Jeff Roy Schooling the Game

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Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. What up, everybody, and welcome back to the show. And I mean the show, the podcast. You are here, and you're getting something special today.

Not special because of anything I did. Special because I'm lazy. And what I mean by that is I recorded an episode that you've already heard, if you listen to this show, with Jack Wingate. And it was amazing. And I got to the end of that episode, and I hit stop record.

And then, as always, we kept chatting about a couple different things. And then, I had daisy-chained episodes. So, meaning I had scheduled Jack Wingate, and then right after Jack Wingate, I had scheduled Jeff Roy. Yes, that Jeff Roy. Well, me and Jack are bullshitting.

And Jeff Roy pops into the Zoom, and then we just started rapping. All of us. All three of us started rapping. And I just hit the record button. And, frankly, we didn't even really talk about a lot of the stuff that I wanted to talk about with Jeff because Jack was there in the most positive way.

Like, we were just rapping and going and talking about stuff that insurance people talk about. And it was one of those moments that I felt had to be captured. And it's such a pleasure to share this moment with you because I feel like this is the way really forward-thinking, forward-leaning insurance agency owners think. Like, this is where their minds are. This is what the conversations are like over a glass of whiskey or a couple beers or whatever when we can actually get together.

And it's just such a pleasure to share with you. I mean, quite literally, this is why I do this podcast is being able to share moments like this with you. And I wish I could share more of them with you, but glad that I got this one to be able to give to you. And I hope that you learn something, and I hope that you take something away, and I hope you connect with Jack and connect with Jeff. And I hope it helps you grow your business.

Before we get there, though, I want to give a real quick shout-out to Advisor Evolved. Chris Langell and his team at Advisor Evolved do an incredible job. I get questions all the time about, you know, Ryan, who built your website? Who built your website? And I tell them there is no other website option in the insurance industry other than Advisor Evolved.

There are other website providers, but if you're looking to actually grow your business, then you need Advisor Evolved. You need to be part of the community. You need the product. And you need all the tools that come with an Advisor Evolved website. Go to advisorevolved.com or just Google Advisor Evolved or Google Chris Langell.

Most likely you'll get a picture of him on the Jersey Shore doing his thing. But, you know, I mean, that's an inside joke. He's from Philly, actually. But Chris is an incredible guy. He grew up in the independent insurance industry world.

He transitioned that into a love for website design and has built the website product for independent insurance agents. Get an Advisor Evolved website today if you don't have one. You are losing business if you do not have an Advisor Evolved website because people aren't finding you. And I have an Advisor Evolved website. It was, there was a no-brainer for me.

It was, he was my first call. And I just highly recommend Chris Langell and Advisor Evolved. And with that, I give you Jeff Roy, Jack Wingate, and myself, just wrapping insurance. And then I was looking at Tech Canary and then Applied bought Tech Canary. So Seth's working on getting us integrated with Applied.

Hopefully that works because Applied's got 70% of the market up here and they've got the best rating. So we're 80% personal lines. I can't live without their rater. So I have to love them. And meanwhile, they're gouging the shit out of me on price, but can't fix it, right?

I'm not a big Applied fan, but I have to love them and then move on, right? Yeah. I knew that you were kind of in that beta group. I didn't know that you didn't have the full thing. I mean, are you doing what you thought it would do?

Well, it will once I got the setup, like nobody's really set up marketing cloud for insurance that I know. So the good thing is we're doing a lot of really kick-ass marketing stuff. We've already got all the marketing, but it's in 10 different devices. So we're taking 10 into one and we're going to have the data once that's done. And I think we're going to be able to help a lot of the other agents because I thought most other agents were doing what we're doing.

And I'm finding out that we're doing a lot more stuff than the average Joe. So we're going to help other agents and they're going to help us. They're going to have some cool shit like, hey, this is working in Canada. I'm going to grab that and bring it north of the border. And as I always say, Canadianize it.

And vice versa, they'll be Americanized and stuff. So it should work pretty decent. But yeah, so things are okay. Like I said, never content, never happy. But we're progressing and, you know, as you said, as an owner, there's no finish line.

You know, as soon as you think you hit the finish line, that's when the truck hits you in the side of the head. So you can't stay complacent. You can't not do anything and you can't cruise. And that's what I mean. We're just grinding right now.

I've never grinded. I always keep saying I've never grinded so hard, but I'm grinding because there really isn't much else I can do anyway. You know, I can go sit by my pool and hang out, but I can't really travel. I can't go to the U.S. Can't go anywhere.

Like, you know, I'm going to a friend's cottage for the summer for a couple of days. That's my holiday. Like, we plan to go away a few places, but that's all kibosh. So the good thing is work on our business and make sure our people are safe and help out in our community. And, yeah, that's kind of our gig.

My wife said, you know, she knew I always worked hard. She said, because I'm working in the basement right now, dude. Yeah, I'm a pretty damn good basement. I like all the video stuff, man. You got the sweet road mic back there, Hanley?

Yeah, like you're shooting. You're shooting. Road mic. Are you shooting, like, X-rated movies down there? You got all the stuff.

Oh, yeah. But, you know, she was like, I knew you worked hard, but, you know, having you be in here for, what, three or four or five straight months, she was like, you don't stop. You know, and it's like you said, though. I mean, if I was, if I still had to go out and just all I did was sell policies, I'd shoot myself in the head. But there's always a different challenge every day.

So, you know, that's what keeps you, that's what keeps it exciting because there's always, I like solving something that hasn't been solved or blazing a trail. And, you know, I like being uncomfortable because I always seem to be uncomfortable. That's the gig. I'm kind of getting used to it. But that's good.

Like, you know, as I said, you're solving problems. You know, you mentioned about bottlenecks. Like, I look back to critical paths, you know, operation management from business school, you're always trying to find the bottleneck of the critical path. And as you grow, that path moves around and you're always trying to fix a new problem. Like, it's like a video game.

I put a thing on Twitter about Donkey Kong and you're going up different levels, right? And the donkey's throwing the barrels at you. And sometimes you get whomped, you get thrown down, but you get back up and you figure a way to beat the level. And then you're going, damn, I'm good. Get to the next level.

It's like, holy shit, I don't know what I'm doing. And then you try to find the smartest person in the room or somebody who's already done it. And you say, hey, how did you do it? And then you rob and duplicate and make it your own like American Idol. And it's like becoming an artist, right?

You got to go on the road, play your songs, grind it out. That's kind of what we're doing, right? Like, that's probably the best way I can give analogies to how to do it, right? You know, Jeff, one of the things that Jack and I were talking about during when I was interviewing Jack was that it feels like, and this is A, I don't want to say the, because I don't think that's appropriate. But this is A, golden age, or we're entering a potential golden age for independent agents.

