Meg McKeen on How to Become the Person Your Prospects Want to Buy From

this is the story of the one as the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant she knows the only thing more important than having the right safety gear is having it there when you need it that's why she partners with Grainger for auto reordering so her team members can count on her to have cut resistant gloves on hand and each shift can run safely and efficiently call 1-800 Grainger click Grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done happy holidays want to give your host a gift consider subscribing rating and reviewing the show this holiday season it really helps the show grow from all of us at believe have a merry christmas everyone and a happy holiday in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home hello everyone and welcome back to the show today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you meg mckeon is on the show and if you are unaware of meg's work then you are not paying attention on linkedin meg is the founder and chief confidence builder at adjunct advisors llc she's a professional speaker sales coach and she also has her own pound podcast bound and determined talking about uh specifically how women in the insurance industry can grow and develop and succeed and win and i think she has an authentic voice she's great at storytelling her linkedin is off the charts in terms of the way that she's positioning messaging and sales and i think she's just an incredibly intelligent smart person and anytime i can get an incredibly intelligent smart person on this show that's a victory for you it's a victory for me and meg does not disappoint so it was just an absolute pleasure to have her on you are going to love this show before we get there i want to talk about a group of people who are also incredibly smart and intelligent and that is mick hunt and his crew at premier strategy box that's premier strategy box if you haven't heard of premier strategy box again i feel like you must be living under a rock because what what mick is doing for agencies in terms of providing sales coaching service coaching leadership and management basically outsource leadership and management for uh whether it's your your your service team your marketing team he helps you build out your your um your your comms i mean if if something's going on in your agency and you either don't have the time as a principal or you don't have the experience or you don't feel like it's an area of expertise where you can really add value but you know it needs to be improved call mick hunt go to my strategy box.com that's my strategy box.com my strategy box.com reach out get to know mick have mick in your rolodex you will be happy that you do you'll be very happy that you have mick in your rolodex because there'll be a day when you need what he does and you'll want to be able to reach out uh i haven't sent anyone to premiere strategy box who hasn't been absolutely blown away so my strategy box.com learn about it get to know mick get to know his crew you will not be disappointed all right on to meg hi ryan how are you good how are you good i uh i was just watching the uh video that you put on linkedin that prompted me to reach out like just that i thought was cool and was like uh you know i'm whatever and i looked at the time and i was like oh crap i'm watching your video i'm gonna be late for the podcast what did you um that's well from one one i would say content creator to another though you how you do it like i don't know how you do it um the quality the professionalism the energy all of it you hear this all the time i'm sure but um it means a lot coming from you that you saw something and it actually inspired action because you never know where this stuff goes when you put it out there oh no i truthfully i think your stuff is more pro than mine mine's just templated um i i really like uh i really like how you've put together and and not that yeah i don't i don't know how long you've been doing it this way but these like really well copywritten linkedin posts with you know a short video like native video attached to them they're really well done i mean i and i i'm sure you hear that too i mean it's they're they're really impressive like it's it's very very cool stuff and i love the messaging too and um so i think it's it's awesome i mean i i've known i mean i've known your work for a little while and you know i just some we never really met so um you always tend to gravitate to people you know first and then finally i was like i'm gonna i want to know more about what you have going on because it seems like it's a lot cool stuff well thanks this is the universe doing its thing um maybe you don't know this precious and matthew put us both on their top 10 sales influencer list i did not know that no yeah so um i got a heads up that i was on it and then i went back and watched the episode and there you are gary v's on there dale carnegie's on there oh my gosh who who am i with hanging with the yeah seriously yeah i uh not you i mean i just me too those names geez although you know i will say to two people who i've met recently you know how sometimes you meet someone that you follow online or has a big following or is whatever you want to say has has some monicum of celebrity and i've met some of those people before and they've been kind of not awesome and then sometimes you meet them and they are just as cool in person as they are online and uh um i've met gary v a couple times at different events um i find him to be exactly who he is on video and and what i was impressed with and this is more like i've taken this in as a lesson um a life lesson not this isn't just meant to stroke him is uh you've probably experienced this like you you're at a live event or you you give a presentation or or whatever and then afterwards um people will come up and want to ask you questions you know here's my experience with what you said here or i didn't really understand this or where can i get more or they just come up and say thank you whatever and it's all amazing um when you've given an hour of time or 90 minutes or whatever and then people come up after it is really difficult even even in the i mean i don't know about you but i'm i might get like three or four people right he had so he had been going the whole day probably did he did a keynote in the morning he'd been doing pictures and greetings he and i i my time that i got to see him whatever just how it lined up in terms of like when i actually met him at this conference that i was at was at like 5 30 at night there was 200 people in line i'm somewhere in the middle of that line and he he gave he gave me five minutes of his full and undivided attention and not just me i mean he did this for every person i