. Like, um, and that's kind of along the lines that you're saying. But uh what I love that you said even more is like take that effort of the retention and flip it into the win backs. Like that same amount of effort that you're doing to try to keep them might be better served in creating a really awesome win back follow-up campaign to just say, man, I you know, if nothing's going right for you, we still want ya, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I love that. Well, and you can automate that, right? Instead of just being reactive all day and trying to save it, and then the emotional component of it too, right? Where you're bummed out because they're leaving and you're trying to save it because it's a do or die. Why not leave them on a happy note where you weren't it wasn't all gross, where you're like, please stay, and then they never come back because they're like that was terrible, right? Automate it, and you just saved yourself a bunch of time.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

100%.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Super cool. And if you really want to get get crazy with it, get their Facebook, the email they have associated with their Facebook, and then you could actually just retarget them on Facebook. How about that? Throw the pixel on them.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

How do you find that email about it? No, what's your Facebook login and password?

SPEAKER_02 33:47

I do have 32 emails. Uh too many things. So uh, well, one of my favorites is is besides this podcast, what kind of things do you do to keep yourself motivated?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Uh my wife motivates me on a daily basis. Wow. You know, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

That was nice of her.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, no, she does. And not in a bad way, not like cracking the whip, you know. She literally leads me, just you know, really inspires me. She's really into fitness, health fitness, you know, and I would be the exact opposite. I'm generally lazy, you know. So uh it really helps me out and it helps me get a lot better just having her just a part of my life. And so she every single day she motivates me. I mean, she's extremely athletic, very fit, you know, just amazing. And like I'm always like, okay, yeah, I better go to the gym today. Can't have her, you know, uh being being stronger, faster, you know, fitter than I am. Uh so you know, she's definitely the number one uh, you know, motivation for me that's the situation in my house. Nothing else I need.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Stronger, fitter, faster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

That's awesome to hear, man. I love that. Um, so going back to the agencies, what do you think is like some of the biggest obstacles that our agencies are gonna be facing in the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Uh I mean, you know, staffing A is always gonna be an issue. And, you know, obviously, if you're able to, you can always offer a better work environment, better pay, you know, to attract the people you want. Uh, you know, other challenges, you know, or yeah, get in touch with people as as you know, the as we've all seen with Stir Shaken and all that stuff, you know, that that makes challenges. But you know, anytime there's a challenge, there's always someone smart enough to figure a way to overcome it. Uh so far that hasn't been me. I've just pirated off everybody else. But you know, I I have no problem implementing other people's ideas, and occasionally I might have one of my own. But uh, you know, so really it's just staying consistent, you know. It's so easy to get complacent. And like I said, I'm from the military, and we have an old saying that says complacency kills, and it really does. And so that's the number one, you know, killer of anything is complacency.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

And crack.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

And crack.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yeah, very close number two.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

I don't know anybody who's died by crack.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Yeah, I guess it's uh I don't have my circle either. Well, they're good sayings. So uh how how about how about your number one recommendate recommendation to anybody crazy enough to jump into this world and and become an insurance agent?

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Uh I mean, definitely pay attention, you know, think for yourself, listen to everyone, but come to your own conclusions and don't stay negative at all. Like you just can't. Like, yeah, you just have to look at the bright side of everything because it's all an uphill battle. And goodness, y'all know as well as anybody, if this were super easy, everyone would do it.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Caveman would do it.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Yep, yeah, and it is easy enough.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

No complacency, no crack, no complacency, no crack.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

No crack.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

It is easy enough to where you don't have to sell that much in order to keep a job, right? Like, what other industry can you be in that you can have a certain amount of sales and not have that, you know, or or have a certain amount of like sales this year to come and and and a certain amount of sales last year and and still be able to continue, you know?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah, yeah. I mean the resistance part of it is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

It is.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Well, it is there, right? Like it's all there. You can figure it out with math, and if you follow it, you put in the process, you're consistent, it works out. It is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

So, Shepard, we you have gone the distance, my man. I just want to acknowledge you. You know, you've been on the elite calls for the last uh, you know, gosh, couple months, and you're always in there with such an amazing attitude. Like there's no way anything's gonna bring you. You're so positive with everything, and you're such a good influence on us and everybody else. So just want to acknowledge you for being such an awesome insurance dude. And your numbers, I mean, are amazing.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yeah, the team's killing it.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah, super cool.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah, you and Carbonal are the current kings right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Well, I gotta walk carriers. Yeah. Well, you got a new couple new guys in there, so uh yeah, you're gonna give them a run for the money. Scale, scale, scale. Scale, scale, scale. Awesome, Shepard. Well, we appreciate it, my man. Yeah, thank you. Been awesome.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

All right. Well, thank you guys. Have a good one, you too.