Where the Insurance Pros Meet

Three Marketing Tips To Increase Your Insurance Business, Phoebe Chongchua, Ep. 11

Brand Journalist & Marketing Consultant, Phoebe Chongchua, shares three tips to increase insurance sales by becoming an online authority in your industry. Learn how new media marketing builds trust with consumers and helps close deals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com.   Guest: Phoebe Chongchua Phoebe Chongchua is a multimedia Brand Journalist, Consultant & Marketing Strategist who makes brands Remarkable. Using her skills as TV News Journalist, she connects brands and consumers through powerful storytelling. Companies gain a competitive advantage when they learn to "Be the Media." Phoebe is a "Top 50 Podcaster to Follow." Listen to "The Brand Journalism Advantage" podcast in iTunes or at ThinkLikeAJournalist.com     Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT   Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. I'm excited; we have a special show lined up today. We have one of the world's greatest minds in marketing and media and journalism. Our guest is a brand journalist and consultant who teaches businesses how to think like a journalist and be the media. I'm going to dive into that because I want to know what does that mean to us, how to think like a journalist, and how do we be the media. It's awesome. She launched the brand Journalism Advantage Podcast in the fall of 2014, and within nine months she was named a top 50 podcaster by Cision for shows on public relations, marketing, and social media. She also made the list of 35 outstanding podcast picks by entrepreneurs on Inc.com. She's an award-winning former TV news journalist from right here in San Diego who loves the pursuit of a good story. Welcome our special guest Phoebe Chongchua to the show. Phoebe Chongchua: Hey Mark, how are you? Mark Miletello: I have to step up my game. I'm doing great, but I don't even know, how many shows do you have live out there that you produced? Phoebe Chongchua: For the brand Journalism Advantage we have about 400+ episodes to date. You know that is no easy feat, right? Mark Miletello: It's not an easy feat. For the listeners, Phoebe is the inspiration behind and really my mentor in launching one of the first and greatest, I believe, platforms for our industry. What's so unique about you, Phoebe is that you've been around our industry now for at least nine to ten years. With your background, and now you know a lot of our background, it's just going to be an unbelievable show too, so thank you for joining us. It's an honor and a privilege. Phoebe Chongchua: You know what, Mark? I think that what you are doing truly is an inspiration and should be listened to by many agents because this is what it's all about, getting your voice out there, being heard and giving valuable information to the agents so that they can thrive in the industry. There aren't a lot of people out there doing this. Mark Miletello: We're jumping right into this, and I love it, but you know our industry. I feel like our industry is way behind on a lot of the social, maybe it's a lot of industries Phoebe. You work with very, very large corporations, some of the world's largest corporations. You've worked with Mom & Pop shops, you've worked with anyone in between. Is it me or is our industry way behind online marketing, social media, things like that, or is it really everyone struggles in that area? Phoebe Chongchua: I think a lot of brands and large corporations are definitely excelling in this space, but then there are a lot of brands that just don't get it, and they're really creating these streams of broadcasts where they get on a platform, and they think, "I've just got to hit it with marketing," and that's where they're going wrong. They're really not telling a story; they're not sharing their real reason for why they are doing what they're doing in the industry and how it's going to help people. That's what's most important, and that's kind of where this whole think like a journalist mentality comes in. When you think like a journalist, your number one rule is to find the story and make it a value to the end user. Who's the end user? When it's media, it's your viewing audience, or radio, it's your listener-ship. In the cases of brands, if they can think like a journalist and craft stories that are valuable to their end users, their core audience, their future customers, their current customers, they're really engaging them and bringing that story to them to help them through the buyer journey and that cycle of making decisions to choose their company, their product, their service. Mark Miletello: We're going to dive into this because I'm going to extract everything I can in this short amount of time we have together because you have so much to offer any industry, especially where the insurance pros meet the insurance industry. I definitely want to just pause and say thank you for inspiring me to launch this, coaching me. I don't want to use the phrase that I'd like to use, but you've polished me, and there's a lot of work to go, but I'm getting better. I've got to tell you, I've interviewed some of the greatest in our industry, and you're one of the greatest in your industry, but also knowing that you're one of the television's and online and podcast, you're one of the great interviewers out there, I'm a little bit intimidated. Phoebe Chongchua: Oh no. You know what I like about the podcasting platform? You take up space on someone's prized possession, their smartphone, their iPhone. You own space on that, and you're plugged into their ears, and they're listening while they're walking or running. You can be as real as ever. You don't have to be that broadcast journalist to get into this. What you have to do is have a message, care about it, Mark, as you do, and then drill down. Get the information out of each guest, make it valuable to your listener-ship and they'll keep coming back. Mark Miletello: Well, thanks for the confidence. I needed that right off the bat. Phoebe, let's jump into this. Let's talk about what you do and how you have become one of the greatest in your industry and how you can help our industry. This is where the insurance professionals meet; you are a professional in the media space, give us a professional tip right off the bat, something, a piece of technology, something, a tip that can transform our business. Phoebe Chongchua: This is probably one your industry, at least the agents, haven't heard of, and they might do a, "Huh," scratch their head and might have to hit the 30 second back button when I say it, but trust me. If you do any blogging, if you do any writing for the web, I'm going to give you a tool that is incredibly valuable. I actually got this from a guest on one of my podcast shows because I ask a similar question about a resource or tool that they can use, but I'll tell you what, it's really worth its weight in gold. This is called a headline analyzer. I'm sure in your show notes, Mark, you'll put a link to it, but it's basically from the Advanced Marketing Institute. What's a headline analyzer? This is a little bit crazy, when I got into TV, we wrote headlines, that bait that draws you in to watch those, what we call, teases so that you'll watch the 5 o'clock news or the 6:30 newscast. A headline analyzer takes your headline that you think it's so awesome and then tells you whether it really is awesome or not. It tells you if it's awesome not just for people, meaning the actual humans, on the web we write for the robots too. We write for the algorithms and all the bots that are searching the web, so you have to make your headline work for two things. When I first started writing on the web a long, long time ago, I thought it was really cool to be clever, that clever journalist like I was on TV. I realized clever doesn't pay, you have to be straightforward, you've got to be hard-hitting, and you've got to make your point, and that's what's going to make a good headline. Why am I telling you this? As an insurance agent, you may or may not have a blog, you may or may not write on LinkedIn. If you are not, you're making a huge, huge mistake and I'm sure we're going to get into that as we go through this episode. The headline analyzer will tell you things like is this hitting emotionally at the level you want? Is it hitting intellectually? Guess what, in the insurance industry, there's a lot of space for writing about things that are both going to hit intellectually and emotionally. I'm sure when you guys go on sales calls you guys are hitting on both levels, the intellectual and emotional. What's going to happen if you don't have life insurance, for instance, and your husband passes away? How will your wife be taken care of? That's emotional. If you're writing about stuff like that, but your headline doesn't match the content of your writing and doesn't work for the search engines and doesn't work at an impactful level for humans, then your writing isn't going to go anywhere and isn't going to be seen. That's why I recommend this. It's very easy to use, you just type in the headline, and it'll tell you whether you're writing it at the level of a complete novice or whether you're writing at the level of an expert copywriter. Mark Miletello: Thank you and we will definitely share the link. I'm going to get your commitment right now that maybe five or ten or twenty shows down the road I want you back because you've given me since I've known you, Phoebe, you've given me like ten sites of just things I would have never known or found. Recently you said, "Mark, you need to use Grammarly. Your writing needs help." Yup, you're right, I drag a document over, it proofs it, sends it back to me and then it needs more proofing, but the point is you have your finger on the pulse and anyone out there, whether you're an insurance agency, a management team or a Fortune 500 company, you need to look into this lady because she is something special, so thank you, your professional strategy. Phoebe, let's talk a little bit about you. Let's give the listener a little bit of background about maybe your rise to success. Can you share that with us? Phoebe Chongchua: My background is a television journalist, and I wanted to be a television newscaster since the age of 12. I really had this mantra, I don't even know where it came from, but I think in your industry it's sales meetings. You guys are heavily into creating what you want in your life and making that a reality. I lived by the mantra imagine it, and you can achieve it, similar to Walt Disney. This was something that really drove me. When I wanted to become that newscaster since the age of 12, I just bee-lined, like laser-focused, and doubled down on it. You're going to hear me say that about a couple of things as we go through the tips section, but that's what got me into broadcasting. My first job was literally delivering radios for KPBS. I look back, and I think, "This is crazy," but they were radios for the radio reading service for the visually impaired. I believe that still exists today. I would go into homes, and this taught me a lot about the psychology of humans because I would go into homes where there were people who were completely blind or mostly blind, and I would deliver a radio to them so that they could listen to this station that read the newspaper over the air. Quite an interesting thing, not anywhere along the lines of what I wanted to be doing, but I took it to get my foot in the door. From there, I worked hard, long hours and innovated and iterated into whatever I needed to be to make it to that next step. Over the course of about four years I ended up landing a job in TV news after doing many internships for all the television stations and three networks at that time, so you can see times have changed. There are a lot more networks in one local market today. I ended up becoming a TV news reporter for the ABC affiliate here in San Diego called 10 News. Within just a short period, maybe two year's time, I was promoted to an anchor. Really made all the mistakes you could imagine because I was green as ever, Mark, so believe me, sitting in your place, I know exactly what it's like except I was on TV very young, very green. I really do thank the San Diego audience for hanging in there and believing in me because I made lots of mistakes. From there, I really began to see my entrepreneurial skills develop, which I didn't even know that I had in me, but I started to innovate. I created fitness programs that became very popular on TV, and I created one of the things that I'm most proud of in my career, which is a resource festival that became know, at that time in California, as one of the largest resource festivals of its kind. We attracted 20 thousand people to it in just four year's time. I remember one of the funny stories is it was held out at Qualcomm Stadium, it was meant to differentiate the brand, so differentiate 10 News from watching any other network news, why we cared about the people, because again we were trying to answer and solve questions for our viewership so that we would stand out. You could watch a drive-by shooting on any network, right, so what makes the network different? If you care about the community, which is the same message that I teach today. The real highlight was it was held out at Qualcomm stadium, took up this very large area of the parking lot. I had the, then San Diego Chargers involved, the Padres, I had major businesses, about 500 businesses and non-profits coming together for this one day where we gave the community all the answers we could pack into a day to help them, and fun entertainment. There's a thing called a sig alert. A sig alert is when they dispatch over the air by the law enforcement that there are big problems, traffic problems in a certain area and it could mean that there's big breaking news going down. What happened was Channel 8 heard this sig alert. This is the competition, and we were in fierce competition at the time with Channel 8. Mark Miletello: You know there's a movie about this, right? Phoebe Chongchua: Right, so Channel 8- Mark Miletello: San Diego newscasters, right? Phoebe Chongchua: Yes, exactly. Mark Miletello: I won't go there. Phoebe Chongchua: Yeah, Anchorman. Anyway, Channel 8 shows up to cover the story thinking that it was breaking news and I'm telling you, I go, "You know you've arrived when the competition is coming to your event that you're trying to brand yourself about in the community." You've got 20 thousand plus people, you've got it all backed up, it looked like it was a football game or something. They came to cover it and then they're like, "Oh, it's only Channel 10's event." Mark Miletello: I love it. Phoebe Chongchua: What was so cool about that, Mark, and where this ties into branding for companies, is that we were creating something that our viewership needed. Our viewership is what drives the business of media. A lot of people forget that media is a business, and it is just like any other business. It has to bring in its profit, so we have to answer to them. We did this by connecting with them and engaging with them. This was long before the days of Twitter and YouTube and Facebook and LinkedIn and all the platforms that you can now, or podcasting, that you can now go live on and create your own stories and tell your messages. When we did this, it was so different and so unique that it drove a lot of attention. I still remember the customers, the viewers, coming in and saying to me things like, "This has changed my life. I didn't know that this business existed." We did a job fair and got 340 people hired in a single day. It was a pretty cool event. Mark Miletello: You said so much in there. I find when I work and talk with you Phoebe, I take notes, so that's awesome. I'm always learning from you. First of all, you said a quote that when you said it, it just reminded me, this is the number one quote I heard from my father growing up. It was a William Arthur Ward quote that says, "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it." Thanks for sharing that because I hadn't even thought of that and that's kind of a staple quote in the insurance industry. That's where that came from, and actually, my father repeated that often throughout my life. One thing that you did, and I don't know if you have or have not, but I just recently read Blue Ocean Strategy. What you were doing and the idea is that we all compete in this red, bloody ocean of fierce competition. What you did was clearly before it was even coined that, you performed what was a "Blue Ocean Strategy." You've become the competition, so now I get to be the media, I see where that comes from. That's just a Blue Ocean Strategy that you, just like Amazon, just like Uber, just like, you broke out of an industry to create a whole new platform where you brought in connections. The last thing I'd want to say is, wow, what a great concept where you were able to build a community event, I bet you got some pretty good business relationships throughout that. Phoebe Chongchua: Oh, absolutely. One of the things I recommend when businesses come to me, and they say, "We're struggling with this concept of being the media. How do we be that voice? How do we tell our own stories?" I look at them, and I think for years, maybe even decades, a business has been using, what's called a press release. We heard several years ago; I can't remember how many now, but Coca-Cola said, "We're killing the press release." You've seen large companies like GE now, instead of using press releases, they tell stories. GE is a brand and a big, big brand. A lot of times a brand like that would not need to engage with its consumers. You're going to go out, you're going to buy washing machines and other things that they make, but the fact is when they tell stories about how certain things are made, or they tell stories that are along the lines of what the consumer wants to know about, they're engaging with that consumer in a way like the media does. That's the point, when you build these partnerships and you be the media, you have an opportunity to carry that story to your consumers and bypass traditional media, bypass that press release, that by the way, most of the time, quite frankly, when I was a news reporter, newscaster, it ended up in that circular file. You know, the one on the floor, right next to your desk? Mark Miletello: Yup. Phoebe Chongchua: Sadly, because it wasn't stories. Businesses were pitching advertisements and saying, "Hey, television station, do you want to cover our press release that's an advertisement?" No, that's not a story. You have to really dig deep and differentiate between what is a brand journalism story, which literally means just taking the journalistic skills and writing a story on behalf of a brand using those journalistic skills. Remember, we started off the show by saying journalists look for stories that matter to their end users. Brands need to do the same, what matters to the end user. As an insurance agent, what matters to that audience? What do you want to tell them? I know I've sat down with financial advisors, I've sat down with insurance agents, I've sat down with lawyers, they're all trying to help make the lives of the people they serve better. The problem is, sometimes they market to them instead of really answering the questions that that consumer might have. If they did answer the questions in an intellectual and emotional way, then they'd be able to close the sale a whole lot easier. Mark Miletello: That's kind of the show with Richard Weylman, that's exactly the point that he put. Let's talk now about the insurance agent, the insurance industry. Let's use all of your experience and knowledge in media and let's pinpoint some professional advice that you would give us so that we can ... I know sometimes I take your notes because you're so far ahead of where I'm at in social media and where I'm at in branding myself or my team. I have to take notes and go back and think and study on that and ask you more follow-up questions. What I want to do is kind of slow it down and really pinpoint a couple