And the impetus for this is not just technology, which I think is the obvious answer, but what you just said, which is our willingness as agents to share so deeply and so openly what we're doing in our businesses with each other. So that the people who are searching for solutions can find them and make them their own in their agency. Do you agree with that? Yeah, 100%. Like, you know, it's like we're a big Linux.

I'm throwing the code out there. We're all writing the code together. And, you know, I read their article for Hanley, right, for his last agent standing. And actually, do you want to do a screen share? Throw me a screen share.

Can you screen share it? I'll show you something cool. I think you just have to request it or something. You have to make me the presenter. So right-click and make me the host.

I know, Ryan, you're always in control, but we're going to flip it over. Today, the part of Ryan Hanley will be paid by Jeff Roy. I'm okay with that. All right. I'm just teasing.

I like this. I don't even have to do anything. This is like the best episode ever. Jack just interviews Jeff. I just sit here and listen.

It's great. I'm going to show you this just quickly. I don't think it's – can you see that? Yeah. Can you see that PDF or not?

Yeah. The customer journey. Can you see all this? I see Hanley downturn. Okay.

That's not making me feel super good. No, it's not what it does. His notes were those. Yeah. It's the typo.

No, no downturn. It says Hanley slash – and then there's J-A-C-K-A-S-S. And I was like, what is going on here? Come on, man. No, no.

It's all good, buddy. Let me just – I'm just trying to find my – why is PDF not coming up? Interesting. Just a second. One thing.

I guess my PDF is on the wrong screen. I didn't know how sensitive this was. Give me one second. I just – I don't want to take too much of your time, but I just want to see if I can get this to pop up. Oh, damn it.

Anytime I can fit in on a group of Jeff Roy and Ryan Hanley, I'm just going to sop it up. So, I mean – Oh, there we go. Sorry, I had the wrong thing open, but give me one second. I mean, I was going to show you my throat punch shirt. Boom.

Nice. Oh, Seth sent me a Motorhead shirt. It's pretty cool. He went – we're about to roadies going on the road. So, I was wearing it for my last podcast.

We were doing a Canadian podcast called the Digital Insurance Pint. And Seth sent me a shirt and I wore it in the podcast. But I don't know. Nobody really asked me what it meant, so it's too bad. But give me one second.

I'll bring this up. That is weird. I don't like how this screen shares. Yeah, you can pick, like, your entire monitor or you can pick very specific – Like, it didn't come up because I had different versions of this. But let me try this again.

Screen share. All right. There we go. Can you see that in one second? It's going to give you – okay.

You're going to see that now. Oh, here comes something. You see that? Yeah, now I can see it. We're building a – my article in Paradees, we're building a customer journey maps where you go from awareness to consideration and all that stuff.

We're building out journeys. So this is our 17-page document where we're focusing on parents of young children. And we're trying to move them through the funnel, awareness, interest, consideration, action, purchase. And then we've looked at three segments. So we took Seth – or not Seth, but Jay Baer's 5x5 model.

And we just came up with three. Resource Drain Parents, Do the Right Thing Parents, and Balls and Air Parents. And then we looked at the segments of, you know, why they're trying to stretch a dollar, we kind of explain them. Then we break it down for awareness. We start writing blogs, and we have questions that we answer in each segment.

So we're going to create videos. We're going to create blogs. I've got another page, about a 10-page document our team put together. Hey, at this stage, what does it look like? Oh, we have a video that pop up.

We might have, you know, some ads on Facebook that communicate parents. So we've kind of gone through the whole journey where we talk about, you know, interest. You know, some parents, we're going to talk about being frugal. So we went through the whole journey in terms of different pages and segments and basically figured out what to do in the entire journey. And then at each spot, they can jump into a funnel.

And that way, basically, we hopefully, they go, I want to jump in and get a rate from these guys. These guys complete me. So we're building this up. We're building about probably about 25 pieces of content that will be all interconnected. And we're building a content journey to go after these personas to see if we can bring in a better class of business.

And then after we do that, we're going to apply it to DINX, which means double income, no kids. We're going to apply the same process. And some of the articles will work. We just need to write it towards double income versus family. So that's kind of where we're at right now.

We're going to put this on marketing cloud. And hopefully, this drives traffic like we've never done and better quality of business. We find we can bring quality business in, but it's not always quality. 900 leads, 300 or 400 are shit. We don't want to write, but we're still bringing that business in.

Or I shouldn't say shit, but not super quality, right? Our markets don't really want that. And then we find we get 50% of our leads we actually get in touch with. So some of the people are just playing around. So out of 900 leads, there's what, 450, 500 serious leads.

And then we have to, once we really work those leads well, but we get a lot of stuff like the shaft, like I guess when you're panning for gold, a lot of stuff flies out of the thing when you're panning, looking for the gold. And that's kind of the process we got. So we're just trying to refine that right now. But I thought you'd find that kind of cool. We got this, I didn't go through, we got a 17 page document that we're working through and working through a persona, building all this content journey, like videos, blogs, whatever we need to do.

And then we have a funnel that when they click on it, it looked like a family and it'll speak their language. So hopefully when we get somebody into that funnel, they're going, wow, these guys get me. And we even have contests. And one of the things we're doing, I don't tell anybody, but we're doing a night, a coloring book for the night, the Excalibur night coloring book. We're going to give out our new business kids.

These kids will color it. It'll tell a story in there. And you know, one of our staff said that that gave me a book when I was nine and I still have it to this day because I love that coloring book. It meant a lot to me. So never thought of a coloring book.

So we're going to build a coloring book out, like how many insurance brokers would build a coloring book, right? So, but we're going to do it because it's on brand and people will get it in their new business kit and it'll be kind of a experience. Nobody else will get in. Meanwhile, the book will talk about, we looked at that, everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten. We could take those messages and put it into a book for kids and actually, you know, their coloring plus their learning stuff at the same time.

So that's kind of one of the projects we're working on. It's kind of deep, but hopefully at the end of the day, everybody's like, wow, these guys get me and they get into our funnel and we write them. And we maintain them as clients, right? So, Hey Jeff, is, is that, and I'm sorry, Ryan. No, you're fine.

Is that your normal, like I identify a niche. So right there, you identified this niche of parents. Is that your normal workflow or is this like, Hey, let's try this? Because I mean, that's an in-depth funnel and strategy. We're trying this for the first time.

I'm just sharing with you what we're doing. Like we've never done this. Like we're running AdWords right now, driving people to landing pages. We're getting seven and $8 clicks for actually more like four or $5 clicks. We're generating 10 to $11 leads on pay-per-click and we're closing probably 10%, which is a hundred dollar acquisition costs, which is cool.