was like that is a superpower to be able to take when you're exhausted and go whack i am going to dial in on you listen to you respond to you not just the you know some mashup of human that i'm like picture in my mind but like this specific person that is very very impressive i don't know how he does it i wish i could do it all i'm thinking of is god i need a nap and a beer or a beer and a nap one or the other well he probably does that too it's just i mean isn't that part of his his brand and how he continues to build that persona and is that that very individualized attention i mean i think that's whatever the content is that you're creating the the more ability the stronger ability you have to reach exactly who it is you want to talk to they'll stand in line 200 deep to meet you if you have the ability to do that he's managed to do that at scale which is is the brilliance of yeah gary v take them or leave them and i only follow him on linkedin his persona is different right depending on the platform but um yeah i think he's an interesting case study there are others kind of coming up along the way i agree with that too um i think that but i i think and i think this comes back to the content piece right because i've seen people who it's been the opposite um i had another guy that i followed and i thought man this guy's he's just a really he's very thoughtful and i met him in person and i couldn't have been more unimpressed by his disposition the way he handled himself the way he interacted with people who were so excited to meet him from consuming his content and he was kind of dismissive and i just was like man it just and and i think and and unfortunately if you were to take those two individuals career gary's career and this other individual's career probably about the time that i met them which was like 2015 2016 gary's probably a little ahead but they weren't far apart and the guy who didn't treat people well has kind of plateaued and you've seen gary so i think my point and all that is what we put online for better for worse i think needs to be as true as it can be to who we are because it all comes out in a wash yeah yeah so that being said you seem very introspective very thoughtful you don't yell into the microphone like i do you don't seem to curse or at least i i haven't heard it yet so these are all very respectable traits is that is that you know is that your is that a dialed down version of you is that a or is that that's that's you you're composed and i like it i wish i was composed i'm not no one has ever described me as composed i think you're being a little hard on yourself um really what it is it's a strength in knowing who you are exactly who you are and being comfortable and being confident in that place and knowing that it's not for everybody i am i host a podcast as well i'm sure there are listeners who turn it off because i don't talk fast enough or i don't talk loud enough or i'm too this or i'm too that that's okay i'm not for them yeah there's enough of that and we all have our persona um i built a business out of rejection of what i'd seen in our industry um there is a lot of that screaming into the microphone and the microphone could be one-on-one it could be delivering a presentation it could be delivering a sales training there's a lot of bravado machismo over the top big language and i repelled that it never felt right to me those methods that that technique felt so inauthentic to me that i just kept thinking there's got to be another way there's got how can i how can i be this one person this caring thoughtful empathetic strong independent forceful woman all of those things but yet have to be so different in my work so that's my i've already dug into my why but it doesn't change it's unwavering the more clear i get um the more progress i see in the growth of my business and also how i'm showing up in the world yeah no i think i think i love that i love so much about so i'm i have like three things that i want to ask you other so one i'm going to start out of order though um one of the things that i find very interesting in life um i've been an athlete my whole life i'm very competitive i love competing with people but i've always found um i've always found people who bluster even if they've had some level of success i find them to be more of a caricature than someone i can actually take seriously so i guess i'm interested i think i love that that turns you off too because it turns me off i don't necessarily turn away from it because it's kind of like a car wreck to me when i see someone like pounding their chest to their own account i'm like who cares there's 10 bazillion accounts like we can all just fall into one like congratulations but why do you think it is that so many people particularly in our space you know it's not like we're hitting home runs or scoring goals like we're selling insurance policies yet so much of our culture is this like just pounding look at million dollar producer all this kind of stuff which i think unlike the financial uh somehow financial services has been able to take the competitiveness and make people excited about it where an insurance in property casualty insurance to me it feels like a major turnoff like it really it feels icky and weird and i don't use icky lightly like it really you like you see these people talking about it you're like wow it that works for like stocks and stuff but for what we're doing it feels off and disingenuous it is that kind of where you're coming from or do you see it from a different angle or does that make sense what i'm asking you yeah so i there's so much here i mean you've just asked like 17 questions in one of your three right and so i'm gonna i'm gonna ramble on and maybe we're gonna get to it there's only one rule on this show is you can talk as long as you want and you can go wherever you want at some point we'll just turn it off when we feel like we're done well and that's that's where connection happens right in the stories i am not an athlete i am not competitive by nature i do not care if i win or not and i never have it's never been a motivator for me one of the most humiliating experiences i had as a young person was being invited to the front of the gym class during the tumbling exercise and i don't know if you remember if you had them where you grew up i was in the suburb of chicago and we had these thick foam mats it was yellow but it was dirty because it had been used for many many years and it folded in thirds so this mat was laid out in front of the gym class and i was asked by the teacher to demonstrate doing a somersault and i did it but i didn't do it well and i landed on my side instead of in the right position and i was humiliated and i was probably seven maybe i don't remember specifically but i