of areas, Phoebe, that you would advise with your knowledge of our industry you've had over the past decade and the knowledge that you have blending those to teach us how we can utilize your advice and skills to help us. Can you give us some advice? Phoebe Chongchua: Sure, so there are three things. I want to keep it really simple because what tends to happen is I have all these great thoughts, and I'm really an innovator. People hire me to strategically think for the brand and the business regarding marketing and content creation. Sometimes I get a little too far ahead of myself, so I want to break it down and make it very simple for anyone listening. Whether you are the leader of a very large company or you're a solopreneur or an independent contractor, wherever you fall in this, and the industry actually doesn't matter, but in this case, we're talking about insurance, you need to do three things. If you do these three things and you do them well, I can guarantee you success because you will be found on the web, you will be found in the offline and the online world, and really that's what's most important at this point. The tips are that you have to build authority, you have to be the media, and you've got to double down on distribution and promotion. Let me go into this a little bit deeper. What I mean by being the authority is you have to be recognized and seen as that expert in your industry. That's the big kahuna of it all. That's like, "Awesome." If you're seen as that, you open doors. When I launched all of this years ago, and I talked about be the media, a lot of people didn't understand. They thought, "Why do I have to be the media?" Today we're seeing everything from fake news sites to real news sites, to brands that are popping up that are literally dominating and getting more views than traditional media. Imagine that, Mark, more views than traditional media. That's crazy to think that's happening. I'll give you an example of a bank in Denmark called Jyske Bank. They're a bank, but guess what they are today? They're really the media. They wanted to get their news and information about their financial service products to the marketplace, but here's what was going on. The media just wouldn't have it. They didn't see stories; they saw marketing. They saw a press release. They saw, "You're in it for yourself." They said, "Huh, what can we do?" Someone had the ingenious idea to turn themselves into the media and to literally set up broadcasts, so today they broadcast both locally and nationally by the worldwide web. They tell stores about their products and service, and they give financial information, and now, you know what? They're quoted by people in traditional media jobs, by journalists, by producers, and they're actually turned to as a resource. This can literally pave the way, and you think, "I'm just an insurance agent. I've got to do my job, and now you want me to run a media company?" I want you to build your authority. It would be like saying, "I'm an insurance agent, but I don't have time to keep my resume up. I don't have time to do my business card." This is part of living, part of building a successful career. There's no room for can't; there's only room to get it done. You start by building your authority, building your expertise. If you have a website, you can put your content there. The second part would be the media; you do this by telling the stories that matter to your end users. Look at who you're trying to attract. If you're working on, let's say maybe you're going after the agriculture industry, then tell stories that matter to farmers and make them understand what they're missing if they're not using your product, but don't be so focused on your product. Be more focused on what they need and through that you'll build a relationship with them. They'll come to know, like and trust you because of the content you're putting out. Third, you double down on distribution and promotion, and I have to admit this is where sometimes even I've failed. I've created a lot of content and I've done what a journalist does, which is sometimes just broadcast, get it out there, but I've long wanted to create courses and to make myself more valuable to my clients by offering something that I don't have to teach in coaching sessions one on one. Had I doubled down on the distribution and promotion, that would have helped me get to where I was going faster. This is an area, we all can find the areas where we're stronger and weaker. Someone likes to podcast, so they like to get on the radio and talk, and that comes easier than maybe writing. You've got to force yourself to work at these things and really bring to light all three. Be that expert, be the media by having a story. Another great thing is analyzing other people's work. For instance, you can take something that's happening in the insurance world; you can pull that piece of content into your blog or your podcast and then analyze it. This is what the media does; they have a, "And that's my perspective," type thing. People will listen to that for your analysis of it. The third, spend probably the most amount of time on doubling down on what's working, whichever social media platform you're growing the fastest and promote it like crazy. Mark Miletello: Yeah, and sometimes we need to hire that done, sometimes we need to be part of that, right? Phoebe Chongchua: I'd say both. You can hire for it, but you need to be part of it. You need to take the time to go out- Mark Miletello: At least understand it, learn it, launch it and then lay the groundwork. Phoebe Chongchua: Yeah, because here's the thing, and this is a really important point. When you say, "Hire for it," you can hire people to do your social media, but they better know your brand inside and outside. Even still, a do a lot of that for brands, but I've still got to have that person who is the brand weigh in and make comments and talk and engage. That's important Facebook Live came about in the last couple of years, that can't be done hired out. That's got to be you; you've got to jump on, you as that person who's trying to be the guru, the expert, the authority has to jump in front of the camera and talk to your audience. If you do it all the time, if you do this formula, authority, be the media, double down, you will find success and you'll look back and you'll say, "Wow," in whatever year it was that you started, say it's 2018 at the time of this recording, you'll go, "I'm so glad I did that because I'm making my mark in the online world," which translates to business in the offline world. Mark Miletello: Right. You said, "To go out and gather their information and analyze it." I think since doing this I've been really doing that by following your podcast, the brand Journalist Advantage, listening to different CEOs or different marketing or all the guests and the talent that you bring on your show. Of course, I listen to it to learn from you as well, but you pick up something from all these industries, and you can rebrand that or rework it to either, number one, content for you, but also not just talking about the same thing all the time. There are different aspects and different angles to look at marketing and sales and all those different aspects of an entrepreneur, the business they build and things like that. Thank you for sharing that advice. You mentioned where maybe you lack and I definitely lack on the distribution and promotion. Sometimes we learn from our mistakes, and that's why I like to have this question that I'm going to throw at you. We all have fumbles, we all now and then drop the ball. Can you tell me, Phoebe, of a time that you've learned from a mistake that you may have made? Phoebe Chongchua: Like my guests say on my show when I ask my, "When it didn't work moment," there are so many, but one pops into my head. This was many years ago. I started out when I moved from TV to the web doing video production, and we still do that today where we create stories for brands and businesses. I had this one agency come to me, wanted me to do a shoot with a small business owner. We had to travel for that, so of course, the expenses were paid. I worked directly with the PR firm to set this whole deal up. I never spoke with the client until I actually go there. Once I got there, I realized she was deathly afraid to be on camera. She was super uncomfortable. What she probably needed first was coaching sessions from me on-camera interviews before she would ever be comfortable, but we were set to shoot. We had a limited amount of time, so we went ahead, and we shot, and it became painfully obvious that this was not going to work. I've done thousands and thousands of interviews, interviewed people like Walter Cronkite, interviewed Mother Theresa and interviewed people on the streets who are homeless, even rapists in jail cells, so I have a lot of experience in this, but I can't make somebody in the time we're there with the pressure we were under work at the level that they're going to be comfortable with that's going to present their brand in the way they wanted. We ended up shooting with, actually, the PR person, which wasn't bad, but the lesson in all this that I learned is I made a big mistake in not doing some of the homework upfront, in relying on the agency to have set everything up. Sometimes we take a shortcut because it's like, "Oh, okay, it just dropped into my lap, and it's a good deal for me. Let's go." That ended up costing me in the end because it took more time, the shoot took longer because we had to scrap a lot of it. I learned that you've really got to focus on getting to know everyone involved, making sure that they really understand what's going to happen and making sure that they're comfortable with it because very often, CEOs especially, and this isn't a jab at anyone who's a leader, myself included at times, jump in front of a camera or behind a microphone thinking, "We've got it all made. It's all under control." That's just not the way it is. Everyone can benefit from some coaching, no matter if you're a professional or not. If you need that first, that should come before you're actually setting up to do a shoot. I learned to look at that and do my homework beforehand to make sure that the person is really camera-ready. Otherwise, the segments aren't going to go the way they want. It's not going to be a success. The PR person, fortunately, was there and could jump in front and he did a great job, so all was well. Mark Miletello: Thank you for not bringing up the time I enlisted your help to shoot my first video. That was a little harder than I thought because I had some brighter lights than I've ever had pointed at me. Phoebe Chongchua: I hear you. Mark Miletello: Thanks for being patient. Anyway, we'll move on. Phoebe Chongchua: It's all good, right? That's the key, right, Mark- Mark Miletello: You made me look as good as someone can. Phoebe Chongchua: Yeah. Mark Miletello: You polished me again in that aspect, and wow, did you do ... I've seen that video of training on the Value Sells presentation. I watched it last night because I just did some enhancements to the site. Phoebe, I watched that last night, and I'm thinking, of course, that's me, and you want to criticize yourself so much, but the way you filmed that, it took just a lot ... I don't know if that comes as second nature or you really put the amount of time into building me performing at two different, one on, anyway you just did a great job, and I was just thinking that last night. I guess it's been a few years since then and I forgot how awesome of a job you tried to make me look. Phoebe Chongchua: Well, thank you. It's good stuff; the content really is what counts too. It's very important and can help people. Mark Miletello: That's what I hope about this show is that they realize I'm just a doer in the industry. I'm a manager, leader, an agent, a producer and I'm just having fun. Again, you've interviewed Walter Cronkite and many others, I'm going to make it through this show, and I'm going to have fun. I do have my mentor on the other side of this call, so thank you for that, and I really hope you inspire others the way that you've inspired me, but let me ask you this. If you're starting and understanding the social media the way you do, how do you start? What do you do first? How do you grow, Phoebe, in this day and time? Phoebe Chongchua: This goes back to the three tips that I was giving, and I see one way to success, and that's to develop that niche and become that authority in it. You must do that. Out of everything that we've said in this podcast, that's the important thing. Develop your niche, become the authority in it, then stick with one main platform. If you're going to write on LinkedIn, write on LinkedIn and double down on it. Mark Miletello: Be the best at it. Phoebe Chongchua: Yes, do the information and get it out there on that platform so that your audience knows where to follow you. Then introduce it on other social media platforms after you grow the first platform. A lot of times I come into brands, and they go, "We want to be on Twitter and Instagram and all these different things," and I go, "Let's just go one and work that one platform first." Seek to be on other people's shows because you can gain a lot by being published. I've been published in books like Donald Trump's The Best Real Estate Advice I've Ever Received, I've been published in other books on financial services. I have a lot of work out there on the web in platforms like realtytimes.com, so a lot around the lifestyle, home improvement, financial services, industry so that my work can be seen through their audiences as well. Again, double down on what you're doing, on the distribution and the promotion, and don't give up. Keep going, going, going. Mark Miletello: Wonderful advice. What I want to do, Phoebe is, and especially this is a perfect question for someone with your expertise. What is your professional prediction in ten years? The year is 2028, what do you predict, if you had to wave your wand and tell us, what does the industry, the media, the branding, social media, what does the industry look like? How do we as business people fit in? Phoebe Chongchua: If you do something now and you take that action now, you'll set yourself up for better success down the road. If you become known as that expert, building that niche, and maybe you're catching on to the theme here that you have to be an expert in your industry, but more importantly you have to be known for something. Here's the thing, if you're in insurance and you decide later to change into something else, you've got to be known for your skillset. Why does LinkedIn offer what are your skillsets and how people endorse you in those areas? Because that's going to translate to other jobs down the road whichever direction you go. A lot of times people start off into one area, and they migrate like I was a TV journalist, and I'm now a brand journalist and a consultant helping build other people's brands. I think the number one thing that you have to think about is in 2028, don't get focused on will YouTube be around, will Facebook still exist in the way it is. The internet will be here and what will you be known as on the internet? What is your virtual resume? How does it look there, but more important, you don't want just your resume. You want to be known as that person who has deep thought and analysis. You want to be known as that thought leader, and you only build that by writing, by talking, by speaking, by getting in front of people. If you want to be known to your customers, your homeowners, people that you are working with as the expert, you better be found on the web because it's basically like this. In the 70's and 80's, if you had a business, Mark, would you say no to the yellow pages? Mark Miletello: Absolutely not, in fact, I changed my name to AAA, Assurant Insurance Agency so that I would show up first. Phoebe Chongchua: Right? Exactly. Remember the tool I talked about, the headline analyzer? That's where things like this come in. It's all the same, but it's different at the same time. What I mean by that is you're still playing the game. Mark was doing AAA insurance, and on the web, you've got to use a web headline analyzer to make your content seen and to try to rank above the competition. The bottom line is you don't say, "I'm not going to be part of it." You don't say, "I'm not going to be in the yellow pages," in the 70's and 80's when you're a business and, "I'm not going to do social media because I think it might go away." You're only hurting yourself, so take action now, start writing, make it a habit or start podcasting. Do something so that you're getting your thought leadership out there to become that authority. Mark Miletello: The cheese always moves, the puck, the idea is to skate to where the puck is going and not to where it is. You are doing that and have done that. Who inspires you? Give us a professional recommendation of a book or a person, or article, someone that you would recommend. Phoebe Chongchua: There are so many great people, but I'm going to say this one just because I've listened to it recently and because anybody who does follow me knows that I'm a huge fan of Apple. It's Steve Jobs, The Man Who Thought Different. That might seem like, "Really? Another Steve Jobs reference?" Listen to this book; it's well done. If you want to, you can listen to it on Audible. You can get a free link from me over at my site thinklikeajournalist.com, but I recommend this book because what he does is so incredibly amazing. You learn a lot more about his younger years and how he thought, even when he was a kid. He, from the very beginning, he just thought differently. I love the way he brings attention to the product. What you're going to get out of this is you're going to recognize that it requires a lot of developing yourself and going deep into yourself to do what I'm talking about with this authority branding and authority marketing. I think Steve is an inspiration to anyone who wants to build a very successful business. If you follow some of his principles about his deep care for products, services and the way they're presented and the story that's told, you'll be on the right track. One of the things that Steve Jobs did is he rehearsed like crazy before those Apple presentations, which, by the way, the world watches. People line up all over the place to get into these conferences. He rehearsed those. He didn't leave things to chance. For anyone who's a platform speaker, that's so important because a lot of times you just try to wing it. You think, "I've got this, I've seen these slides. I'm just going to roll with it." He didn't do that. Mark Miletello: Exactly, and it's not just platform speakers. In our industry, it's the first time you meet with a client. It's very time you meet with a client. It's rehearsed, it's learned, it's practiced. If I had to say, and I'm not going to make it number one, but I'm going to say it's in the top three to five mistakes I find new agents, new reps making in this industry, is they don't rehearse, they don't practice enough and they go out and make mistakes. This is learned skills, so that sounds like a really good read. As I promised, it was a special show. I cannot believe, I'm just honored to have one of the greatest minds in the world in the media space, one of the most sought-after coaches and all those great things. I just want to say thank you for being a guest on the show and thank you for all you've done to mentor and coach me. I'm honored and privileged to know you and to be coached by you and to have you in my corner. Phoebe Chongchua: Mark, it's been so much fun, and I'm just thrilled with your success. You're doing great. Mark Miletello: And now you're in the corner of the entire industry with this show, so thank you for that as well. If you like what you hear on the show, you can definitely connect. All you have to do is Google Phoebe Chongchua. She's easy to find. If you want others to find me and this show, please go to iTunes, rate, and review, and you can follow me on markmiletello.com. Thank you for listening.