Like that's working well. We're getting about 300 to 500 organic leads through our website a month. So that just comes in. And we, again, you can't control what comes in through your website as much. You write content and you drive people, but it's good stuff comes in, bad stuff comes in.

But the good thing is it continues to turn. We just have to keep working on the SEO, but we've never actually said, hey, this niche we want to really go after. Like we, the one thing Excalibur hasn't done well is we're not niching anything and we don't have any affinity groups and we're just good at personal lines and we have a really good process and we have a good brand, but we don't really go after, you know, group plans and stuff like that. We've never done well at that or been able to kick ass or affinity programs. And that's something we'd like to bring on board in the next year, if we can get this dialed in.

But if we can be the people that, hey, families, Excalibur gets us and go after that whole thing and people go, wow, Excalibur understands me. I'm going to click through. I want to know more because they're speaking my language. Because most right now our content is generic and it speaks to everybody. Like, you know, hey, we've got defenders, blah, blah, blah.

But I'm speaking to the pain points of a family member. Like, hey, you've got no sleep last night. You've got an hour to do your insurance. It's five o'clock. You've got three hours sleep.

And as your insurance broker there, can I book an appointment? We have all that stuff right there for people to consume to hopefully get them into the funnel, right? We actually speak what their pain points are and we address it with our services and we, you know, we speak the language of parent. That's what we're trying to do. So this is something that, again, this, I'm just riffing with you guys.

We haven't figured out if this is going to work. I wrote an article about agents writing random acts of content where they'll write a fucking kick ass blog about whatever. And then, you know, they get some SEO traffic. But I have a picture that shows basically, you know, a fantasy island or a beautiful island, a deserted island, and then basically a shark's mouth where the shark mouth, the content's crap and eats you. The bacon island or the isolated item you go, there's one great content.

You're stuck there. And then if you have multiple of the content experience, you get a resort and you basically get people into the three buckets. So we're trying to figure out the resort concept where we have a, we parachute people into a good experience and hopefully they consume stuff and they, they, we answer their questions. They jump into our funnel and we connect with them. That's what we're trying to do.

So that's what my article in a nutshell is what I wrote for, for a pair of easels, a magazine. And I talk about this now we're actually, this is the first time we've actually applied it in this depth. And I have no idea if it's going to work, but I think it's going to work better than what we're doing now to bring people in. But I'll know a lot more in the next three to five months when we roll it out, we test it, we fail, it doesn't work and I'm pissed off. We have to tweak things, but that's kind of the things.

But I just want to share with you guys to see what you thought. Yeah. And I think so for us, I started doing this at the beginning of the year to a way, way lesser extent than what you're talking about. But, you know, for us putting content out was always just sort of a freaking shotgun approach. Like, Hey, I'm going to write about this today or whatever.

And so, you know, I had Jared over here, you know, hammering out, you know, Instagram cause he loves that. And so our messaging was all disjointed. And so, you know, it's kind of selfishly, I knew I needed to tweak some of our content pages like, you know, the workers comp page or whatever. So I would pick like a theme of the week and we still do it to this day and it's helped us tremendously. So this week it's workers comp.

So everything we post on social is all going to be built around this one thing, which is basically like what taking, what you did is taking that up about 15,000 notches. But I think that's where a lot of people mess up is that there's no plan for their content. It's just sort of rapid fire. I'm going to throw this out there and see if it sticks instead of kind of like Hanley would say, and like he doesn't promote his content as well as he should. It's the same thing.

It's what's the strategy and the plan. And once you, that's half the battle right there. Well, it's a flip because people look at, you know, our SEO guy can say, Hey, here's the 10 topics people are talking about. I need to have an article about that. And you write an article and hope somebody shows up and you might have a call to action on the page, but what's the next step?

They don't want to take your call to action. You're done. They'll bail. So a lot of people consume one page. They're gone.

Right. And that's the bad content journey where if you can build, you know, once they're here, here's eight other questions they may ask. And you actually have them linked into that page and they can consume it. Then you're, that's content journey. And I went to a thing called Uber flip last year in August and I was the only insurance guy there to like 900 people.

And that's where I learned at Connex about, Hey, here's how marketers do it. Here's what B2B, B2C look like. And I started speaking a different language and just being around those people taught me, wow, we, we don't get it at all. You know, our page looks kind of cute and our brand's good, but we're just not, our content's not nailing it. So everybody's talking about blog, blog, blog.

Well, blog's good, but you got to blog with purpose and you got to create the journey. So that's where I think everybody's got hung up where they wrote a couple of blogs, nothing's happening. They give up and it's like, you know, it's like doing a workout program. I'm going to go to a, I'm going to do P90X and do three days and want to look jacked or I want to, I want to, I want to be a, I want to be a, I want to go to CrossFit for three days and be in the, and win a competition. It doesn't work that way.

And that's a problem right now. I think a lot of people just, they want the easy fix and they don't want to do the hard work and they don't want to learn. Like this is this hard stuff. Like I just, you know, it's not easy stuff and I don't know if it's going to work awesome. There's a lot of, there's risk involved and we're spending a lot of money and time on it, but I feel it's the right path.

And I feel it's going to be better than what we have. And I think we're taking a step up from what we're doing before. So I'm confident that it's secure. When Jay bear says, here's what you need to do. We take the, we took his formula.

It's a 230 page book. If you want me to send you the PDF, Jack, happy to send it to you, Ryan. Please do. I've got it. I can flip it over to you.

Uh, I think I got your email, Jack. I'm not sure if, if not, uh, I know I got you on Facebook, so, uh, flip me a messenger and I'll flip it over to you. I can do a, we transfer, but it's good. And again, we had to, we looked at it and then the problem is we tried executing it. It was harder trying to come up with the questions in each category than we thought.

And then what does the content look like? Come up with the questions. Do you just answer it with a blog? No, you got to have some video. You have some variety.

So, so that's kind of what we're going through. And I don't know if it's going to work, but, uh, at least we're going to try. And as I always tell people, watch, learn, fail, fix, right? Uh, what's, what's amazing to me about that, Jeff, is that I'm sure it's the same way in Canada, but I can sit around here and I can Google, you know, insurance agent, Winston Salem, North Carolina. And I, if I find people's websites, if I can find them, they're crap.

I've been to your website. It was a good website to begin with. It wasn't just a pretty picture that a lot of people throw up there. I mean, it was had content and Jeff just said, you know, where it's not just about doing blogs. You know, it's got to be deeper than that.

I mean, you're the 1% of people and gosh, I hope I'm getting there at some point in time that understand that it's not just about doing the minimal work. You've taken what no one else is doing and said, shit, this doesn't work. It's not good enough. I got to do better. I mean, he said, he said, Jack, he said, you know, he got 900 leads in one month and people are going to hear that and go, you know, how the hell did he do that?

What's it, you know, what's it, you know, what are you doing? What's your secret? And then, you know, you hear it's an 18 page breakout document outlining a customer journey with personas and questions and second and third tier content with multimedia follow-ups, hard follow-ups. I mean, that's how you get to that level. And I think in general, we talked a little bit about this one during our thing too.

It's like so many people are looking for that quick fix and the answer every time with every person who you talk to who's successful in any regard, the answer is always, I went deeper than everybody else for longer than everybody else. And that, and eventually I got there. That, that is always the answer. And I mean, that's Jeff, you've been diving into this stuff for a decade. I mean, we've been talking about content for 10 years.

So it's not like this is, you know, and it shouldn't turn anyone off. You know, I don't want people to hear that and go, well, geez, you know, I'm screwed because I, you know, I don't 10 years, but you can get really far fast. But then that next level, I think is what takes a lot of work, but, but get really far fast, like do the work, put, put some work in, in time and start to think about it. And there, there's some hacks, like, you know, again, you have to grind it out. There's no such thing as an overnight success.

And, you know, Malcolm God lost 10,000 hours. You look at all those things, but there are some hacks to get through it. And again, the hacks are your agent friends that have tried things and learning, jumping on their learning curve. And, uh, I think was a reader rabbit, uh, or task rabbit, sorry, reader rabbit, I think that was a video game or a book, but task rabbit, uh, the one they, they talked about the power of the human cloud where, you know, a lot of people would go on board, they would have a task, people would hire them. And what happened is all the people on the board started sharing skills.

So I might've had one skill and I shared it and I could do 10 different things. So they're sharing and monetize everybody else. So Jeff Roy was good at mowing lawns before you know, he's a handyman and he can do 10 more things and his revenue went up 10 times. Why? Because he shared and he was part of a bigger collective and that's where the agents that would be successful are going to be part of a bigger collective.

They're going to share. And that's, you've seen pockets, you know, you get classes, agency intelligence, you got IAOA, there's a bunch of different groups out there that work together. Now, some of them got really big. So some of that sharing is hard because it's so big, right? You need a, almost a smaller group.

People set up a mastermind group, right? The power of the mastermind, whatever it is you do, but the more times you're out there running into people belly to belly, face to face. And again, in the COVID world, zoom to zoom or a go-to meeting to go-to meeting, the more chance you have of stumbling upon, man, I never thought of it that way. Or that idea worked for them. Why isn't it working for me or, you know, better yet that person, wow, they don't, I can't believe they're doing it.

If they can do it, I can do it. Right. Like there's a lot of that stuff, right? Like, but you know, a lot of times people look like they make it look really easy, but it's kind of like a, the duck that looks calm in the surface and the legs are going crazy below. There's a lot more below the iceberg or the water than most people see.

And that's where it's just about grinding it out. Right. And it's not being scared to fail. I know everybody wants to not fail. I think the only reason we're starting to get a little bit better is we're not scared to fail.

We're still trying stuff. We're not sitting around waiting for, you know, things to fly into our hands and, you know, just, we're not waiting for things to come to us. We're trying to make things happen and we're trying to do things. And a lot of the, you know, I bet you I've had way more failures than most people in the last year. That's why we learned, right?

Like I'm just failing fast, fast failure, right? Fail forward, whatever you want to say. I just, I feel like I'm giving one of my talks, but it's the same thing, right? Like it's what you do. It's got to be part of your DNA.

And as soon as that's part of your culture and your DNA, the chances are you can accelerate and get through things a little bit quicker. And then you're going to hit walls. Like I keep, I'm in a wall right now. We have to scale, train better. Our training isn't good enough.

And I'm trying to figure out how I can put everything online, videos, you know, basically and then I heard about quantum, uh, Jeff Shea or whatever, uh, he's killing it. You know, he's my new superhero and I met him during COVID. He's part of our mastermind group. I reached out to him and him and I had chatted during COVID and he was going to get me some masks for my area. He got a line on it.

We did. We got to know each other just over COVID and I'm looking forward to circling back, but I look at what he's done for training and we have to, as agents acknowledge, if you listen to, uh, Cass talked to his assistant, I forget what her name was off quantum. She did a great webinar, but how they're trying to train. Yeah. Caitlin, she, she killed it.

In my opinion, I was at water in the, my plants in this hot heat listening to her on my, uh, with my Bose headset on, uh, for about, and I couldn't stop it. Cause I'm like, wow, this is a person that solved one of the things I'm not good enough. I'm going to reach out to Caitlin and you know, I think it's education at assurance written down the email somewhere. That's on my list to do. I haven't had time this week, but before Friday's up, I'm going to reach out to her and Jeff and say, I want to learn how you guys do it.

I want to open up the hood because you guys are doing it way better than me. I'm the first one to say, Hey, we're not good enough. Show me something better. And likewise, if somebody needs help, I'm the first one to say, here's what we're doing. You know, here's what's worked.

I openly share with people. I've always done that. Right. And it's always the law of sharing reciprocity for agents. Whatever you give comes back in spades.

I think that's something that if more people could learn that, and I wish the past generation shared a little bit more because there wasn't as much sharing my dad's generation, you know, he was scared. He was by himself. He's a business guy. He didn't have anybody to share with. And that's a very lonely existence and difficult.

I look at all of us on the phone here, you know, Jack, Brian, you know, we've got a pretty good network of friends. And if you can't figure it out, you don't know something, you can pick up the phone and there's 30 people you can call to help you. And every one of them will help you. You know, nobody, nobody ever asked. Everybody's too humble to ask.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's ego. And, and I, and I, what I love about, um, the network of people that, that I feel, I feel blessed to be part of you two are in there, but there's, there's hundreds, if not more of thousands, maybe it, I feel like one of the defining characteristics, and I hate to talk generationally, but at least of this segment, this, this particular group of agents and agency owners that are pushing up through is, is that there, there is so much less ego. It's, it's not, when you go to events, it's not, you know, everyone's walk, well, I did this much premium this year. And, oh, you know, I made the gold club of Safeco or, you know what I mean? I mean, that's the kind of stuff that, my dad's bigger than, my dad's bigger than your dad.

Yeah. Yeah. You, you'd be like, oh, you know, uh, my agency has been around for a hundred years and mine's been around for 107 years, you know, and it's like, no one cares anymore. You know what I mean? Like you walk around and you're talking about every aspect of your business and people are open about it.

And they're like, you, you say, you know, we were struggling to train 10 years ago, you saying that people would be looking at you going, oh, look at Jeff's agency screwed. Look at the weakness. You know, he can't train his people. You know what I mean? That's, that would be the mentality.