New Marketing and Training Platforms for Multiple Line Agents, Lance Johnson, Ep. 1

Today's episode is on new marketing and training platforms for multiple line agents. Lance Johnson is the co-founder of IA Trainers, (Insurance Agent Trainers). Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode one. Lance Johnson If you could help someone get what they want, you're going to get what you want. Speaker 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top one percent producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello Welcome. I'm Mark Miletello. Today we're going to discuss new marketing and training platforms for multiple line agents. We have on the show with us co-founder of IA Trainers, that stands for Insurance Agent Trainers, and my partner in the development of the new dynamic training platform MarkMiletello.com. Welcome, Lance Johnson to the show. How are you? Lance Johnson Well, I'm doing great, Mark. Thanks a lot for having me. I appreciate you having me on board today. Mark Miletello Well, I'm excited to have you on board, and some of the things that I know you're going to share with us is really revolutionizing the industry. Lance, you know I'm a golfer, right? Lance Johnson That's correct. Mark Miletello There's nothing better than to walk up to the first t-box and right off the bat crush a drive down the middle of the fairway while everyone is looking and waiting. The rest of the game may not go so well, so while everyone is listening and waiting, I'd like to start the show the same way with valuable information that will just crush it. Lance, for our insurance and financial services listeners, can you give us a quick tip right off the first box? Lance Johnson Yeah, you know my first tip to anybody in business is it's all about getting people what they want, providing things to help people get what they want. The first rule of thumb I go by is if you can help someone get what they want, you're going to get what you want if that makes sense. Mark Miletello It absolutely does, and I totally agree with that. I'm excited to dive into this today to find out more about that. But first Lance, let's go to some industry news. Right now, the insurance industry is going through some crazy times. Training in the industry right now is news that auto insurance losses are climbing at an alarming rate. Many insurance companies have been caught off guard by this trend, some in a major way like I said, and consumers, of course, want to know why? For some time, auto insurance rates were trending consistently down, believe it or not, competition among other things. Since the great recession, since '08, '09 this trend has reversed. Rates again are on the rise; the reasons are there are more and more cars on the road. Those cars are driving much more annual mileage than before. There are higher medical costs, which always seems to be a factor, but also higher repair costs have been a major trend as well. Lance, I know you. You drive all over the state, and I know your commute. You drive a lot of miles, annually right? Lance Johnson Yeah, I do. I put the miles on because I love being on the field working with clients. Mark Miletello I know, and I think most of us if we look at the mileage we drive, and maybe you and I are just from a larger city, but I think people are driving more as the economy picks up. Also with the age of smart cars, the technology is supposed to be there to help with wrecks, right? Self-driving cars, things like that. What's going on here? It's really Lance, it's the other technologies that are causing more wrecks. Everything I guess cell phone related, navigation apps, texting, calls, et cetera. All this including those higher miles that are driven seems to be causing more wrecks, and guess what, the more wrecks that are happening from cars that are now much more expensive. Either way, as it stands, the industry right now cannot raise rates fast enough, and consumers, of course, are not too happy of this trend. They want to know why. It's difficult times not only for the companies but also for agents. That's what I'm excited to have you on board to help us hear some professional tips and strategies and things that the agents can control. We can't control the claims, and the trends, and the rates, but it does make things more difficult for us in the field of course. Before we jump into that, I want to hear some professional strategies from you. This is where the pros meet, and you have shown that you're a pro in the age of technology and things like that. Lance, can you tell me a little bit about how you became successful? Lance Johnson I've become successful by really analyzing what successful people do, and trying not to reinvent the wheel. My dad, he was a successful doctor, and he told me, "You know what, you've got to find what you like to do, get up every day and just do that same thing every day." For example, as you know me, I rode motorcycles professionally. I got up, I trained, and I became successful. I got into real estate. I got up every day, I did real estate. People knew that Lance Johnson did real estate loans. When the crash happened, I went back into technology. As you know, we revolutionized the car industry with some nifty technology, but if you talk to anybody, Lance Johnson was the automotive technology guru. Now my biggest tip is just get up, find what you like to do, and just get up every day and do it. Mark Miletello That kind of brings us to today, and again, I know you from the automotive technology, which was really the leading, one of the leading minds out there in that and you had some tremendous success in that arena. Of course, you and I got into dirt bike riding. I know that you were on all the magazine covers back in the day, but that kind of led us to grow together in this new venture called insurance agent trainers or IA Trainers. Tell us how your technology background led to that discovery. Lance Johnson Well, you know I'll just get a little personal. My wife is an agent, she works for one of the top agencies, one of your agents. About a year ago, she came back from an appointment, and the loan officer, which you know, when it comes to agents selling P&C, the best referrals she can get are from loan officers. She was asked to go to lunch, the loan officer was 15 minutes late, was on the phone for 30 minutes and then he hangs the phone up and says, "What are you going to do for me? I already get coffee and donuts." I just tried to put my head together, how do I give an insurance agent something of value to where they can have an answer to, "What are you going to do for me?" With the technology out there, I came up with the concept of using our agent marketing software to give, it goes back to that tip of the day. If I can give a realtor what they want, they're going to give a loan officer what they want, and now that we can help the realtor and the loan officer get what they want, we as insurance agents are going to get what we want, which is referrals on home and auto. Mark Miletello Lance, I've had the luxury of really being with you from the beginning of this process as a partner in growing this concept, and watching you have the success. Some of those struggles that you have I think is when you say that, yes, I agree, and anyone would agree that if you help others get what they want, you get what you want. I think one of the challenges that you've had is relaying exactly. Can you pinpoint as exactly as you can the technology, how the technology helps others get what they want, and in fact benefit the insurance agent? Lance Johnson Yeah, so for example, in the insurance, real estate, loan officer world, the loan officer real estate relationship is a fruitful relationship, it's a proven relationship, it's working now. A realtor's best referrals are loan officers, and a loan officers referrals, his best ones are from the real estate agents. The insurance agent, it may maybe have a great relationship, they may get referrals, but a lot of times as you know are last minute. By providing a real estate agent with the most advanced and automated system to market their properties, you're helping them sell their properties sooner, giving them technology like text codes and websites that automatically make themselves, you're not only helping them sell their property sooner, you're giving them things to make their job easier. Then for those realtors, when you sponsor it through a loan officer, that loan officer is looking, the realtor is looking to that loan officer as that loan officer gave him something to make his life easier. To cap it off, if you can sponsor the loan officer and the realtor through an insurance agent, it connects the insurance agent like has never been done before. Mark Miletello Well, I've been obviously part of that process, and I guess to add more to that, what I saw, and again it took you kind of pounding it into me, it from an insurance agent standpoint, typically we're not known as the most tech-savvy people in the world, our industry, and I think you'll laugh and agree at that. You've had that challenge of the first 70, 80 people that have signed up for your program, I think you've had the challenge of really kind of helping us grasp that concept. What I'm excited about is, and I've told you my story before, I had a card mailing system that I offered real estate agents for sending me their referrals, and loan officers as well. The rest of the story is that I ended up becoming the top agent with one of the largest companies in the nation with a card mailing system. This is a full suite marketing platform that gives a real estate agent everything they want to market. Social media, print advertising, everything they want to market that home, right? Lance Johnson That's correct. Mark Miletello It's a full suite of everything that they would want, so if a card mailing system worked on my behalf, I guess how much greater do you feel this program works? Lance Johnson Like I said, a card mailing system, it's something that may work, but it goes back to how often do we open our snail mail anymore. If we don't get a bill electronically, we don't open the snail mail, so we're just taking a card mailing system and turning into the 21st century by turning it digital, turning it into something that's automatic and very advanced. Mark Miletello Again, the first thing you start off with is helping others get what they want. I think a lot of us missed the link as for how are we going to benefit from giving a real estate agent marketing software? Lance Johnson Well think about it. What does it start with a P&C agent? It's the home insurance, correct? Mark Miletello Correct. Lance Johnson The captive people looking for homes, their first point of contact is going to be a realtor, and realtors have a lot going on. They must show homes, they have to do open houses, they have to go try to get new clients. If you can create a technology package that works automatically for them so when they input their properties into whatever system they're using, and a product can create a website, a mobile site, a YouTube video, a virtual tour, a text code, other social media posts, give them all the print materials they need so they can print them, and do that automatically, you're going to make their life easier. That's the starting point is starting with the realtor, and once again, if you can have a loan officer work with that realtor, it goes back to helping everyone get what they want. A realtor gets to sell their home quicker, they're going to have more clients to give to the loan officer, the loan officer's going to get loans, and now your best referral as a PNC agent is a loan that needs insurance from that loan officer. Each level, the realtor's getting what they want, they're selling their homes. The loan officers are helping those realtors, so now they're getting referrals, and now you get a chance, and you're very clear. You want to quote everything that comes across that loan officers desk, so you have referrals. Each level, they're intertwined where you guys are all working together and it's the same goal. You're all getting what you want, which is building your networks and building more business. Mark Miletello Then we finally have circled back around to that first tip I believe that point blank, you've developed a concept and a software platform behind that concept to make the insurance agent part of that food chain. I guess we were part of that food chain, but not in the referral stages. We were a necessary part of that home being sold, and then having a loan, and then, of course, you need insurance, but what you're saying is the insurance agent is now a vital part of that process from a networking standpoint right off the bat, right? Lance Johnson That's correct. Basically, we've taken the insurance agent and made him, probably because the insurance agent can sponsor loan officers and/or realtors, you become the most important part of the relationship. Mark Miletello Well and I have obviously invested interest in this concept because you and I have developed it out together, but I've got to tell you Lance, and I've told you this before, 27 years of being licensed and being one of the leaders in this industry, I've never seen a marketing concept that has opened, and you know me. I must go out and prove something personally before I, number one; endorse it, and number two; recommend it to my own agents. You and I went out for several months marketing this concept just to see is it as good as we thought it was, and so tell us a little bit maybe about some of the mistakes that one might make in developing this, but also, I want to just say that it is one of the most dynamic concepts that I've seen in my career. Lance Johnson As you know, this is something that even took you, who's been in the insurance industry for your whole life a couple weeks to get, and what we've been trying to do is really, in the beginning I thought we sold all the features and all the benefits to it, which kind of glazed the eyes of the insurance agents over. Really what we're doing now is we're just, this system allows a seasoned insurance agent like yourself, or somebody brand new to go out and talk to any real estate or loan professional and try to network with them. They can set an appointment, I think Mark you can tell a story about one of your counterparts that he was trying to get in front of a bank for a year, with the software he got the appointment and you had to remind him to be selling himself. Do you want to tell them that story? Mark Miletello Yeah, I mean I could tell tons of stories just like that, and so can you where this software opened the door. First, you're giving a full suite platform marketing, you're giving it away to become a networking partner, so if you can't sell free, then I can't really help you. You're giving away a program that they need, want, or are already paying for. Once that door is open then the lead flow, and the connections and the relationships are built. I want to tell you, but you mentioned loan officers and real estate agents have a lot going on, but Lance, you have a lot going on. Tell us in addition to the IA Trainers technology, and training, and webinars, you help people connect with loan officers and real estate agents. The software connects them with real estate agents in their community and a lot of other things that they can get by following you after this show. Tell us some of the other things that you're working on that we're working on together, but I want to hear it from your perspective what your thoughts on the full platform, the training platform that you're developing and about to launch? Lance Johnson The agent marketing IA Trainers is the first piece of this, and as you know, I do a lot of research. When my wife became an agent, I kind of, I started looking and typing insurance agent training. I saw Geico, I saw Progressive, I even saw dog trainers. I even saw a dog trainer show up for insurance agent training because it was insurance and training for a dog. That was a keyword. I really looked at there was nothing new. There's so much technology, so together with industry experts like yourself, we're developing presentation tools so you could overcome objections, so the price isn't an issue. Groundbreaking, revolutionary ways to sell life insurance where it's not even a sale, it's a discussion where we have agents coming that used to get $100, or $200 a month in premium, they're getting $900 to $5,000 a month in premium now using technology. Tools with webinars and videos that are easy to use and to practice. You don't really train, you practice these techniques. I'm excited in the next coming months along with these podcasts, we're going to have some revolutionary, life-changing technology and just common-sense pieces to bring to agents. Mark Miletello Yes, and of course your host Mark Miletello, that's what the full suite is being launched under. MarkMiletello.com. You've talked about the life insurance discussion, the life insurance trainers, LIT, and you've also maybe touched quickly on the value sales presentation because really when I think of training agents, there are three areas that agents need the most help. First is marketing. I believe anyone can do this business if you can get in front of enough people, right? I mean that's really any business. I think that's the first challenge that I think you and I've tackled with your vision and your concept of how do you get in front of more people, and how do you get leads today, and how can you afford that? Because we know what the cost is for the old platforms of generating leads. If we can handle the marketing, that's I believe the first big hurdle. Number two is our pricing is all on the board. We talked a little bit about the industry news auto rates going up. Our rates are going up. There are some companies that don't take increases, or we take increases, and so your neighbor may in the old days your kind of new where you fit. Now, you could have one client insured and then the very next neighbor is double the rates. There's no rhyme or reason. It's all the thousands and maybe millions of factors in rate sophistication of these days. Number two Lance I think, and that's kind of where I'm leading is helping agents deliver a presentation and maybe win that client regardless of price. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about the value sales presentation, and what your thoughts on how professional that makes an agent look? Lance Johnson Here's the thing. A lot of agents can have their own Excel spreadsheets or their little four squares that they compare. What the value sales presentation does is it illustrate value. it's very easy to use, it's updated, the software is very, very intuitive. It puts in a nice comparison in a professional presentation of apples to apple comparison of what they have coverage wise, and what you are recommending. When this software's used correctly which is, as you know it's been developed so anybody can use it, it really overcomes any objections that anybody may have if it comes to any type of price, so- Mark Miletello Well said, and that's the goal is for it to help you win at any price. Number one is marketing, number two is closing the sale, and with pricing being all over the board you must have the psychology, and the training, and the tools behind the value sales presentation to win almost, hopefully, win every time. Number three you discussed is a life insurance transition, which is where us multiple-line agents struggle the most.  I'm excited to see the early results, and you're right, we're seeing agents go from $200 to $300 a month to thousands of monthly premiums in permanent life. The term is dropping the bucket in this new life discussion training. It's a full platform suite, and I've never seen anything that has been out there like this. Lance, I want to tell you to thank you for your vision and helping me put together I believe a state of the art, you and I went to an industry meeting together, and I think you were kind of shocked that there really hasn't been anything new in the last decade or two, right? Lance Johnson Yeah, and I mean when we went to that industry meeting and we found that we were the first new thing in what, seven or eight years with a new booth at this meeting, it blew me away. Mark Miletello Yeah, so I just want to say that I appreciate what you're doing for our industry, that the agents live that are changing either young, in the business, or veteran alike has reported back tremendous success in marketing. Two of my own agents including your wife, in general, has doubled, if not tripled their production with the IA Trainers piece. The value sales presentation has continued to help them succeed where pricing is difficult, and now the early success over the last two months of launching life insurance trainers is just unbelievable. Thank you for those tangible, those three tangible products, and technologies, and tips that you've given our industry. Lance Johnson Let me just say a couple things here. As you know, with technology, we have built this company to be very agile. As we get input from our members, our subscribers, we make changes. We don't know it all. That's what makes I think me, our partnership is great because you know what, we learn something new every day. Anytime we see something new, or anytime we hear about something that's effective, we'll be able to incorporate it into our platforms, so we'll always be something that's ... We want to make sure something's number one effective. We want to make sure something's affordable, and most of all, we want to make sure that something is actionable where you can go out and get things done and get leads today. Mark Miletello I love that because you have researched. You and I both have researched other training sites, right? How's yours differ? Lance Johnson Well honestly, we have it in such a way, a flow that it is ... Like I said we don't train people, we help people practice techniques to be successful. Everything is a very easy flow. Our training and practice videos are written and done in a way where you can understand it in real language, so it makes sense. When you're practicing presenting in front of everyday people, they're not insurance professionals, right? Mark Miletello That's right. Lance Johnson You need to talk in their language. We're always fine-tuning these, so- Mark Miletello What I love about the things that you put together is first, it's state of the art, it's easy to use like you said, but also the people that have really been initial users of your concepts and the things that I've helped add to that have really produced immediate results, like the same day an agent. One of my agents got into seeing 75 realtors. The other one got in to see 500 realtors the day they signed up for this program. It's immediate results of connections and referred leads, relationships that are built right off the bat. I think that to me is the most exciting thing about it because when I work on something and this collaboration you have had, I really want the listener or the user to be able to implement something immediately. I'm excited that you've built it in such a way that it can immediately help agents with their agencies change and change lives. Lance Johnson Like I said, I have a really quick story before we wrap it up. I spent a couple weeks in St. Louis, signed up some district, a pretty large insurance company and the next day, I signed up three loan officers, 50 realtors under one insurance agent's software. It's something that most insurance agents already have the connections, now we're putting those connections to work where everyone wants to give each other referrals. Mark Miletello Great point, Lance. How can someone find you? What's the best way to get in touch? Lance Johnson: We're very easy to find. We're at IATrainers.com. So InsuranceAgentTrainers.com. All the information's there. Also, MarkMiletello.com is kind of the group site where we're building this up because Mark you know, my vision is to make you an industry leader, a spokesperson for the new way to connect people and connect agents. It's either IATrainers.com or MarkMiletello.com would be great. Mark Miletello Very good. I want to thank the listeners, and I hope you picked up something in this podcast with Lance Johnson. If you'd like to hear more on this show, please go to iTunes and review, and rate us so that others can find us. I just want to say continue driving on. Lance Johnson Okay thank you. Like I said, to all our listeners, don't hesitate. If you hear something you think effective or neat, or something you think we could benefit from, reach out to us and let us know. Mark Miletello Well, you've listened to Mark Miletello podcast Where the Insurance Pros Meet. See you next time.