But today I feel like so much of that has been brushed aside where people are now like, what's going to happen is they're going to hear that. And they're going to go, oh my God, I got this great training platform. I'll share this with you. You'll, you'll be bombarded with people helping you find solutions for how to, how to distribute what you want them to know. Like that's, I feel like that has flipped.

It's one of the things that makes me the most happy about where we are as an industry is that just in my time in the industry, which has not been that long, 13 years, 14 years, I feel like from then to now, the difference in terms of the ego that people have for their business, the openness, the willingness to share that has gone 180 degrees. It's almost like who can share the most and in a, in a, in a positive way. And I, and I just love that about where we're at because it allows someone like me who I've failed a million more times than I've ever been successful, but it's only because in every time that happens, I get to call one of you guys and go, Hey man, what am I screwing up here? This thing isn't working. And, and I, and, and then you, everyone else is willing to take that call and share how they fix the problem.

Well, the funny thing, and I don't, I'm sure Jeff, you're the same way. Well, I don't know, because you do it at such a high level, but like Jason Kilgoog, he like, we've become, I guess, somewhat good friends. And he called me up there. They said, Hey, do you have some time to show me your video setup? Someone wanted to know my video setup.

I was like, okay, come on now, but you know, so he calls me because he wants some help and I'm more than willing to give it. And then what inevitably happens is I start talking to him about what he's doing in his business and I pick up something. So it's, you know, it's, it's, we've reached that point where it's, if someone would just ask, you're not infringing upon someone's time. I can guarantee you most of the people that I know, you know, Jeff included you more than willing to help because they know one, it's betters all of us, but also you're going to pick something up too. Yeah.

You know, it's, it's, it's a great world we live in. Yeah. I know that, uh, you know, my 31 years that is celebrated 31 years of broker got my license at 18. And, uh, you know, when I first started, there wasn't a lot of stuff. Like my dad had a George Nordhaus, uh, binder on his wall, uh, IMS service, I think it was called at that point.

And it's funny because I hooked up with him five years ago and I told him I saw that book was the first thing I saw in marketing for insurance. And we didn't have any marketing. We didn't even have a computer. I put the first computer in our office back in like 89. And, uh, you know, but back then there wasn't, I didn't have this group of people.

There's no internet. Like the internet really changed the game because you could find people all over the world. Once people learned how to do it and people were never closer to find people and you could hook up with people. But I didn't have that opportunity. It wasn't probably till 2010.

My last 10 years is when I really hooked up with people and that's when the good stuff started to happen. Right. And I was in a, I would say a vacuum or a cloud and I didn't have the great, like I just like, I look at it. Wow. If I had all these people now, when I was younger, man, what, what the difference that would be.

And I don't dwell on that, but I'm like, you know what? I want to make sure that I'm, you know, I try and help people as much as I can, because I didn't have that access. So I want to make sure that I can help and give back in any way I can for people that matter. Right. Cause I just, there wasn't much around and, you know, I don't want other people to be in a vacuum and, you know, not see the light.

And we want to try and help agency owners get to another level. Right. It's all about getting up in levels and, you know, it's not the numbers that defines you. It's what you do to define the numbers, you know, basically what, what grind you're doing, you know, the culture, everything you've built. That's what it's all about.

And it's about enjoying the work and it's not about the destination. That's about the journey along the way. Right. And, uh, if you have good people and you surround yourself with good people at work and your friends, I always say you become the six people we hang out with the most choose wisely. It's really important that you surround yourself with good people because this business will beat you up if you're surrounded by bad people.

And none of us, it's hard enough to do this business if you're doing everything well, but surrounding yourself with bad people can be very difficult. So. Yeah. Cool. That was a little fun session.

This kind of happened in nowhere, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I didn't mean to take up all your interview. I'm sure.

Oh, let's go. I love it. That was great. That was great. I was great.

I'm just like, uh, I didn't know what Jason, I had no idea what, uh, we were, uh, Ryan and we also, uh, we're going to try to, but we're more getting caught up. So I had no, no idea. Any chance I can get to have you on the show is a win for me. I, uh, you know, I always have a very small agenda and my, what I was really, what I really was interested in is the podcast and your idea. You're, I was interested.

I mean, this, I love the content journey stuff, but this whole idea and the fact that you've started a podcast and that you're, you're reaching out into the market and that you're taking that time to do that, um, I'm interested in that mindset. Cause I've seen, I'm starting to see, like, I have a local podcast that I do, but I've been podcasting since 2013. I, um, you know, I'm, I'm, it comes kind of naturally to me seeing you. And I think Lipstone is starting a podcast and I've seen some other people start in local or niche podcasts. And I'm just interested in the mentality.

Like what's the, what's the, um, what's the motivation behind it? What's getting you excited about it to go and do that work? Cause it's work, you know, it's work like anything else. Yeah. Well, and again, I have a different opportunities, but I doing it myself and putting the time in and focusing, I just don't have the time to block off.

So I needed a team and Adam Mitchell, a good broker friend of mine, Mitchell Wales insurance. Uh, he's won the Ontario broker of the year, young gun, super good guy, good friend of mine from probably the last five or six years in the industry. And him and I chatted about, let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. And then we both got too busy squirrels.

Things happen, you know, cutting out time to do a podcast is not easy. So our friend, Tom Reed, who used to run the digital, um, brokers, uh, for a Viva that got brought people, Adam and I knew each other, but he brought Steve Earl in, who's a broker from Eastern Canada that started up a, he has a traditional brokerage and started a broker called cheap up from scratch. And, uh, we were all friends and we would sit there and riff and we would get together twice a year and talk, geek out on insurance and talk about it probably 24 seven. And, you know, we all had very strong opinions. So we thought, let's put a podcast together.

So it was going to be the digital insurance beer. And then, uh, we said, you know, a pint sounds a little more sophisticated and, you know, in the time it takes to drink a beer, we're going to try and share knowledge and experience with people, uh, from three digital brokers that have kind of differing journeys, but all have a different perspective of what it's like to change your brokerage. And, uh, yeah, we've done, I think we've done eight or nine episodes. Now we've got a website now we're not live, so we're going to announce it. Uh, I'm not sure when this will air Ryan, but I might have to tell you to put this in the archive for a bit until we at least launched the digital, uh, insurance pint.

But yeah, that's what we're going to do. And we're just tackling like paperless going paperless to the consumer. Is a huge issue right now in Canada because our companies are saying, Hey, we want to cut the paper off and they're doing it during COVID when most of us aren't super equipped to do it, or we were equipped with, it's going to take some time. So we're, that's an example of an issue we talked about on the podcast and all four of us have strong opinions. We're trying to have a bit of fun with it.

So, you know, I don't think we're trying to change the world with it. We're not trying to go worldwide and, you know, we're not trying to be like the insurance guys, insurance dudes or like Ryan Hanley, but we just think that there's an opportunity to talk about stuff. You know, there's a thing in Canada called hockey night in Canada where they have the hot stove lounge where three or four people in the industry talk about what's going on and share insights. That's kind of what it is. And we will invite some people on, so you might be getting a call next year, guys.

We're just trying to get through season one and yeah, it's, it's, it's fun. You know, as you said, it's not easy. You got to make sure you're, I didn't say easy, but you got, we got to prepare your script and your topics. And, but the one thing that nobody in our phone or our group is shy of is having an opinion. Yeah.

And we have experience and we've all been there. So it's good. And everybody's sharing back to what we talked about earlier. It's a sharing economy. It's sharing ideas and insights.

And, you know, we're doing it, you know, for the better of the industry and get some viewpoints out there because I don't think some of the companies and vendors listen to brokers and agents enough, you know, things are done to us, not with us. And we need to change that narrative. And one of my things, the last number of years is I want to change the narrative. I want to be at the table. I want to make sure the broker viewpoint is there.

And I talk about the three legs of the stool. There's only been really two legs and you know how stable a two legged stool is not very stable. That broker agent being the third stool with the company and vendors makes all the difference. And you want to put a fourth leg on it. You can get into Accord, CZO, the standards.

That's the perfect, you know, the perfect, uh, four, uh, four legs of the stool that gives you that stability. And I, in the past, I got to say people have making decisions without other parties in mind and they're putting themselves first. And, uh, you know, it's gotta be a win, win, win, win for everybody. So that's, I'm hopeful that we can get more dialogue, make people understand things and we can continue to build better stuff and better experiences for consumers. Right.

You know, that particular topic, um, you know, I look at tools like Tarmica, which I'm obviously, uh, an enormous fan of. And, um, actually today, uh, my interview with Raghith from the founder, you know, co-founder of Tarmica just went live. And, um, uh, I see that as a tool that can help force the broker opinion to the table. And the reason I say that is, you know, the, the, you know, just, just in my four months that I've been doing this right on my own, I get a small business account in $2,000 in premium. I got to go to Liberty and I got to go to Hartford and then I got to log in Hanover system, which forces me to go on to a whole different computer to do that.

Cause it only works on internet Explorer. And then I got to go in, then I got to come back over to this computer to go to this company. And then eventually I just get bored of that. And I just pick one of them and I go, and they know that that's the way it is. And then you take a tool like Tarmica, which completely democratizes that process, right?

One single entry point for multiple quotes. So now it becomes, now I'm, I don't, it's not just whose system do I go to first? It's, I'm staring at your rates side by side with six other companies. And now my job as the broker is to decide which one of you is the best for my client. And things start to matter beyond just, is my system the first one that you go to, or is it my system, you know, the most UI friendly or whatever?

Like, like it no longer does these kind of almost like, you know, I don't even know what the right way to say it is like anecdotal items. They don't matter anymore. Right now it's, I'm staring at the prices. You're $250 higher. That doesn't even mean that I won't sell your policy, but I actually get now to determine what's going to be best for my client because I don't have to spend all this time trying to figure out who's where and what it's all, it's all standing in front of me.

And I look at that and that to me says as more, as more agents and brokers start to adopt these tools, it's going to put pressure on the carriers to build deeper relationships with the agents that they're picked out of the list versus before where it was like, oh, we sent you, you know, on this one trip. So now you choose us all the time. And because of that, now you're kind of, you know, we're kind of, you're, you know, a master to a certain extent because you want to go on that golf trip again. And, you know, I'm just hoping, I see that as a step in the right direction. Does that make sense?

Does that logic follow or do you? Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. It makes sense. You know, once the companies, the rules of the game, the things are increasing right now. The bar is being risen.

So you need to have an open API. You need to connect things like Tarmica. If you're not, you're out of the game, right? And the companies that don't will be left behind. Now, it used to be who's got a better portal.

That was client, that was company, you know, centric. That was to their advantage because you had, the agent had to learn a bunch of portals, but the best portal won. And the one that got the job done, you went to and got it done. But is that best for the consumer? No, it's best for the agent and the company with the best portal.

Now, with Tarmica, with an open API, you can shop all the markets. You can give your consumer the right advice. You can make it quickly. It can happen. You can make it go, right?

So all positive things to do, right? And that's just, and I don't mean to overstress Tarmica. I know people are probably sick of hearing it on this. I just am very excited about it. There are other tools that do similar things, but it's these types of technology that are democratizing this process that I think can help equal the playing field for all partners, the carrier, the customer, and the agent.

Well, and because I sat on a couple of the task forces with carriers, they shoot themselves in the foot a lot of times because they'll spend half a billion dollars on their portal, on their rating systems, you know, to stay in their little box where they could spend a fraction of the money, open their API to someone like a Tarmica, you know, and it not matter what your portal does. You know what I mean? It's like, wait a second, but they're afraid that if they get out there and exposed, then, you know, the advisor's just going to pick a price. Nah, that's the way it used to be maybe, but moving forward, that's the sandbox they got to play in. And I think that that's the way it used to be because you didn't have time to go to all seven portals.

You just simply did not have time to individually log information into all, you know, if you only had seven, so you would just go, I'm pretty sure Liberty's the lowest and their portal's the easiest. So I'm just going to do that one and maybe I'll do Hartford too, just to kind of keep them honest. And I'll just tell the other carriers that they didn't get a shot at this one for whatever reason. I mean, that's not the best for the agency. It's certainly not best for the customer and it's really not, it's ultimately not even the best for the carrier because the carrier starts having risks that they don't even want shoved down their throat because it's just the most convenient system to use.

Yeah, the game's leveling up. Just like I talked about agencies going through cycle, the game's going through in cycle. Everything gets improved. The margins get cut. Things get more efficient.

Like we call it the plumbing of the industry where you're just connecting data back and forth. There's no reason why companies should be competing on the plumbing. We should make it open and easy to go through. The companies can compete on the data and the stuff behind the scenes. That's where the fun happens, how they brand, you know, the features they put into their product, that kind of stuff.

And again, you can spend time talking about features and do more risk management if you're not spending, your team's not spending time going into seven portals, which nobody's going to go into seven portals. We know that on a small account, you know, and again, the other accounts are being sent out by fax or I would say more by email and PDF, Excel, spreadsheet, Word, or if you have a Tarmica that's being marketed that way, right? In Canada, we have PolicyWorks, a few other ways to market accounts, but they still go out and the person is still a fairly automated process. And, you know, as we get more and more of the keystrokes out of it, you know, if you cut the keystrokes, you can improve the time and the hands-on with the client and giving advice and doing that kind of stuff and building that customer experience, right? And improving the agent experience.