Recruiting and Launching a Successful Insurance Agency, Matt Harness, Ep. 10

General Agent, Matt Harness, shares how he recruits agents and launches a successful insurance agency. Learn what Matt says holds agents back. View more information at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode 10. Matt Hartness: We are our own worst enemy in what gets in the way of future production. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. We'd like to thank the listeners for tuning in. We have an exciting show as we always do. We have guests on this show that already with under 10 episodes launched, we have industry gurus. We've had outside talent, and marketing, and speaking, and coaching. We've had new agents. We've had leaders in the industry. I'm just crazy excited here to have a person that I have watched grow in this business from a producer to an assistant, associate general agent, and now has become the leading general agent in one of the top insurance companies in America. One of the oldest, and largest, and most dynamic companies in America. Welcome. Today, we're going to discuss with him recruiting and launching a successful agency. Welcome to the show, Matt Hartness. Matt Hartness: Thanks, Mark. I appreciate you having me today. I look forward to the conversation. Mark Miletello: Man, we got so much to learn from you. I just can't wait to extract it. Matt, I guess in the past, maybe I've mentored you a little bit. Would you admit to that, or no? Matt Hartness: Absolutely, man. I was early in my career, I was calling you or seeing you at various events out and about, picking your brain and asking questions. All along, I would have counted you as one of my mentors through my career, and still, I'd count you as a mentor. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you for that. I don't say that brag or to steal any of your thunder. What I say that too is a great mentor of mine, Garry Kinder, said "Hey, in the first three months, a new person does what you tell them to do. They don't know how to speak, so they speak like you speak. They walk like you walk. Then after that, you start to let them fly a little bit. Then before long, two to three years later typically, they become mentors of yours." That's what I'd like to say about you, Matt, is that you have now arrived at a place where I feel like we mentor each other. You are a mentor of mine, so congratulations on the hard work I know every step of the way, the hard work you've put to become based on the standards that they calculate. Now, I know there are rules here and there. You've become the leading general agent with one of the greatest companies in America, so congratulations on that. Thank you for mentoring me back now, which you have all along. Matt Hartness: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's been an excellent ride. As we're talking mentors, I could not have done it with many of people and even current teammates that I have now to make it happen. It's been a collaborative of a lot of people to help with the success that I am currently having today. Thank you very much for that. Mark Miletello: Well, I know you're right in the middle of it, and you're a busy person, so thank you for taking the time because I think your perspective is just what I love about this show, that people all across our industry will be able to hear from someone, and really like myself, there was a producer and worked all the way through those different levels to now you're in a management and a leadership role. And so, I think it's going to be very interesting to talk and hear some of the things that you're doing. I'm anxious to hear and learn from it. But, you mentioned some mentors along the way. Would you like to pause for a minute and maybe give some of your mentors' credit? Matt Hartness: Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely want to give credit where credit's due. Mark, right off the bat early in my career, even actually before I started, I was handed a cassette, a CD cassette of books basically with Jack and Garry Kinder, had the Earl Nightingale information in there. And so, I literally took that information and started to just dissect it, take notes on it. And then years later, I got a chance to sit under Garry Kinder in an academy that lasted over the course of a year. So, got to personally interact with him some. And then just here in the last couple years as I was getting into the management, full-time management scene, I went out, and hired, and it was a long story how it came together, but an old, very old 43 years with one of the largest insurance companies in North America, and he had left that company being ranked the number three manager. And so, we struck a deal, and I just said, "Man, I'm ready to learn." For over a year, right after I got into management, I just learned from him and his name is Ron Strombon. He's just been a phenomenal coach. We were even running a meeting today, and he was there right by my side. There are many other people, but I would say that Jack and Garry Kinder, Ron Strombon, and another good friend of mine, who became a good friend is Steve Bramlett. He'd been a mentor of mine for many years. So, a number of people. The list goes on, but those would be three people, along with yourself and Dan Mueller, and a few other guys that just really have ... I just take information and run with it. So, thank you. Mark Miletello: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. I just want to see what's been there to mold someone that rises into a position that you. But I've got to tell you this, the calls I get from you, maybe one or two others have really called me consistently asking the questions. What I love about spending time and investing with you, that time is that I know when I ... you're like, Carl, one of my agents. I just know when I spend that time with you, by the questions you ask, you're doing something really special and you take it and you run with it, and you build upon it, and you give that feedback that, "Hey, here's how I made it work." Absolutely. As far as your career though, this shows about industry pros, and you are definitely a professional in this industry now. You've arrived, I can promise you that. Tell me in your own words maybe a little bit about your rise to success, your struggles. Tell us about your history of working up from scratch in this industry. Matt Hartness: Absolutely. Well, I'd have to give my background to pave the way for where I'm at today. I grew up, I was one of six kids, and we didn't have a lot when I was young. So, work ethic was something that I was taught early. Growing up, the idea of running my own little small businesses whether it was mowing yards or just making a buck somewhere, here, there, was important. And so, I quickly ... In high school, sitting down or when I was working, and I'm working with somebody, we're getting paid an hourly rate, and I know that I'm busting my rear. The guy next to me was sitting on the cooler all day. At the end of the day, we make the same amount of money, but we've put in two different levels of effort, I found frustrating. I quickly knew younger in my life that I wanted to be in an industry or in a position that I could get rewarded for my effort. Going to college, one of my dreams, even from a young boy was to live and work on a horse ranch someday. I got to do that. As soon as I got into college during the summer terms, I'd spend time out in Colorado on a horse ranch and would do that in the summers. Then after I ended up graduating from college, I moved out there full-time, was a wrangler. Did that for about a year, realized I couldn't make any money as a ranch hand, loved it, it was my passion, but I decided to move back to my hometown and get into the business world where I could hopefully come back, make some money and then go buy a ranch out the West someday. That's really where my background, and I quickly discovered the insurance business. What attracted me to the insurance business was that it didn't have a cap on my income, it had flexibility. If I wanted to work hard and then play hard, it gave me all that. And so, I started my career and I was an agent for about six years before the company, that I still work with at this time, approached me on becoming an assistant manager. They approached me there just because of some of the success that I was having as an agent. I got a chance to be in the assistant role along with keeping my personal agency. Then as time went on, the company saw that I was doing well there, and then they ended up coming along and asked them if I wanted to step into the full-time management route, of which I ended up taking, and the rest is history. Along that way though, we had a lot of success and hit some various awards, and financially was very rewarded for that as well. It's just been a great ride and something that I truly am grateful for because I know that there are so many other people in a lot of other industries that don't get near the satisfaction that I get out of my own job. Mark Miletello: And I've known you for quite some time, and I've watched your career, and I see that one thing that you do is you reinvest along the way. You invested in yourself as a producer, you reinvested, you took yourself to the next level, and even in management. You've looked around, and you've said, "I don't ..." You've humbled yourself in a way and said, "I don't know enough to be the greatest of my accord," and you've invested heavily in surrounding yourself. That's the mark of a true leader, is to surround yourself with those that complement you to get you to that level. I've seen that in you. Matt Hartness: Thank you very much. Yeah, I've read and heard various people talk about, "You'll become very similar or alike the five people that are closest to you in your life. Whether that's professional, personally, financially, that's who you become." So, one of my goals has been, at least in the business arena, to really try and stay in the game and surround myself with people that are doing the types of things that I want to be doing in my career so that I can get there. That's been one of my models and thankfully it's paying off. Mark Miletello: We're going to get into some of your professional advice. Thanks for sharing that. But before we do, I want to share with the listeners some of the things that you've been able to accomplish in a short amount of time you've been in a leadership role. As I had mentioned starting out the show, there's a lot of awards, there's a lot of rules and all that, but if you look the across the board statistics, you are ranked across the board as the number one leader with one of the largest and oldest companies in America. You also have a retention that's pretty much perfect. You have a retention of agents, which I cannot even begin to say that. You've been able to retain the agents that you've brought aboard, which is unbelievable. Just so the listener knows, you are in the multiple line industry. You do P&C and life. One of the pinnacles of property and casualty sales and life insurance sales as a multiple-line goes, you could be over a 20% as an agency, that's pretty much leading the industry. You are over 40%, right at 43% of your clients, your agent's clients have an auto, home, and life insurance. There's maybe a handful of agents with any multiple line company that can say that, yet your entire team is at close to 43%. You have 100% of your agents that were with you a full year last year. 100% of your agency is club qualifiers. Your life activity is ranking among the highest. One thing that impresses me that I must learn today to take back with my own team is how do you have such fast starts? Your agents are coming out ... Some of your agents held the record for a long time for a couple years now. The amount of production your team starts with, your agents start with, we've got to get to the bottom of. Let me shut up and get into this. Let's hear some of your professional advice. This podcast is about recruiting and launching a successful agency. Not just recruiting, not just launching, making sure that you're having success. Those indicators I just mentioned are the top indicators in the multiple line industry. First, let's break it down. How do you recruit that talent? Tell me that. Teach me that. Matt Hartness: Yeah. Absolutely, Mark. It's not easy. We go through a lot of actual interviews. Various companies, each company has different metrics that they will test on. Even when we get a lot of recruits or interviews that pass the various company standards, that's just one indicator for us of whether we should move forward or not with the candidate. What I've seen is that various companies ... If that candidate passes that test, that's a green light for that candidate to be hired. If you were to look at the amount, the volume of interviews or the people that have taken those types of tests with my agency, you'd go, "Man, there's a lot of people that passed that test that wasn't offered an agency, didn't have the requirements to hit the agency standards of what we're looking at when we're hiring." I would say that one, just a lot of ... We're weeding through a lot of interviews to really find the kind of talent that we're going after. Mark Miletello: Well, let's back up from there. Matt Hartness: The second- Mark Miletello: Where are you getting those ... I'm sorry to interrupt, but I've got to know. What platform are you using to have that number of interviews? Matt Hartness: ... Honestly, it goes back to just the good old referrals and agent referrals. I've asked my agents and I did, to be fair, I had, as I mentioned earlier, probably I guess it would've been eight years before I got into full-time management. I had eight years of networking and growing a local market, building a personal book of business that I could go out and meet people, and- Mark Miletello: A lot of people saw that success and so you had a warm market of referrals, that's for sure. Matt Hartness: ... Absolutely, yeah. That was something that has helped, but I know not everybody has a warm market and it still works. Agent referral has been the biggest area for me of where we're really ... And that doesn't necessarily mean my own agents, and that doesn't necessarily mean my own companies agents. That could be building relationships with other companies and with other agents outside of my own company, and maybe in a different market than the local market than I'm in here, and just building those relationships. "Hey, I know that you guys are recruiting a lot of people too, but you also might not have an opportunity that's available for a person. If you see somebody that comes across the grid that you would put your stamp of approval on, then would you potentially consider giving them to me if you saw somebody that you can't take on where you're currently at?" Mark Miletello: I look back at my own team- Matt Hartness: So, that's... Mark Miletello: ... I look back at my own team, and 90 plus percent of my agents came from referrals. Yet, I spent many, many years doing. I think having all type of fishing lines in the water in building a team is important, but that's overwhelming that I would say, and probably the same for you, 90% are referred. Matt Hartness: Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. I was actually thinking too that the other night and was like, "Yeah, I'm pretty much ... I have had a little bit of luck with getting online leads, but for the most part, we've gotten all of ours through some type of a referral system." And that's what's worked the best. Mark Miletello: I interrupted you. You were on point one of recruiting, and I think point two, you were going to go into how you filtered through that talent. I'd like to try to get back on track because it's something I should not have interrupted. Matt Hartness: No, not a problem. Not a problem. The other piece, is I believe everything ... not everything. A large part of management is casting the right kind of expectations. Where you see a mediocre performance, in my opinion, it's a reflection of management. Whether it's paying attention to, as they say, "The checker gets what the checker checks," or it's allowing lower performance to happen, or it's casting just a lower expectation to recruit, is eventually what you get as a manager. We really work very hard in our recruiting to weed out through our large expectations of what we're looking for, those that aren't willing to put in the effort that I believe it's going to take to be successful in our business. That can be various ways, but really, "Here's what the day-to-day's going to look like. Here's what I'm going to require as a manager as far as your onboarding. Here's capital that it's going to require." Right there when you start talking about, "Here's what our expectations are," I shouldn't say requirements, but, "Here's what our expectations are as me as your coach and mentor. You need to make this many calls, and you need to have this many people that you've gotten permission from to give them a free look at their insurance needs. Here is that capital requirement." That alone, when those expectations are high, really raises the bar for entry level. I really believe with all my heart that's what has given us such strong, fast starts, and then has also continued to help maintain the production level that we're getting with each individual agency. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Okay. You have a great system of referring and interviewing. I would assume the mentor that you brought on board helps you select the right talent, maybe several in your organization. You have a culture now. Of course, in the beginning, you had expectations, but now you built a culture of high performance, high expectation, right? Matt Hartness: Yeah, absolutely. You bring up a good point. The expectations on the front end when you're recruiting are all going into the type of culture that we're trying to create and then maintain or even strengthen. One of my fundamental goals as a brand-new manager, when I was getting, started was I literally I called ... I had to go back and shatter my old reality. My old reality. Even with the success that I have as an agent, I realized, man, this thing could go to a whole another level of production. We're just giving agents a roadmap to success. By shattering the old reality, that was going back and really trying to knock out old bad habits that I might've had. Then also begin to lay a foundation for new habits that we're trying to implement. Whether it's the number of households we're trying to talk to daily, whether it's the number of phone calls or the number of policies we're trying to write. All of that had to be reconstructed and so we had to work hard to get a new model set. Really the first year that I was in the business was going back and really doing away with a lot of the old and then with my hires, it was critical that they were really what I call my foundational pieces to build upon. I did find some, what I call heavy hitter workhorses, and those two agents have become really what we look for and what I attract talent too. Now, I say, "Go talk to these guys. Go look at their operations. Here are their productions." They have now, because of what they're doing, that's just the norm in our agency. I'm still actually waiting for the day that those guys become the norm and we get a heavier hitting workhorse that comes through because the new expectations for people coming in- Mark Miletello: Takes it up even another level. Matt Hartness: ... Takes it up. Mark Miletello: Yeah. You've talked to us a little bit. When I looked back at some of your great accomplishments, activity, I think drives all of that, all of that. We're going to probably specifically in a minute talk about how your team has such a high three-line percentage of auto, home, and life. But, before we do that, talking about having 100% club qualifiers, the tremendous fast starts that your agents have, and the high ... This is all driven by high activity. I'm having several challenges. Now, you and I talked about, before this call, we were talking about me launching a new life insurance discussion. As we talked about, I had led the company to life insurance sales. So, what did I need to fix? I told you that I had to throw it all out. I had to throw it all out and revamp it. I think that's what I hear you saying in the management leadership role that ... You were telling me right in the beginning. I remember this as you said that. You were saying some of the expectations you were setting when interviewing your first few interviewees, and I said, "Wow. The bar to come on your team is really high." I got to tell you, I didn't doubt you because I know your ability, but part of me says, "Man, that's a high bar to set." I was concerned that maybe that bar was too high, but obviously you've shown and proved that if you set the expectation, they will rise to that expectation, and I need to consider, and that's why I have you on this call, and that's why you're now my mentor as well. I need to consider raising that expectation and that bar. I definitely agree that sometimes we have to throw away and redo it. To evolve as leaders, just like producers, you must evolve. Part of that evolution is to throw away some of those bad habits. You know what, Matt? It's hard to do. A lot of people cannot do it. I commend you for the fact that to evolve, you've got to recognize that, but you also have to throw away a lot of things that come naturally or you've learned along the way to develop that. Getting back to the two points that I want to dive into, which is high activity, which has produced those club qualifiers and those fast starts. You and I have talked. I think we talked an hour a few months ago regarding the activity. How do you have your new reps coming in? How do they have the activity that you've been able to expect out of them? That to me is one of the most important things you're doing right now. Matt Hartness: There's a couple pieces to it. It's more a concept. What I learned through Ron, who I mentioned earlier, he came in, he said, "First what we've got to do when we're trying to drive, and this can go for various categories, but one in the activity category is we've got to establish the what. What are we trying to accomplish here? What kind of production do we want to have? That becomes the static piece to the equation. The what doesn't change. What does change in the equation is who's going to help us do it, and how's it going to get done? The what always remains the same. The who is the team that's going to make it happen. Then the how is the strategy behind it." What we've done when I'm onboarding recruits and we're talking about high expectations and driving activity is we said, "Here is the activity that's got to get done. Here, before I ever start you as an agent, here are the numbers that you're going to have to reach, the number of households that you're going to have to have permissions to quote before I'll ever start you. Whether that's you going out and knocking doors, making phone calls, going through your own pipeline of people that you know. Whether that's you by yourself, that could help get to the what, or maybe we need to go to the who, and say, "Is that who going to be you and a couple other people?" Part of the expectation is that they're bringing on staff before they ever start. It's a big leap of faith for them because some of these agents or new agents are coming in without experience. But I really believe with all my heart, and as the industry would indicate, that those that have key members have much more success right off the bat versus trying to build your agency as a standalone one person show, and then as you have income investing in that person later. I say invest in the business up front, which goes into why we require the capital. We establish the what upfront, and so we have the what, and then we also say, "Okay. You as the agent, before you become an agent, and then potentially those that you're going to be hiring on as your team members are going to help. Here's how it's going to happen. They're going to help you get that what, which is the number." That's really been one of our sole ways of driving activity right off the bat. Then, it goes back to the old motto, "You give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. You teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." The onboarding piece for us is huge because if my agents before they become agents don't have enough time in a day to get the amount of ... I mean, their days are packed full of trying to squeeze out the number of households they're required to have before we start them. But what that's doing is it's giving them rep after rep, after rep of teaching them how to fish, teaching them how to go out and talk to people, build their confidence, get turned down a bunch. But man, when they're ready to go live, they've got a whole pot of names of people that have given them permission to give them a free look at their insurance. Mark Miletello: That comes through a warm market, that comes through referrals, that comes through cold calls, that comes through networking. So, that comes through everything that they can do, right, to get those permissions to quote if you will? Matt Hartness: That's right. Absolutely. The what, you establish your number. I've got my first agent, and I am so proud of him. His name's Anthony. He was coming from previous experience, and he was my first agent to bring on as a manager. I had some nervous butterflies, and of course, he did too. He was coming. He was making great money with his previous company, but it got real for me. I talked about, man, the multiple line opportunity is so much better because he was counting how many people you're having to turn down because you can't write their home and auto insurance, and those are all people that ... That's additional revenue income you can pick up. I ended up telling him, "You've got to have ..." I said, for him, I said, "You have to have, to accomplish what you need to accomplish, you're going to need to have 1,000 PTQ's." That's what we call permissions to quote. He goes out. We took on, and there was obviously a lot of time and energy that went into the business planning behind it. But as time's going on, I see that he's getting behind in the amount of PTQ's. He had a three-month window to get it done. You can do the math on how many that is per day, it's a lot of people. As time's getting closer, he calls me one night and he says, "Hey, what's going to happen if I don't have all my PTQ's?" I literally, I just said, "Man, let's not have to answer that question. If you get it done, we don't have to find out the result." It was playing hardball, but I didn't want to set him up for failure, and I knew it'd took for his success. It came down to the night before he was supposed to start his agency. He had put in three months, sacrificed a lot, moved career from one company to another. It was like nine o'clock the night before he was supposed to go live, and I text him. I said, "How many PTQ's do you have?" He said, "I'm 17 short." My heart literally sunk to the ground. So, now I'm a guy of my word, and he's short. I don't think I'm going to be able to start him tomorrow. He's a jokester, and I'm just kind of letting the time ... I'm sitting there, how do I respond to this text message? About 15 minutes later, he responds, "But I'm headed to the bar." I kid you not, he heads out. It was around 10 o'clock at night, and I had a hard time sleeping that night because I had no idea what he was going to have next morning. It was a Thursday morning, September 1, 2016. I called him first thing. I said, "Are you going to be able to start today, you and your team?" And he said, "I didn't get my 17 ..." He said, "I didn't my 1,000th." I said, "Oh, great." He said, "I got 1,005." He said, "I went to the bar. I only found three people last night at the bar that would give me an opportunity to quote," but he's like, "Where else could I go late on a Wednesday night that I could find a bunch of people?" He said, "Softball fields, man. Late night softball." He went out and he worked multiple dugouts and got a total of 1,005 PTQ's. Mark Miletello: Wow. Wow. Matt Hartness: That was a moment for me that I realized that when you believe in somebody, and they believe in a concept, and you increase the expectations, that we are our own worst enemy in what gets in the way of future production. Now, I've learned that through you, I've learned that through Dan Mueller, I've learned that through the Kinders. Anthony was a great example. To this day, he is still my highest producer. He just does an excellent job. But that's the type of expectations that we had on him. That's what I mean by establishing the what, and then figuring out who's going to get it done, and how's it going to get done? Mark Miletello: Yeah, wow. I don't even want to recap that because you put it simply. But, I think it's so valuable what you've said, it deserves a recap of you set the production, you called it static, it's set for that period, the "what", the who... Is it going to be you? Is it going to be staff? Is it going to be producers? But who's going to help you get to that what, and how are you going to get there? Let's talk strategy and your permissions to quotes and calls. You tell me that story, and it just reminds me of me, Garry Kinder was on the show. The great Garry Kinder. His mentorship for me as well for you, but we talked about a story where if I held a gun to your head, and you told me you were going to hit MDRT this year, could you do it? Of course, you would say yes, but you couldn't promise it because you can't control the outcome. But what you can control is if it requires you to talk to 10 people a day to have this many to filter it down to the Garry funnel, and he and I talked about that, you can. That story is a perfect example, and I love the fact that you paused before you responded, like I probably would've. "Hey, man. You did well. Come on." You paused, and you let him make that decision, and he controlled the activity by, hey, if there's a deadline, and basically there was a proverbial gun to his head that the next day if he wanted that bad enough, he would make it happen. By golly, he made a way to make it happen. So, you're right, he controlled that activity. Matt, we've all had mistakes, and I know some of yours. We've talked, we've shared both of ours. Tell me something that maybe if you were to do all over again you would do differently. Is there anything that you could think back on that you would change to help us not make that same mistake? Matt Hartness: One of the mistakes I think I would avoid early on if I'm talking to an agent is not believing or believing that I can't do more and limiting myself. What I mean by that is not investing in my business, such as with the right kind of people or with enough people early on, and trying to be more of a one-person show versus could I do more early on with more people? And learning how to invest in the business wisely without just frivolously throwing money away. That would be one of my areas of mistake is that I did have success by myself, but I absolutely believe that bird in one. If I can be equipped, and trained, and know how to go out and hire somebody, or a couple two or three people right off the bat, train them well, that our efforts collaboratively can catapult an agency early versus waiting to do that down the road. Obviously, there are different measures that go into that. But that would be one of my biggest regrets looking back is that, while I had success, and I knew I was having success, it could've been a lot more with just a couple tweaks to what I was doing. Mark Miletello: Right, right. Normally, where I go from here is I say, "You get a do-over, you get a mulligan." Really what you've told us in the beginning and throughout this show is about how to have a successful practice in today's climate if you've shared with us anything. So, I'm going to skip that, and I'm going to move right onto the years 2028. It's 10 years down the road, Matt. What are our agents going to have to do? What are we going to have to do to be relevant in 10 years? Again, I think you've kind of answered that question too, in that you must set it up with high expectations, high activity. But, where do you see our industry in 10 years, and how do we fit in? Matt Hartness: Yeah. I really believe that our industry's headed towards there's going to be a lot fewer agencies, but a lot larger agencies. I think that the number of agents that are out there is going to be less. I believe that the quality of the agencies and the size of the agencies are going to be more. My play is that if I can recruit well, cast clear, high expectations, invest in my team members the way that I believe they need to be invested in, that they can get off to a fast start in their career, have success, catch the vision of the success that they can have. They can build a team early and as competition only increases in the market space that we'll have, we'll be able to pull around. I do believe, like I said, that insurance will be around for a long time, but the quality of the agent and the size of the agent is what I'm focusing on. And so a lot of- Mark Miletello: We like to throw out the term mega agencies, right? Mega agencies. I think what you're building, and you've already laid the groundwork for in your expectations, and your strategies, and the how, and the who, all those are building this platform to become if you want to call it that, mega-agencies. Larger agencies, more quality agencies that are here to handle whatever challenges our future brains. But, I think you're positioning yourself to be here 10 years from now, and you will be the competition. You are the competition right now, but I think that's what you're trying to say is that you will have these qualities, bigger agents that are highly staffed, high producing, right? Matt Hartness: Absolutely. What I mean by a bigger agency, obviously profitable, they've got producers. But, I saw a visual of this years ago that another mentor of mine, Gary Luckovich showed me. I didn't believe it at the time, because once again, back to my regret, I just didn't believe in what I thought was the impossible. It's called the agent of the tomorrow, and it's just the idea that inside of a single agency, you're going to have a future agent that I'm developing now will have. The agent will run the agency and still be in the day-to-day operations. But then they're going to have a specialist in all different categories. They're going to have potential ... They're going to have a call center that's driving leads. They're going to have a potential marker that's also outside driving leads from other areas in the local market. They're going to have a life insurance specialist. That life specialist could potentially [inaudible 00:41:38] over into a financial service, an investment specialist as well possibly. That might be a two-person department. Second would be a commercial specialist who might have a home, an auto specialist, a health insurance specialist, et cetera. Then obviously there are people to support the servicing side of each of those categories. It's a very systemic, long-term approach to how to really run a well-organized agency through those different departments. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you, Matt. Winding down here, just like to always find something new, direction. That's what I wanted this platform to be as people like yourself from all walks of life, all expertise levels, but also to show us where to go to find the best. If you feel that this person, or this article, or this book, or this technology is something that we should investigate. Do you have anything that you would maybe drive us to that you're reading or that it would influence us right now? Matt Hartness: Couple of my favorites lately. I've just finished the John Maxwell's 21 Indispensable Laws of Leadership. Phenomenal book on just the principles that you can take to develop a leadership. Then also, to try and re-coach those into your agents, and then the agents can try, and work instill those into their team members. Never Eat Alone, I'm drawing a blank on the author there. But Never Eat Alone is just the concept of continual growth and the ability to network with people, and not just to be a taker, a consumer, but also to invest in the lives of others, to find out what other people are interested in. As you are trying to network and grow, it would also be that you're trying to help others grow and get to where they want to be. So, there's a very mutual type of interest there. Never Eat Alone was another phenomenal book that my consultant gave to me, Ron, before I even started in my management position. Both have been great pieces of information for me as I continue to grow in my own learning. Mark Miletello: You're not in front of a computer, I am. Never Eat Alone is Keith Ferrazzi, right? And I've read- Matt Hartness: That's correct. Mark Miletello: ... I've read the John Maxwell book, so I will now order that one. Thanks for that recommendation, and Matt, I got to tell you once again, thank you for your time. Hey, you're giving information to your competition that's across the country or right next door, because you're like me. You want to share. That's how you got there. I know when I invited you to come to the show, I hoped that you would do it because of our relationship, but I also know you were okay doing it because you want to help others succeed. In this industry, we can lift each other up. So, I see you as that person. I feel partly like me, that I want to give and help others so that they don't have the challenges that I have, and they can have the success that I have because this industry has that great success. I want to tell you, thank you for the time you've taken out of your very busy schedule. Thank you for the gold nuggets. I just think this industry, it's like the field of diamonds. But since I said gold nuggets, let's stick with that. It's like there are gold nuggets sitting under our feet, and all we must do is to know how to reach down and pick up that gold nugget. Why does one agent make six big, six figures or seven figures, and one agent's struggling 10 years down the road? They just don't know how to pick up the same gold nuggets that's by their feet. And you as a leader, you're reaching down and picking up all these gold nuggets that we're walking right over as leaders. Thank you for sharing with us how you're picking up these nuggets. Thanks for throwing those gold nuggets our way. Now, we must learn to reach down. We don't know what we don't know, so we're going to try to walk that path, mentor under this, listen to this. Thanks for the time for sharing with this, Matt. I very much appreciate it and honored to have you on the show. Matt Hartness: Hey, Mark, truly has been my pleasure, and once again I reiterate it takes a tribe to make it happen, and I've had an unbelievable group of mentors, and friends, and colleagues that have helped make that happen. So, it's not just me, it's a lot of people that have gone into the success that we're having. Thanks for having me on your show today. Mark Miletello: Absolutely. God, Will and I can't wait to watch some of the success you're going to have over the years to come and the decades to come. I'll see you on the trips. So, see you at the top of the charts. Matt, thank you. And hey, if you like what you hear on this show, go to iTunes, rate, review our show, and we'll see you next time on Where the Insurance Pros Meet.