Like, everybody talks about the customer experience. The agent is a customer too. I just don't think enough focus has been given to that to make it good for us. You know, it's like, I just got to make it better than the other company, like a percent, but after I'm a percent better, I'm not going to go any further. There's not a lot of companies that really drilled into it and really look at, hey, I want to wow my broker at every touch point.

There may be in the U.S., but, you know, I asked agents, how many companies did anything for you during COVID? You did stuff for your clients. We got a lot of memos. I had a few companies actually reach out and phone us, you know, which was great. They phoned out and made sure we're okay.

I had two or three companies that actually reached out with a phone call, which was great, but how many companies largely reached out? Jack, did you have a lot of companies reach out? Just, Erie did a great job of reaching out and actually saying, hey, you know, they actually gave us a thousand bucks. It's not a huge thing, but it's not garbage and said, look. Company did something and gave you money?

Wow, in Canada, that would be the only company. Because, you know, they market share, give us advertising dollars, splits, and they said, look. If you go spend a thousand bucks, we don't even care how you show it back to us. Just make sure you put Erie on whatever it is that you did. We'll reimburse you the full thousand.

So I was like, dude, that's awesome. So, yeah, I mean, they were the big, but they're the biggest proponent of that type stuff in our agency, at least. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Well, it's one of those things that just, it's all about touch points.

And companies haven't really thought about the touch points for agents. It hasn't been updated in a lot of years. Some companies have. I'm not going to be paying everybody with the same brush, but I think the companies need a complete overhaul. And it's funny.

I had a presentation done for Chubb, and I was going to present to Jeffrey Graham and some of his team. And I can't wait. COVID, unfortunately, stopped that. But as soon as things clean up, I'm excited to present to Chubb because I have some really good insights. If I was a company, here's the things I'd be doing with agents and brokers to take things to the next level.

And I just don't find the companies really ask or care. And they send a survey out. They want to get a high net promoter score, but they don't talk about doing anything different. And it's going to be interesting how companies evolve over the next five to 10 years. There's going to be more consolidation, just like brokers.

There's a huge consolidation in brokers. There's a whole thing about scale. And there's going to be still scratch agencies, but there's a certain scale that if you have scale, you have the markets, you have the resources to do things, it makes things a lot easier. And you can get a lot more flow and grow a lot quicker. And you can still do well as a startup agent, don't get me wrong, but you have to have your niche.

You have to be super focused. And there's just a huge evolution going through. I don't know where it's going to end. I don't know what it looks like. We talk about who's going to win, directs, agents.

That's an age-old debate that goes back and forth like a tennis ball. I feel the agent's in the best spot of anybody to win because we don't, just like Uber doesn't own any taxis, we don't own any policies. And we have a chance to innovate and do well, so why not us, why not now? But the connectivity is the biggest issue we feel, and the issue right now is connectivity and moving data. That is the biggest thing plaguing agents from getting to the next level.

And if we don't solve that quickly, you know, we can't start using AI and machine learning to really dial things in. That's what scares me. That's why we have to, things like Neon with Seth have to get pushed through. We need more solutions like that. Agents created, solutions created by agents for agents.

I'm really bullish on stuff like that, right? So the whole collaboration thing, so. Yeah, and we talked about this like just a minute ago with Ryan. It's not just the systems either. I think when Ryan, you interviewed Seth, you said, Seth is right there and you said, what can agents do to help you and the cause who might not be on Neon or might not ever be on Neon or might be 10 years before they're on Neon?

And I don't even know that Seth gave you an answer, but here's the answer. You know, agents, you have to start doing stuff differently. I'm not saying you got to put tons of money in your agency, but like we were talking about, stop selling like Geico on price. You know, try to, and if your price is your value, that's fine, but find the places where you can bring value. I mean, look at what Jeff's doing.

I mean, he's putting marketing strategies, time. Dude, that's crazy. That is a value add right there what he's doing because he's willing to take the time to do it. You know, so don't, don't just rest on your laws. If you want to help the industry out and have it be around, get off your ass, do a little work, call Jeff, call Seth, call anybody and let's do it.

Or don't be upset when no one gives a shit about your opinion. Yes. And that's really what, that's really where I've gotten with some of the, some of the Facebook groups. You know, I love them. I love them because it gives you a tone of what people are thinking about.

And there are some good questions asked, but there are also a lot of really stupid questions, a lot of stupid comments. And by stupid, I mean actually stupid. Like if you're not putting in the work to grow your book of business, if you're just hawking on price and you're asking the same questions about where do I get leads from? Figure it out. Google insurance leads.

You'll see a thousand different companies that'll sell them to you. Try them all. The ones that work, keep the ones that don't get rid of them. Join one of these, join Nick Ayers made you look thing. Try YouTube videos, you know, join Frank Menezes thing.

Try Facebook videos, you know, hire Austin Moorhead to build automations for you. I mean, like, I just don't understand this mentality where people just show up, don't really work that hard and go, how come no one's giving me the answer? And it's like, because you don't deserve the answer. Jeff Roy deserves every answer that he gets. Every answer he gets because he works his frigging ass off.

And every person who comes to him and every carrier that asks him for his advice, he earned it because he works hard. And I don't even deserve the conversations that he has. And I think, and what I mean, you know what I mean? I'm not just being overly humble. I mean, this dude has put in 31 years of hard work to figure out how to get 900 leads in a month and to not be happy with that.

Right? Like, I can do more. And it's that mentality that is separating. I do see, and it would probably always been this way, but a clear separation between these agency owners and agents that act so helpless. Like, help is so available today if you are willing to reach out and do a little bit of the work.

It's so available. It's more available than it's ever been. But I just feel like, I mean, and again, I said this to you before. It's just, you know, I say this to my kids when they play with other kids. Form a hierarchy and operate in that ecosystem.

Understand where your place is. If you're unhappy with your place, push your way up the hierarchy. That's the way the world works. There's another time in human history for people to figure things out, get the help, whatever. But you have to invest in yourself, and you have to keep, you can't be static, right?

You have to keep reinvesting, and that's education, that's learning, that's failure, it's launching. It's all that kind of stuff, right? And these people that complain all the time, you know, I like people, if you genuinely have a problem, that's great. But let's say when you're, hey, I've got a problem, I see somebody complaining, I want to make sure they have a solution. Because if you don't have a solution, at least an idea of how you would fix it, you're bitching at that point when people start complaining about stuff.

But nothing worse than learned helplessness where people go, oh, I can't believe this carrier did that. Well, what are two things you can do? And nine times out of ten, they're like, well, I can do this and this. Well, great, why don't you do them? You know, most, a lot of people have the answer, but they just need that coaching, or they get into a state where, you know, there's a lot of things going on.