Thinking on Purpose, Morris Sims, Ep. 9

Guest Morris Sims shares why you have to know your "why". Recognizing how purpose drives us can help you finally get to the bottom of your "why" and cause you to excel in business. Thinking on purpose is a must for success. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Episode 9. Morris Sims: Figure out what you're real why is. You're going to find out that it is absolutely wrapped in passion, that why drives me to get myself up and out of bed at five o'clock in the morning. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together, managers, coaches and producers, the very best experts that insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to Where the Insurance Pros Meet. I'm your host Mark Miletello. Today, we're going to discuss thinking on purpose, recognizing how purpose drives us. Now, our guest has been on Where the Insurance Pros Meet before discussing his book Practical Influence and how influence affects us. But today, we're excited to having back and share and influence us again regarding another important topic in a salesperson's mindset purpose. Again, he's trained over 80,000 agents, managers. I can't even wrap my brain around the work that he's done in this field. One of our industry's thought leaders and coach, Morris Sims, welcome back to the show. Morris Sims: Mark, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me again. Mark Miletello: Wow. I'm excited to have you again and thanks for coming back. Such a great topic we had last time, so I'm tremendously excited to jump right in this. But before I do, Morris, do you golf at all or no? Do you try? Morris Sims: I tried. At one point in my life, I tried and figured out that every time I hit that little white ball, it would go about 75 yards straight down the fairway and then turn 90 degrees to the right and I had never been able to get past that. My golfing now is at the range with my son having a nice adult beverage while he hits the golf balls. Mark Miletello: Well, that way you can enjoy it, right? You and I the last conversation we had was about my late father. And I remember every time I went with him in course, he was my mentor in the business. He was one of the greats in the industry. He was one of the ... Well I'll tell you he was the number one agent under Combined Insurance with W. Clement Stone. I want to have maybe an entire other show about him one day, but I remember being on the course with him and every time I would swing, he would have like five tips so by the time the end of my game, I would have a terrible swing that we tried ... We didn't practice at all. We just went out on the field and by the end of the game, I was swinging this awkward swing and was mentally ... I couldn't even handle pulling that club back and striking the ball because he had so many tips. Finally, after a while, I'd say, "Look, just quit coaching me," and I think about that and how it relates to insurance and especially new reps that go out there without practicing, without refining their skill and I think they're going to have a par round in the world of sales and that's just not the case, is it, Morris? Morris Sims: No, it's not. It takes a lot of focus and a lot of hard work to get there. The key in my mind is that, well, it does take work. Anything that's worthwhile takes work and this is worthwhile, and it takes some effort, but you can do it. You can do it. It is certainly achievable and has been achieved by thousands and thousands of men and women across the ages. Don't ever give up. It may be difficult to get started but every minute of work that you put into it, I could promise you that. Mark Miletello: Well, and I've read in one of your writings that you said what I've said on the show, "If I can do it, anyone can." And of course, you're being very humble, but I think you're right in the fact that professional insurance agents and related financial services, we come from all walks of life and there are people that I have recruited and trained. And I would look at this individual and say, "Man, that is one ... You're going to be the best agent I've ever brought on board." Then, I've had some that you just sometimes, you cannot tell who wants it bad enough. I think one thing that I've learned is it is a learnable skill. It's those who have maybe this burning desire that we've heard many times, this something driving them, but the information is there. We just must learn it and practice it. At golf, there's no shortage of tips and advice out there to tell us how to be better. Can you start off the show with ...? Our show is about purpose but, Morris, can you start off our show with a tip or an advice that we can maybe improve our game with? Morris Sims: I'll be happy to try, Mark. I think it really has to do with just what we're talking about today, thinking on purpose. That's a line that hit my mind about a year ago and I realized that very few of us sit down and think on purpose. Our thoughts are the result of stimulus and Lord knows there's a lot of stimuli out there today from the telephones that we have in our pocket to the computers, to the books, to the people. You see, or you hear something, and you think about it. When was the last time you sat down to think on purpose about what it is you really want in life? I think that's the key to the whole thing is becoming clear, really crystal clear about what you want and here's the key, Mark. Be clear about what you want and why you want it. As you were saying earlier, you think it's that burning desire that people have that make them successful in this business and I would propose that it's in any business. That really comes back to that "why". Why do you want to do this? Why are you in this business? What's important to you? We'll talk more about this as we go along, but I think that's the best tip I could give you is to stop, sit down, have a piece of paper and pen, think on purpose what is it you want and why you want it. Mark Miletello: Yeah, I guess I can relate to that. We get so busy sometimes that we don't put our purpose out there, why and our focus and maybe in the short term it's to pay our bills. But it needs to be much more than that is what you're saying? Morris Sims: It does. It needs to be a whole lot more than that, and it is a whole lot more than that. But we rarely stop to take the time to figure it out. The other thing that I love to tell folks is that when you get down to the real bottom line when you figure out what you're real why is, you're going to find out that it is absolutely wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. Wrapped in passion and fueled by emotion. To pay my bills doesn't sound very passionate or emotional, but to provide for my family, a house or a home, a house ... Let's take that one for a moment. To provide for my family a house that they can live in that has a nice backyard for the kids to play in can be very emotional when you stop and add the rest of it to that "why" which is I never had a house to live in. We always lived with my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim because dad died early, and mom couldn't afford a house. We lived in apartments after we lived with Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim, and I'm going to get a home and a house for my kids. Now, it's wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. When I can remember that, it's going to change my behavior. Mark Miletello: Well, I get it. I get it. That's why I wanted to have you back, Morris, is I think you're right on is that rather than focusing on paying our bills or making a sale or this, the why behind it is the purpose. It's what's the purpose of us being a success ... Or just going out there and going into that grind or the trenches as you call it. Yeah, I totally get that and thanks for sharing that. Morris, we had you once before but for a listener that did not catch that series, you maybe share with us your professional history of where you've been and thanks for sharing that personal story and maybe how that shaped your purpose along the way. But I'd love to hear more about your career as well. Morris Sims: I'll be happy to, Mark. It's kind of interesting. I started my career as a chemical engineer after graduating from Auburn University and did that for five years, and I was mediocre. I was okay. I was getting promoted and good things were happening, but it just wasn't any fun. I know some really great engineers, and the guys I was working with were really great people, but we weren't having a whole lot of fun all day long, and you realize that you spend more time with the people you work with than you do with your family sometimes. I wanted to do something that was fun and about that time, my insurance agent came to the house because we had a brand new baby, and I thought, "Gee, you know what? He does look like it could be fun." Sure enough, the recruiter called me, and we went through a six-month recruiting process and eventually, long story short, I became a New York Life agent and was successful doing that for three years, and they said, "Hey, why don't you come over here and train other people to do what you do." I went into management and- Mark Miletello: You rose as one of the top trainers not only in that company but in the nation. That's a pretty big rise to success. Do you feel like just that schooling of accomplishments or did that mindset of having that engineer and scientific mindset helped you in any way in what we do in the world of sales or training or mentoring? Morris Sims: It did, Mark. I always had a penchant and a desire to try and help other people. That is what enticed me about training if I could help other people become successful. Folks always say in our business at least, "What do you want to do? Do you want to be a coach or be a player?" If you want to be a player, then stay an agent and go out there on the field every day and play the game and play as hard as you can and help as many people as you can. If you want to be a coach, go into management and then you can help coach those players to be even better at that what they do. I apologize for this sports analogy but that's the deal. For me, helping other people get better at what they do all day long became one of my why's, one of my purposes for what I wanted to get up and do every day. Mark Miletello: Well, no, don't apologize for the sports analogy. I do it all the time and in fact, I like the salaries that professional athletes have, and I see some of the greats in our industry do the same. That's why I want to help our listeners become a professional in this business, so they can experience that upper-level income that this business can reward you with. Last show that I had you and I made a commitment to myself that I was going to try to dig out some of that history in your illustrious career and those relationships that you made. I'm going to say it this time, and can you think of a couple of meetings that you've had or relationships that you've met along the way in a 30-year wonderful career of leading one of the nation's largest and most prominent life insurance companies? I want to know a little bit of maybe some of those people that you've met along the way. Morris Sims: As I began to move into management, the managers that I had at the general offices, the local agencies that I worked in Monroe, Louisiana and Little Rock, Arkansas were some absolutely great individuals and about as opposite of two people as you might ever want to know. The first gentleman, [Markie Jones 00:12:38] was an absolute expert at recruiting and managing and being ... I learned more from him about how to do that job of coaching agents than probably anyone else in the world. Then, I went up to Arkansas and I had a gentleman there, Tom Gilder, who was just a wonderful relationship person. He had never met anybody he didn't know and love and care about, and the people around him and his agents were ... They would follow him into whatever battle he wanted to lead them into or jump off whatever cliff he wanted them to jump off, and I was usually out there in front saying, "I'll do whatever Tom tells me to do." He was just that kind of an individual.I learned a lot about building relationships with him. The other guys, I've had the privilege of knowing, three CEOs at my company at New York Life. I've known a whole bunch of executive and senior vice presidents and these are people who some of them began as agents and became head of distribution for huge billions, several billions of dollars' worth of insurance company. These guys all had one thing in common, I believe, they all cared about what they were doing, and they cared about the people they were doing it for more than they cared about themselves. I think that is always going to be the bottom line with truly long-term success. Now, you may have some short-term success out there with people that are ahead, just for them that are greedy and all they want is them and they're all that's important. I think when you find a long-term success, you're going to find someone who does genuinely care about other people. Let's look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, they're talking about giving away what, half or three-quarters of everything they own? Because they care about helping other people. I think that's probably the bottom line for the whole thing, Mark. Mark Miletello: Well, thanks for sharing that and it just reminds me that most of the greats in this industry stand on the shoulder of others. I think it's kind of nice to give a shout out to those whether they hear it or not or whether anyone connects or not, at least you are able to share the influence that they've had on you. Getting back to really your professional advice and when you say thinking on purpose, you explained that in the opener a little bit about what you mean on thinking on purpose. I think back to the conversation we had about focusing on what you want and more of the "why", more of the purpose. But don't we really all have an idea of what we want in life but how does that relate to our business? Morris Sims: Another great question, Mark. The key I think is this: We all think we know what we want. We all believe that we have our purpose and it's probably pretty well lined out. Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of our listeners out there who are saying, "Hell, no, not me. I really don't. I'm just going through the motions." That's okay too but at some point, in time, you have to stop and realize I need to make sure that what I think is my why, why I do this every day, I need to make sure really is what resonates them deep in my soul. I need to make sure that it really is much more than going to work every day and doing what I'm told to do for eight or six or 10 hours or whatever the case may be. Thinking on purpose means you take that time, as I mentioned earlier, to sit down and actually think about what it is you want in this world, in life, what it is you want and why. I think the why is probably again the most important part of the whole deal. Mark Miletello: Yeah. I've heard you say that and Richard Weylman used that. We talked about that considerably. Why is why that important in just the words that you use? Morris Sims: I think it's the most important thing there is out there. We can forget about a lot of things but if we ever forget our "why", then we're in deep trouble. Why is the reason that I set the alarm clock for 5:00 a.m. and get up every day. I'm loving what I'm doing right now, Mark, so much. Thirty-two years with a great company was fantastic but I wasn't as excited about getting up in the morning as I am today. That alarm clock goes off at five o'clock and I'm up and excited about what I'm going to get to do today and how this day is going to go because I know why I'm doing it. I'm doing it in order to accomplish what I want for my family. I'm going to be able to provide for them the things that the choices ... I want to give them the choices that they'd never been able to have before because either I was working all the time or traveling but I want to give them those choices to be able to do things they've never been able to do before and I want to fund our charities. We have charities that were involved with that feed hungry people. I want to fund those charities and that means, I've got to go out and help people and help them well enough and help them enough that they're willing to provide some revenue for my company. In doing so then, I can fund my charities and help my family. That why drives me to get myself up and out of bed at five o'clock in the morning and start on the journey of that day to figure out what I can do to be of service to the folks out there in the world that are trying to find their own purpose and get up and get going every day. Mark Miletello: Well, exactly. I believe in my career, I just don't think sometimes we coin it. We realized we put it down on paper that while we're doing things, we set goals and we have benchmarks, but really, you've said it perfectly that really the purpose that we're going for if we can really write down and focus on the purpose. I remember as a brand-new agent, I wanted a Harley so bad and I guess, in the South, you mentioned Monroe, Louisiana. I don't know if you know that that's where I'm from, so I love you already. Morris Sims: Fantastic, yeah! Mark Miletello: I had this picture of ... Every time I would open my desk drawer, I would see the picture of Harley. Then, I ended up owning a Harley and wrecking it, almost killing myself so therefore, that purpose, that why kind of faded away. But I think especially a younger agent that did not have really a family and all those charities to support maybe, that has to be a motivator. You're why, the purpose you're getting up must be something other than, like I said earlier, just paying your bills. You need a big ... Like Gary Kinder, I guess, would say, "Audacious [Harry 00:20:04] Dream." How do you think on purpose to get to your why? How does purpose drive you to get to what drives you? Morris Sims: The real deal is what I mentioned before. It must be wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. If we can get it back down to something that really motivates us to move, then it's going to be easier to pick up the phone and make those calls. It's going to be easier to go walk into that business that you've never walked in before and try and meet the guy that owns the business or the lady that runs the show. You got to have that "why" to make that last call and then make one more call before you go home in the evenings. Mark Miletello: That might be the difference, I think. Morris Sims: That's right. Mark Miletello: That might be the difference in why some get through and give it that extra effort. Morris Sims: I think so entirely. I absolutely believe that. For me, personally, it was always about building the family and getting the family to the places that I wanted them to get to. Quick story, Mark, it might wind up on the editing floor and that's okay. My dad died when I was three weeks old. He decided that he didn't need to be around anymore. He took his own life. From that point forward, mom had two kids to bring up in this old world. We literally did live with my aunt for a while and then live in apartments until I bought the first house that I ever lived in with my lovely bride, Carla, in New Orleans. I wanted my kids to have those things that I never got to have. I wanted my kids to be able to do those things that I never got to do. That's what fueled me every day and let me tell you, buddy, that's wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion even today. It still is and that's what gets you up and gets you moving is when you can find that thing that you really are passionate about, that thing that really does touch your heart. And that's why I'm getting up, and that's why I'm making that phone call, and that's why I'm going to make one more call before I go home. That's what you're looking for, for sure, I believe. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm very, very sorry, but I am very warmed to hear the story when you bought your first house. I bet that was a defining moment in your career. I know I have some of the same types of goals that I had said, and I think back to those moments that really were special, those benchmarks that your purpose and your why came together and provided you with really what this business can provide you, the great lifestyle that this business can provide you with. So, thank you for sharing that. Morris Sims: Well, you're very welcome. I think the other piece that really has to be there, and the heart of any good insurance agent today is what you're doing for others. If you can get in your head and in your mind the fact, it's not just the thing, it's the fact that what you do helps people, what you do makes a difference in their lives and it changes their lives for the better. When you can get that focus to realize that, "I'm going out tonight to help these folks plan for their retirement. And you know what? And the possibility that if I don't go out there and if I don't do that with them and do it well, they may not have the same kind of retirement they could have as if I were to go out there and do that work." You got to believe in what you do, Mark. One of the old objections that I used to hear from is, "Well, that guy just told me he doesn't believe in life insurance." You know what? You don't have to believe in life insurance to own it, but you certainly must believe in it if you're going to sell it. Mark Miletello: Exactly. Well said, and I think back of how I worked with agents and I think one of the most important things that I've tried to instill in my team and those I work with is taking care of the client, helping them find their "why". Like you've said before, you help others get what they want, and you get what you want, and I think that that's one of the most important things is that we help clients figure what their "why" and protect their "why". Why are they buying that life ... They may not believe in that life insurance, but they may believe in what happens if disaster strikes or when disaster strikes because at some point, it's going to happen. Normally, in this part of the show, I talked about professional predictions 10 years down the road. But I'm going to change it up a little bit because you've been on the show before. As a coach and leader, what I'd really like to know is thinking on purpose, how purpose affects me? How it affects my clients? How it affects my agents? How is my purpose going to drive me in the future? How can I best use it because I think, especially as a veteran in the business, we get so busy that we don't stop and set goals and do things a lot of the things that we did when ... The basics of building a business. I think as a veteran, sometimes I tell my agents to set goals and think about their purpose and their "why", but I don't ... In the future, how can we do a better job of focusing on purpose, thinking on purpose to help drive us to be where we want to be in our life and our career? Morris Sims: I think, Mark, many times, we are thinking as I mentioned earlier, we're thinking in response to some stimulation. And for our veterans out there, I know for me at least when I had been doing the job I was doing in New York for 20 years, it kind of got to be old hat. I knew what I was supposed to do. I didn't really have to think about it a whole lot because it was what I do. But every now and again, there would be something that would come along that would cause me to have to stop and really sit down and think through again what it is I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and how I can do it better because until I know why I'm doing it and what it is I want and why I want it, I can't necessarily work at getting better at doing what I do. Example, if I don't know where I'm going, if I'm going to take a trip and I don't know what the destination is, where do I want to go, then geez, it's going to be pretty hard to get there and it's going to be even more difficult to line it out on the map as to how I want to go from here to there. The same thing is true with our work. If we don't know what it is we're trying to achieve and why we're trying to achieve that, then you don't know what to work on to get better. You don't know where those things are that you need to hone, the skills you need to hone, the things you need to practice getting better at, the things that you could be doing but you just hadn't thought of because you've never done it before. You won't go to that level of thinking unless you do it on purpose unless you sit down and take the time. Study groups are so vitally important, I believe, in our industry where three or four or five top producers come together and help each other and guide each other and ask questions of each other. Some of the best business coaches in the world who ask those difficult questions about what is your strategy, how are you improving yourself to be able to carry out that strategy that is, every time you go out in the field to implement it and what do you need to do differently today? And finally, what are you not doing that you ought to be doing? And what are you doing that you ought to stop doing? There are many things that especially after we've been in a business for a long period of time that chances are we probably shouldn't be doing anymore, or if it should be done, it should be done by somebody else. And there are probably things that we need to do more of or things that we don't even know we need to do yet until we say, "I had to really think about it," and spend some time away from the rat race, away from the noise. And in fact, physically even getting away for a day or a weekend and maybe you and your spouse go out for a weekend, and you spend some of that time just talking with each other about what it is that you want for your family and for your life and how can you get there? What can you do differently to accelerate that operation? I still believe that that's some of the most important time that we can spend with our family and with ourselves and our business. Mark Miletello: Well, great advice, and I needed that. I don't know, I just needed that. I need to do a better job of that, and I need to do that from a family standpoint as well. Thank you for that advice. You may not be a professional golfer, Morris, I'm sorry to hear that, but one thing you are is a consummate professional in our industry. And we respect your tips and your recommendations. I'm going to put you on the spot because on the last show, you kind of gave us a couple of places to go and I appreciate that. I've got several books coming in from Amazon, mainly yours a while back but others as well turning me on to some great people to follow. Give us your professional recommendation on who we should maybe think about, read about when it comes to purpose. Morris Sims: There are several authors out there that still mean the most to me on a regular basis. I posted something on LinkedIn not too long ago, and one of the wonderful people who took the time to comment said ... Just two words, he said, "Old school." And I saw that and I laughed and I thought, "Yeah, it is." It's been around for a long time. But I also believed that every generation must learn some of these basics about sales and success all by themselves. They have to learn it on their own because it just doesn't resonate until they discover it until it's an "aha" in their own minds. I can talk until I'm blue in the face but until they have some experience that lights up their brain and lights it up for them and lets them see that, "Oh, yeah. That is important." Knowing exactly what your purpose is and why is important. They've got to have that aha experience. And some of the folks that did that or helped me with that when I was growing up in the business- Mark Miletello: Yeah, give us some old school recommendations. Morris Sims: Folks like Og Mandino. He's got a great story. Read about his life. It's amazing, and then read his books, The Greatest Salesman in the World part 1 and part 2. And Mark, I've got a hard copy of part 1 that he signed. Mark Miletello: Oh, wow. Morris Sims: I'm very proud of that one. But he's got a whole series of books, The Greatest Miracle, The Greatest Salesman, The Greatest ... Everything you can think of, and they all will touch your heart and give you very practical things that you can do to help you in your business. Mark Miletello: I agree. Morris Sims: And the other one is another old school that you and I talked about and chatted about before, Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich, you talk to any business person out there that's been around for a while and then say, "Have you ever read Think and Grow Rich?" They'll say, "Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I read it 10 years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago." But nobody ever asks, "Have you implemented what Napoleon Hill taught you in the book Think and Grow Rich?" Because what we find is that most of us will read a book like that and say, "Yeah, man. That's great. I'm going to do this. I'm going to start my own mastermind group," which is one of the recommendations that he makes. And then we'll think about it. We'll talk to a couple of people about it, and then we get all locked up in the rat race of doing what we do every day and we never implement what we learned. Think and Grow Rich is a great book, a great reference book as well. But I would challenge you to actually take a piece out of there and commit yourself to implementing it in your life and in your business and see that commitment through to the end. Get some support. Get some help, but carry it all the way out, and that's what's going to change your life. Mark Miletello: You said rereading something when it triggers a different time or a different meaning to you and of course, I had a podcast with Tom Hegna, one of the greatest out there, and I mentioned to him that I read this book twice in the past. But after a recent read, it meant something totally and I finally got it. I think sometimes, yes, definitely the Og Mandino, Napoleon Hill books I hope is on every insurance agent's shelf. But I recently reread and unfortunately, a year and a half ago, my father passed away and I wanted his book library. And he's got some old pictures and books with his writing in it. And so, it kind of motivated me to go back and read those very two books again, and they just meant something totally different to me in my career. I appreciate you saying that. I totally agree. Morris Sims: Yeah. I think it is the most important thing that we can do is continue to work on our own development and so many times, our own development means remembering something that we may have thought of long time ago or looking at it with a different point of view. You're absolutely right. Mark Miletello: It may not be old school, right? Morris Sims: It may have been created a long time ago, but it certainly is relevant for today. Mark Miletello: Right. Well, I can't tell you Morris Sims how much I appreciate you being a returning guest on the show Where the Insurance Pros Meet. I want to thank you for your time and your expertise, and how if there are some leaders out there listening to this or agents, I know that we can bring you in to speak and do classes. Are there events? How do we do workshops? How do we get to tutor under you? Where do we follow you? Morris Sims: I say it's probably the website. And again, it's one of the most creative names I could come up with. It's www.morrissims.com. That's Sims with one M, so it's morrissims.com. Mark Miletello: Well, you're one of the greats. We'll definitely find you, but I guess my question I wasn't too specific, what do you offer in terms of maybe teams trying to focus in on what we've discussed? Morris Sims: Oh, thanks. Several workshops that we do, the Three Steps to Accelerate Your Success Now having to do with being real clear on your purpose, creating an action plan and creating a support system that will be there for you and that will never fail. That's a half day workshop that can be made to accommodate whatever venue and need an agency might have, or a company might have. That is, for sure, one. I have another workshop on influence, of course, that we do as well that's backed up by the book, Practical Influence. And then we do some customized work for folks who say, "Gee, Morris, in my agency we're really having a problem with X, Y, Z." And together then, we can craft some training opportunities that will help those agents get better at X, Y, Z, whatever that may happen to be. And, I think the hallmark of any of the training that I'm fortunate and blessed enough to be able to do has two things going on with it, Mark. One is it doesn't happen unless there are practical things that the agent walks away with that can help them change their behavior in their business that day. I believe very strongly that we don't do training for training's sake. We do training to change our behavior and help us get better at what we do all day long. It's got to be practical. That's the most important thing that comes to it as far as I'm concerned. And the second thing that is there is the follow-up. How many times, Mark, have you been to a seminar or workshop, and you get this really nice binder and all sorts of stuff in it. You brought it back to your office, you put it on the shelf and it's still sitting there today and hadn't moved. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Morris Sims: I know I have a thousand times. Follow-up is so very important for us as human beings because we do get back in that rat race. With the workshops that we do, there's always an opportunity for follow-up webinars or phone calls or individual coaching that can be done to help agents and managers improve and implement the things that they need to implement in order to get better. Mark Miletello: Well, wonderful, Morris. I appreciate it, and I love the fact that you and I are alike in the fact that I want people changed. I want something changed today. I don't want to pump you up and get you motivated and send you out the door. I want something positive to happen. And that's the type of professional you are and that everything you do. Even in your book, I noticed at the end of each chapter, there's an action plan. Thank you again for being a guest on the show. And hopefully, we'll have you again in the future, and I look forward to getting to know you and following you as well. If you like what you hear on the show, go to iTunes. Rate and review it. It will help others find us, and you can follow me, Mark Miletello at, of course, markmiletello.com. Thank you for being a guest on Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Morris, and we'll see you soon. Morris Sims: Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the opportunity. Have a great week.

The Common Denominator of Success, Garry Kinder, Ep. 8

Garry Kinder is back on the show to talk about the common denominator of success. He shares his key industry insights and talks about why you must set and measure goals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where The Insurance Pros Meet, episode eight. Mark Miletello: Goals are set to be met. Speaker 1: Where The Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where The Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to the show. We're glad you joined us. I'm your host, Mark Miletello. Today we have a repeat guest on the show, one of the industry's greatest mentors, coaches, producers. I guess you've been in this industry for six decades now, five to six decades, but a true icon. Mark Miletello: How long has it been? Garry Kinder: Well, I came into this business in 1953 when I was a junior in college. I was at a university where you could get a degree in insurance, and I did that. My bother encouraged me to start selling life insurance when I a junior in college, so that's '53 to 2017. Mark Miletello: Well, that qualifies for six decades, 64 years. Congratulations and welcome back to the show, my mentor and one of my just ... personal friends Garry Kinder, welcome. Garry Kinder: Glad to be back. Mark Miletello: Well Garry, thanks for taking the time to join us. Last show, it was just one of the most exciting times for me to have someone that means so much to me... share. And really what I wanted to do on the last show was dive in and get to know you, and get to know you as a person. It was more about, I think, learning and walking through your life. But one thing that we did touch on a whole lot that I'm glad that you decided to come back, and I hoped that you would, is I really wanted to get in and talk about the things that you do so well, which is mentoring, coaching and teaching. And let's talk about the success and how to be successful of agents. Is that okay with you? Garry Kinder: Sure, sure. Mark Miletello: Garry Garry Kinder: You can ask the questions. Mark Miletello: Go ahead. Garry Kinder: No, you can ask the questions. Mark Miletello: Well, I think one of the first messages that I've read coming into this industry, and I believe maybe even you shared it with me. There's an old speech by Albert E. N. Gray, it's called, The Common Denominator or Success. I think anyone in this business should have, or maybe even knows about that, and really you can probably research it, find it. I think everyone should read it when they enter this business. But the crux of that speech he gave back, I guess ... I think it was, what, 50, 60, 70 years ago? It was a long time. Garry Kinder: Sure. Mark Miletello: The idea was that successful people form the habits of doing things that failures won't do, right? Garry Kinder: That's right. Successful people form the habits ... I'm giving you the exact words that he used. Successful people form the habits of doing the things that failing people don't like to do. This could've been given to students in college. It could've been given to athletes. For an example, students in college, what is a failing student in college, what is it they don't like to do? Mark Miletello: Study, go to class. Garry Kinder: They don't like to study. Go to class and study, that's right. And the ones that are going to class and studying, they don't like it either. But they do it because they have the discipline to do what they ought to do. Now you take athletes ... I've played athletics in high school and college and I've played with some pretty dad gone good people, but they never made it. They never got past the first practice because they were not willing to do the things that failing people don't like to do. And failing athletes don't like to practice. Who in the world would like to practice? They want to play. They just want to go play, but you got to practice. So, the common denominator of success is doing things that failing people don't like to do. Mark Miletello: Well, you've been in this- Garry Kinder: That's true in our business. Mark Miletello: Yeah. I mean you've been in this industry now for six decades, which congratulations. And can't tell you what you mean to this industry and you mean to us out here in the field. And obviously, you've been around a lot of people that have been both successes and failures. So, what is your interpretation of that? In your opinion, what are some of the things in our industry that successful people form the habits of doing? Garry Kinder: Okay, so in our industry the things that the people. First, most people do not like what I'm going to say, I mean that people do. Most people do not like to make phone calls after phone calls after phone calls to referred leads, to friends, to people they're associated with in religion or studying, or whatever. But they don't like to do the things that failing people don't like to do either, and that is they don't like to make phone calls. But the great ones discipline themselves to make calls every week, every day. Now some people turn it over to one or two days a week, and that okay, but the successful ones make the phone calls. They don't like it, but they do it. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: Same thing to do with the loser. The loser doesn't like doing it, so it doesn't do it. Mark Miletello: Yeah, I'll tell you ... Well, number one is just making the calls because we know this is a numbers game. It always has been, and it always will be, getting in front of enough people. I think there's a lot of things that go into that but when you're coaching ... and I look back at the times where you've coached me. When you're coaching, what are some of the first things that you focus on in trying to launch an agent to have a successful career in the very beginning? Garry Kinder: Number one, you must memorize scripts, and there again, a lot of people don't want to memorize scripts. I've had people come to me, Mark, and I can' tell you the number of people that have come to me over the years and said, "I don't like ... the script doesn't sound like me." And I said to them, "Well, that's good." And they said, "What do you mean." I said, "What I mean is, if it sounded like you, it wouldn't work." You got to memorize these scripts. Then, the second thing in my opinion, most important ... these are the two most important things that people in our industry need to do, is have good scripts memorized. They sound like you. They're natural as can be, that's number one. Number two is keeping good records. And I'm telling you there's a lot of people in our industry that don't like to keep records. We're watching the World Series right now, do those people keep track of their batting average? Why they calculate it when they hit first ... If they get a single to the right field, when they hit first base, they recalculate what their batting average is up to. Mark Miletello: What their worth is? Garry Kinder: That's right. Mark Miletello: I mean the difference in the worth of a professional athlete can be one minor percentage of their ... Yeah, especially major league baseball, it's once a week the stats come out, all the stats. Yet we start a business and we don't even write down our simple goals, so I think you're right. I knew you were going to say that because that's one of the things you had me do when you mentored me back in the year 2000. You had me keep the stats and you said, "You can't monitor what you don't measure." And so, I started measuring and monitoring those numbers, and those numbers just kept increasing and increasing, and my stats grew better and better. Especially, in professional athletes, that's what they're paid for those stats, right? Garry Kinder: Sure. And that's what we must do. You've used our planning procedure, where you put down what you're going to do every year and then break it down into months and then break it down into weeks and then break it down into days. You want to keep good records. You want to have good scripts. You want to have good records. You want to study. A lot of things you must just discipline yourself to do that the unsuccessful people don't want to do. Mark Miletello: Well, I'll tell you, I'm coming from now, Garry, the management side of things. As you know, most of my career I was an agent. I find it hard when ... and you say when you're recruiting as a manager, you either hired them wrong or trained them wrong, it's all your fault. I agree with that, but sometimes it's hard. I find when it comes to measuring and monitoring, I there's a fine line between an agent wanting to do that for themselves, and a manager demanding those type of activities. Do you find that you being in a management position that ... Is it the agent's job, or is it the manager's job, is the question? Garry Kinder: Well, it's a little bit of both. But Mike, I've had people come to me ... I remember one when I was starting my management career in Bloomington, Illinois. I started in the business in '53, and I started in the management in '57, '58. And I'll never forget it, a young man in Bloomington, he came to me and said, "I don't like to keep records." This was in the recruiting process, "I don't like to keep records and I don't like to memorize scripts." I said, "Well then you don't need to join this organization." At the time I was representing Equitable, which is now a different company, but I still have a license with them. But this young man, he said, "Well, I went down, and interviewed Prudential and they said that I didn't have to do that." I said, "Well then, you need to go down there. If that's what you want, go ahead. Because here you are going to memorize the scripts. You are going to keep score." Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: But if the manager in the first place in the has to tell these people, "These are the things that you're going to need to do the first few years. You're just going to have to follow some of the things that I tell you to do. We'll write them out and we'll have to do because I cannot take any part of your success if you won't follow exactly what I'm telling you to do." So, I believe that it's more of the management than it is the agent. Because if you get the right agents and you don't train them right, you're still going to have a problem. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: So, you got to recruit the right people, you know that, in the first place. But then once you recruit them you must keep ... have them memorize the scripts, keep the records, make the phone calls, get the referred leads. They got to do all that stuff and if they aren't willing, we need to part company. But hopefully, you part company in the interviewing process. But it's the manager, in my opinion, Mark, whether you [inaudible 00:13:13]. You hire some people, and you've heard me say this before, and that is that 10% of the people that you recruit, you really don't have to tell them a whole lot. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: Because they follow everything you say, 10%. 30%, you picked the wrong person, you've got to get rid of them within 30 days, or hopefully in today's world, in pre-contract. You don't want them getting started with you just because you need an agent. So, 10%, they'll run away from you. But then you will make, we say, usually about 20% of the people you recruit over a 5, 10-year period, you're going to make a mistake. You just plain made a mistake, and you need to take care of that quickly. The ones that stick and stay ... So that's 10%, they'll run away from you. 20% 30%, you picked the wrong person, so the rest of those people you'd have to give them scripts. You'd have to meet with them regularly and go over their past seven days. And then, what do you got going for the next seven days? And I believe in people can work ... in the beginning, I don't want them working seven days a week, but I'd like to have them work six days a week. And I'm certainly going to have them work five days a week and put in a lot of hours. So, their leader's the key. Mark Miletello: Well, I think I agree, and I guess it did bring me back to the training that you gave that you'd said in the beginning, "It's really the manager that ... " And if look back over the agents who had success under me, those agents actually did do the things that I asked, and they did right away. And little by little they began to fly, so to speak. Then, I would say, three to four of my best agents are now mentors of mine. That's how it works, right? You become mentors to each other and that's the goal. But I think you're right that looking back, it was the agents that said, "Okay Mark, I'm going to trust you until I find a reason not to. I'm going to listen. I'm going to say the things that you say I'm going to do." In fact, the two of my best agents did that to a tee. They followed everything that I said until they slowly started finding their own voice and all that. Garry Kinder: Well, early in the ballgame in management I met a college graduate that was engaged to marry my youngest daughter, Carol, and his name is Kurt Ladd, and he wanted to come into this business. I said, "I'll bring you into this business if you will do everything I tell you for the first two years if you'll do everything I tell you." And brother, he did it. If I told him to memorize these scripts, he memorized them. If I told him to keep records, he kept the records. His early years, he moved to MDRT, he was a young kid, 23, 24 years old, and his qualifying for the million-dollar roundtable. He's a money motivated guy. He's really good, servicing clients. But he also, he keeps a lot of good business rolling and having good clients. He keeps his business rolling. He was in here early, in my office this morning, it was 11:00 in Dallas now, and he was here about 8:30, 9:00, he came in and asked me two or three questions. Here's a guy that's been in the business now getting close to 30 years. Mark Miletello: Right. I go back to that Albert E. N. Gray, The Common Denominator of Success, I mean a couple of things pop out to me in addition to memorizing scripts and keeping good records. But one is work ethic, and I think there's no substitution for that. Too many times in this business it'd be easy to say, "It's 3:00 or 4:00, I'm done. I'll just put it off." It's easy to put off tomorrow, what we can do today. So, I think that's one that I'll add to the number there is work ethic. I remember when I started was my goal is ... first, I didn't know a thing. I didn't know a thing. I was new to the industry, new to the business, and one thing that I could control, Garry, was my work ethic. That's the only thing that I could control. I said, "I'm going to beat my manager to the office every day. In fact, I'm going to be the first ... " I don't think I knew what that meant back then, so it was strange that I decided to do that. But later, looking back, I realized that, that put me in a position for things to happen when I ... First, a CPA that passed away, one of my favorite and best friends, and was CPA, he passed away. He said, "Mark, very few people do this. First, you've got to show up, number one, and then you got to do what you say you're going to do." That meant a lot to me because when you show up things happen, right? So, I think work ethic is the thing that failures don't like to do. Garry Kinder: That's right. There was a fellow that I spent a lot of time with. He was a doctorate in college, teaching in college with a doctorate degree and it was in Atlanta. He was on the insurance side of the college where he was teaching, and I got to know him very well. He always said what you just said. He said, "Show up. Show up on time. Show up ready to play. Show up. Show up on time. Shop up dressed, ready to play, and show up ready to go." He said, "And you'll beat 90% of the people if you show up. Show up on time. Show up dressed, ready to play." So that's what you said. That's pretty much what you- Mark Miletello: That's right. I think like you said, it goes both ways. It's the manager's job to set the path, to set the scripts, to set the training, so help keep a good record. And to some degree, you can hold them accountable. I mean most of this business, we're looking for entrepreneurs, right? We're looking for the contracted entrepreneurial-minded individuals. So, I think really, that goes back to us as agents, is we must show up. We must show up ready to play. And to me, like I said, is that I could control my work ethic ... You and I talked about it on the last show, activity. That's the only thing I felt that I could control, and that came from the work ethic, right? I mean the activity didn't come from the thin air, it came from the work ethic put behind that. I remember my manager, first, I beat him in the office at least for the first year, and then I probably got lazy after that, I'm sure of that. But also, I would turn in a weekly report and you had me do this. My manager said that I built my own weekly report and I turned it in every week. I told him what I did wrong that week. I told him what I did right that week. And I told him next week what I was going to accomplish, and he told me I didn't have to do that. I said, "Well, I need to be accountable to someone and I will let myself down, but if I say and tell you, Garry, I'll do something I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens. I don't want to let you down, right?" So that really helped me in my work ethic, is to be accountable to someone. Garry Kinder: That's true, it's true. My brother and I, we had the first person ever inducted into the Gamma Hall of Fame, was our manager. He was the first person inducted. His name was Fred Holderman. Jack was in Mount Vernon, Illinois. I was in Bloomington, Illinois. He had an actual page that we went sent him every week, and it better be there Monday morning on what we did last week and what we got going next week. We had to do that, and he was dead on it. I mean if you missed a week he would call you up and let you know, "If you're going to do that, get out of here." He was tough. Mark Miletello: Well, I think we need to get back to that in leadership roles. And as agents, we should want to do that. Out of all the agents that I've mentored and coached, there's one agent out of all of them that I told this story too. And I told him what I did, and I told him how it helped me. And how you mentored me to great success. Still to this day, Garry, and I don't require that. As after this call, I'll probably go back to requiring that, but I asked that if you want to achieve greatness, here's what you do. And I've only had one agent in the last nine years, for the first year of this career, send me a weekly report. And as you're a dynamic growing team it's easy for someone to fly under the radar. And most people want to fly under the radar, but he didn't. Garry Kinder: Sure. Mark Miletello: If I get a report every week that says, here's ... What I was able to do in that weekly report, Garry is I was able to ... He wasn't flying under the radar. I looked at just those comments that he made, and I said, "I can help this guy." And I'd pick up the phone and we would talk about those things. I remember one , he said, "A client said not because of this, this, and this." And I said, "Would you mind getting that client on the phone?" He goes, "Yeah, but he said no." It was literally over $7 a month, this client, and I don't remember the whole story. But at the end of the conversation, the clients go, "I didn't know all that. I didn't realize that. I'd love to do business with this particular agent." So those weekly reports, that's on the agent as well. I think the agent must want to, or need to, be accountable to someone. And you helped me do that more than anyone in my career. I guess I was so very fortunate early on to have someone like you coaching me to do those things. That now I realize are the principle of The Common Denominator of Success. Garry Kinder: That really is true. I sent you a copy of this, right? Mark Miletello: Yes sir. Garry Kinder: Common Denominator, and anybody that's listening to us, did you sent them a copy of this, or are you going to? Mark Miletello: Well, this show is going to be on MarkMiletello.com. It's going to be on the new Vanmark.life, Van Mueller, and myself partnership. Garry Kinder: Oh good. Mark Miletello: And it will be linking everyone back to Kinder Brothers website where they can follow you, purchase your books. I just did not know if this article that you sent me was copyrighted or not, or how it could be used. Garry Kinder: It can be used because nobody owns this anymore. The guy that wrote it, as you know was, Albert E. N. Gray, who was a Vice President of Prudential, but now it's available to anybody. The company that does a lot of training in our industry, they have- Mark Miletello: NAFA? Garry Kinder: Yeah, NAFA. They have this available. Of course, Kinder Brothers has it available, so it's lived out its time. Mark Miletello: Okay, good. Garry Kinder: Yeah, there's a word for it, I can't come up with it right now. But there is a word that's. Mark Miletello: Statute of limitations. Garry Kinder: Yeah, there you go. Mark Miletello: Something like that. But no, if I have you're okay, then I'm sure that's good enough, and we will make it available. I've kept that in my file, probably one of the oldest and longest running articles, that no matter how many computers I've had over 20 years, I've kept this article, and I've gone back and read it from time to time. So, we will share that. Garry Kinder: That's good, because of people like you, and I have three or four or five others, that are throughout the industry and they read this every year. Every year they start the year by reading this Commons Denominators to Success. It won't go away. I won't change. It's just something that people ought to pay attention to, like some books that you want to read repeatedly. It only takes about 15, 20 minutes to read this. Mark Miletello: Well, you had mentioned making phone calls and memorizing scripts, keeping good records, of course. And I had mentioned work ethic. I think the last thing that pops out to me as one of the things that successful people do, no doubt, and I think now being on the management side of things I see it more than I did previously on the production side of the business, is continuing education, evolving our knowledge, acquiring designations. What do you say to those out there that have been in this business for 3, 5, 10 years, and how does it affect them not moving toward, let's say designations and things like that? And do you agree with me that, that is one of those things that successful people do? Garry Kinder: Oh yeah. Successful people, there you go again, do the things failing people don't like to do. And one of the things that successful people do in our industry is to read good materials. And to read things like The Common Denominators of Success. Reading a good book. At Kinder Brothers, we have 11 books and five or six of them are for management, and five or six of them are for agents. But everybody needs to read books. Everybody needs to study, and they need to read good books. Mark Miletello: Well, I think I would, over the last few years, I've been working on building a training platform at Vanmark.life. I've been working on building duplicated ... Say's, duplicatable systems of training video's, things like that. I myself have been so busy building that I have backed away from furthering my own education and growth. And since this podcast has started and I've been interviewing the greatest A-list talent that our industry has to offer, people like yourself, and Van Miller, and Tom Hegna, and on and on and on. I've kind of been forced to read their book before I have them on the show. And I've got a lot of great talent lined up that I'm in the process of reading four books at one time. I don't know, it's like re-energizing me, Garry. It's reshaping the way I think and feel. I don't know, I think sometimes we forget that we forget what you just said. Garry Kinder: Yeah. Well, it's an old cliché, but readers are leaders, and leaders are readers. There's no question about it. I have met very, very few people in my career that are outstanding that don't come back and say, "I read this book. Have you read this book? Have you read this book?" They're people that are reading books all the time. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: And then there are books marked that should be read every year. And this little Common Denominator of Success should be read by everybody at least once a year. And when you do that, like I read this, this week ... When you read this you say to yourself, "You know what? I forgot that and I'm glad I'm reading that. I forgot that." So, there are certain things, like the book, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, should be read every year, by everybody that's listening to us. Mark Miletello: Well, let's talk about your books, Garry. I mean you've written 11 books. Last show we talked about The Professional Sales Process. We talked about for managers, Building the Master Agency. I think you've probably written more books in this industry than anyone that I know of, and, the most popular and most read books. What do you suggest ... obviously Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, Albert E. N. Gray's, The Common Denominator to Success? What I've given our listeners on our website is, I list a, My Library, which is about 30 to 40 books. I think a lot of agents out there, Garry, especially agents that aren't plugged into maybe a company that promotes or they're not connected to an industry organization, there's a lot of those out there. So, I think sometimes they don't know where to go. They don't know where to start. They just read a book here and there because they come across it. One of my missions has been, Garry, is to provide a list of some of the greatest books. So, everyone that I have on this show, either on the air or off the air, I try to get a list of their three to five greatest books that they've read. And so, it's growing my library, but when Tom Hegna or Garry Kinder tells me that I should read this book, I think it's important that I should read it. So Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, your books, The Professional Sales, are there any other designations, if you will, or books that we should definitely shoot to acquire? Garry Kinder: Well, let me be a little bit in giving you information about one of our last books that I wrote, and I dedicated it to my brother, Jack, when he had his stroke, but it's, 50 Lessons in 50 Years. I got people in there that I've known over the years, but it's 50 lessons and where did I get my lessons? Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: 50 Lessons in 50 Years. So that's a book that I would recommend to people. Now there are other books, like Hegna, I like his books. I like people that are making the million-dollar roundtable. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Garry Kinder: People that are producing at a high level and they've written some good books for us to read. Mark Miletello: Yeah, they're not just talking about it, they're doing it. Garry Kinder: That's right. That's right. Mark Miletello: Well Garry, thank you for the time on this show. We'll wrap up here. I want to ask you this, do you ever plan on retiring? Garry Kinder: No, I don't, if I'm healthy. It seems like I talk to somebody about that, what seems like every day, but I know it's not every day. But I've talked to two people about ... they've asked me if I want to retire? I'm like, "I'm not retiring." If I have good health and as long as I'm excited about what I'm doing I'm just going to keep on working. That's one of the great things about our business, and that is some people get out to 45, 50, 55, and retire, and that's okay. I'm okay with that. I say God bless them, they've had a good career. But then there are others that I ... and you named a couple of them here today, but there are some other people ... The great thing about our industry is you can continue to produce and continue to be part of the industry and never bother anybody in the industry. But work with clients that love to have you work with them. Mark Miletello: Well, I think whenever we go back to talking about The Common Denominator of Success, I think one thing that I've gained from associating with our industries greats, is that when you have a career that is rewarding as yours has been, I think it's no longer work. It's work for those that are struggling, that are not doing the things that successful people do, it's work. And you can't wait to retire. You can't wait for something bigger and better. But it seems to me, and I knew what your answer was before I ask, and I just wanted to hear it from you. You love this business, it shows. You love this career. And its just part of who you are, Garry, and we know that, the people that know you, and the people that have followed you. It's part of who you are, isn't it? Garry Kinder: Yeah, it really is. I would say one last thing in this regard because many times I've said to people ... As you know I'm a bible student, and I read the bible. I teach the bible. But I tell people, "I can't find any place in that bible that talks about retirement, not one place." It talks about doing this. It talks about doing that, talks about this. So, I'm for people that want to retire. Mark, a lot of people in our industry that retire, they go do something else. Charity, I could name you the name of the people that have retired and have taken on charity. Do work for a charity they can contribute to. Mark Miletello: It's just highly active people in this industry, right? It takes that ... maybe nervous energy in the beginning, but high energy throughout your career, right? Garry Kinder: Yeah, it's true. It's true. I hit my office virtually every day somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00. Mark Miletello: And that's after working out and running. So, Garry, you are amazing. If there's something, and I know because I know the fellow you are and the friendship that we have, that we're going to have you back on the show in the future as this show gets up and running and the following starts. But if in fact, this was your last interview with me, your last show with me, is there something that you would like to tell the agents out there, the agents that are listening to this? Garry Kinder: Well, I would say that no matter what your position is, whether it's management, whether it's an agent, whatever you're producing, you ought to have goals. And you need to have goals for the year, and then you have goals for the week. Now, you can do it your way, I'm talking to the people that are listening. But you can do it your way, but you ought to have a goal for the year, January through December, a goal. And then have a goal for every week. This is my goal for next week. This is what I got to get done. Then you measure that, and you keep track of that every week. But then you put it into some type of notebook so that at the end of the year you can look at it and see ... Now, let's see, here's what I did every week. Here's where I took a vacation. Here's where I didn't do very well. But here's what I did get done, and I did reach my annual goal. Goals are set to be met. Goals are set to be met. So, you want to have goals that can make you stretch but you can reach them. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: Because you want to make them right. Mark Miletello: Well, once again, you've come back to accountability. So, I agree to the importance of accountability, whether it be goal setting, tracking, measuring, monitoring, I think that's the basis. That's the foundation of a successful agent. That's the foundation of everything that you've taught me. So, Garry, I want to tell you again, thank you for being a return guest on the show. Thank you for the information that you've shared and allowing us to get some insight from you. I would encourage everyone that's listening to this to go to the Kinder Brother ... you can Google Garry, G-A-R-R-Y Kinder. You can come to my site MarkMiletello.com or Vanmark.life, V-A-N-M-A-R-K.life. And of course, you will be able to find the link. You'll find out how to reach ... I will make it available how to access everything that Garry Kinder has out there. So, I just got to tell you how much you mean to me and my career. And it's an honor and a privilege to have you on the show yet again, Garry. Thank you. Garry Kinder: It's my pleasure, and trust this is helpful to the people. If they'll call me, write me, I'll tell them the kind of books they ought to get that is from Kinder Brothers and what other kinds we have that we recommend from other sources. Mark Miletello: You have a great organization there and I've spoken to many people in your organization. So, hey, if you like what you hear on this show, please go to iTunes and rate us. Rate and review, so that others can find it. Once again, thank you Garry, and thank you for the followers and listeners out there. Garry Kinder: Glad to do it.