And they get paralysis by analysis, they're not sure what to do, and they just don't want to take action. And that's exactly when you have to take action is when you don't want to. And you're backed into a corner, you know, and you said the industry can beat you up. And you have to make sure that you're going to have your days where you go home and your doubt days. Everybody in any business has their doubt days.

They're like, what am I doing in this business? But then you go, you know what, tomorrow's going to be a good day. Dust it off. Let's go on positive. You know, my family's still healthy.

I'm still healthy. You know, I can figure things out. It's not the end of the world, right? So that's what keeps you going. Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, that's the long answer to the podcast. And again, we're doing it. We're kind of excited to get it going. And, you know, whether I'm sure my friends in the U.S. can access it, we'll put it out there. I think the topics we're talking about, huge value both sides of the border.

Just like it's funny, I just feel like Canada, U.S., there really isn't much difference. Company names are different. Some of your coverage terms are the same, but we're a little bit different. But at the end of the day, it's still the same, right? Yeah.

Same industry, same challenges. Like connectivity is a huge problem in the U.S. Yeah, U.S. isn't any further ahead than Canada on really anything. We're all kind of on the same levels. I used to think the U.S. was so far ahead.

Oh, my God, I hope we catch up to them. And then when I started hanging out down there, I'm like, wow, it's the same. We have all the same problems. So that's good. We can insert ourselves, solve them together.

It doesn't matter where you live. It's how you think, how you act, who you know, what you do. And a lot of people just aren't doing a lot of new things, right? You know, what's that saying? There's no such thing as old news, just old things happening to new people, right?

So. Yeah. Well, dude, I didn't expect this to be a group show. I'm incredibly happy that it was a group show. I appreciate both of you so much.

Jack, I appreciate you again. For now, you're going to be in two podcasts, which is amazing. Jack, you're the man. You're the man, Jack. I appreciate you coming on, Jeff, and just sharing, man.

I think, you know, that I think, I think the world of you, I think, you know, it's why in 2018, you let off Elevate, you know, just blowing people away. Just, just, I mean, I still have people that will reference your, your presentation at that conference. Like there are still people that will come up to me or, or, you know, Hey, do you remember did you, you know, Jeff, what he said and just it, it, you know, your impact on this industry has been, I think in, in probably the most, probably the most humble way, so widespread. There's no way that I think you even realize, you know, how often your name is fluttered in conversations about things you've said or done and how many people aspire to be at the place that you are. So I appreciate you sharing your time and everything that you do.

Hey, you're very humble, man. And I said, I'm just Jeff Roy from a small town in Canada trying to help out. And, uh, you know what, that 2018, I look back to Cleveland, I kind of felt like that was a pinnacle of the new movement. The vibe in there, I just, it was awesome. Like that, the, uh, elevate first two, three years of it was great.

It was just a move. Like it just kind of captured the moment and now we're kind of in a different state and I'm not sure what that state is. I'm trying to put a name on you and I were chatting about that. Like where, where are we at now? Like it just kind of felt like all the new gadgets have been flushed out, all the shiny stuff, everybody came out, everybody shared and done it.

And now we're into more complicated stuff. That's maybe less sexy, but like, you know, I'm doing client journeys and all the content. That's not super sexy when it's all done and working. Maybe that's a conversation, but you know, it's just so much more work to do something to talk about. And I just, you know, I feel like there's so much more we need to do at Excalibur to do something that's worthy of talking to people about, like, you know, I did a bunch of stuff and I'll be honest, I didn't think it was anything different than what everybody else did when I had to go on the stage for Nicholas Ayers and Dave Jackson in 2017 in Florida to 450 people I didn't know from a hole in the ground, except from a chat group.

And that was, like I said, it was scary because I had to go out there and I'm wearing a hockey jersey and either it's either I've completely, this is completely garbage and I'm going to get booed off the stage or it's going to resonate and it's luckily resonated. And, uh, you know, I'm just happy to be part of the conversation. I'm happy to be, have some respect in the U S and have some great friends. And, uh, you know, I'm just very fortunate and I'm fortunate to meet some of the greatest people in the world in the insurance business. So I just want to thank you, Ryan, for everything you've done and give me all the opportunities.

And Jack, you know, I think last time I saw you, was it in North Carolina? Yeah. Yeah. I was down in North Carolina with, with Aubie Knight, who I think is one of the, uh, the real heroes and leaders in the industry. I'm a huge Aubie Knight fan.

Yeah, me too. It's great. We have, we have Colin Simpson in Canada that leads the IBO. He's very solid. Like I think him and Aubie need to get to know each other really well because they're, they're both two guys doing some great things that put the agent and broker first.

And that's good because we needed more people putting us first. And I always say this to everybody, play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back. So if we can block a little bit of time to help everybody and the rising tide floats all boats do that. We need more agents to, to share and contribute and help out. And if we do that, we'll make this the best channel.

And if we don't, we continue to not share or try and one up and beat people. You know, eventually we're going to collectively get beat by somebody smarter, bigger and better access to data. So I used to be worried about banks and insurance. Now I'm worried about Amazon and the big Uber, big people that come in, they actually get the proposition, right? Like Lemonade, their, their IPO went pretty well doubled in price.

Uh, I'm not sure if I don't understand. I'm not sure if it's valid, but are they going to be the Amazon of insurance? We'll wait and see. Right. You know, should we be investing some of our money into it right now?

I'm starting to think I should have now, but, uh, you know, it's hard to say. Right. But, uh, anyway, great conversation. Computer bots certainly are the, uh, those, the day trading bots are investing their money in it. Yeah, sure.

Good. Before we go, I want to say, I just want to, I just want to jump on your shoulders on Aubie because, um, what I love about Aubie and, and I think we have to stand behind guys like Aubie who are willing to take flack. What, what I, what stands out the most to me about Aubie as a association leader or leader in general in this industry is that he's willing to stand up for agents and take the flack so that we can do our jobs, so that agents can do their jobs. And, um, I think there's a lot of people in Aubie's position or positions like Aubie's who, who maybe, and I'm not saying they're bad people, but they don't, they're not as willing to do that. And Aubie is one of the few people that are, and it's, um, and I think, you know, uh, Marit Peters, another one down in Texas, um, Jeff Smith, Jeff Smith in Ohio, um, uh, Matt Banaszewski in Wisconsin, like these are the individuals who, who, who really, they take a lot of heat in pressing agent issues.

And, and I think, you know, we need to support them as much as we can. You talk about the insurance guys at the tip of the spear, right? Who's one of the insurance guys always at the tip of the spear, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. So awesome guys.

Say thanks very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it guys. I appreciate your time.

Be good, be safe, and I'll catch you on the flip. Later, fellas. Hit on record. Hit on recordable. Hit on record.

Hit on record. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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