remember the smell of the the class and all i wanted to do was do well there was no competition though there wasn't we weren't all lined up in a row but all eyes were on me and that pressure was enough to motivate me to want to do a good job and that feeling of not doing it or not doing it to the expectation or my own expectation was enough for me to know in that moment how i felt about success or not i didn't need to line up with eight other people to know that i had not done what i wanted to do in that moment competition in our industry is baffling to me insurance i was just thinking about this maybe you can help me talk through this i can only think of one scenario where insurance comes into play in a good in a good situation where it's a positive outcome and therefore insurance responds and i'm not putting you on the spot the only thing i could think of was hole-in-one insurance in a golf tournament you get a hole-in-one million dollar prize now the insurance company has to pay yeah it's not insurance company right not bad for the insurance company but that's a positive outcome for most involved right if you're listening and you can think of something tag meg and i in a linkedin post with another one because i cannot think of one either and this is going to drive me nuts but i'm sure you put more thought into me but if you can come up with one tag us in a post about this you do with yourself when you're at this stage of our lives and careers right and our daydreams are about insurance right yes so with that being said every every every other scenario that we possibly ever could need insurance for is coming from a place of negative of fear and what is our natural inclination to do as salespeople is to find the fear and fix it sell to it throw a product at it and that's the foundation right we're managing risk using a tool called insurance it's insurance 101 that's what we do it's easy to stay in that place of fear what i have chosen to do whether it's selling insurance directly or coaching others is where do you find that neutral ground where do when we talk about meeting someone where they are are you creating a scenario or are you listening to the scenario that's actually on their mind and in their heart it's fascinating what people will tell you if you just stop talking you said that on one of your um by the way guys if you're not following meg on linkedin absolute must follow you said that on one of your videos that i was watching a couple days ago you were and i can't remember the complete context of the video but the the line that got me was and then i then then you stop talking and it like it was funny because it snapped me all the way back to the beginning of the video like i've been listening but then i have three screens in this zone so i was like listening to it and all sounds like whack and it like literally turned my head to the video because um i i recently made a change and and i i i want to get your you can you can i'm gonna put you on the spot now you can coach me up here a little bit um on just this concept but uh i started because i tend to have a casual way of life some people like it some people don't i can't help it i'm never going to be a formal person i'm wearing lululemon from head to toe right now so you know everyone can deal with that so uh and it's all gray and my shoes are gray so everyone can deal with that too i um so what i started doing when someone calls me or or i call them they they i get a lot of inbound traffic that's that's my bread and butter so they have a problem and i was calling them and working them through this you know a she and you know it was fine i also hated it i don't love insurance sales to begin with i love our business i love what we do for people i think what we do is very important and my mission has always been i feel like insurance the insurance property casualty insurance business in general is underappreciated because we're terrible at telling our story i think that's a lot of my uh motivation but i just started going hey meg what's going on and they'll go some people will just start barfing this is happening and this is happening and i got this and other people will be like what do you mean i'll be like well you contacted me what's up and then and i found that that change from this very scripted here's the questions i need here's the answer to just like almost like um like unstructured data format right like just tell me what's going on man i i feel like we're making such deeper connections with our clients even though we'll never meet them in person half of them live around the country because we we work in all 50 states well we're not in hawaii or alaska but um and it's just wild how when you give people that open-ended question what they'll actually tell you it is and i want to compliment you i believe for the sophisticated insurance buyer that the future of selling is inbound marketing rather than outbound amen sister right i am not a fan of cold calling personally i don't do it so therefore i don't recommend that my clients do it either and that said we talked about it already the number one thing that the successful agent of the future has is a strong clear personal brand i don't care who you work for kudos to you for having your proverbial name on the door in your firm but it's the same scenario if you're working for an international broker big or small if you don't have a strong clear personal brand the people who you want to help are never going to find you and this is not this is not new this is not meg's unique brilliant magic formula of which i don't think there is one to be successful in our industry this is leveraging the reality of the market we're in the tools we have the buyers we want to meet this is the way of the future i see so few agents being diligent and aggressive about building a personal brand and still wondering why the phone isn't ringing why is the phone not ringing have you made the path for the people you want to help clear to find you you are so dialed in on it right now i could not agree with you more in this particular topic this is i don't know if everyone who's listening to this completely on on like understands the fact that i started insurance agency only because i've been telling these sons of bitches for so long that this is the path to six 10 years none of them listening i have been literally heckled out of out of presentations before by fat 60 year old white dudes who will be like not in my agency not in my town my people don't go online now thank god that doesn't happen anymore today 2012 2013 2014 2015 i'd say up until as recently as 2017 2018 i was being heckled i got heckled so bad in connecticut that that i had to like embarrass this guy in front of like 50 people because he's literally front and center going you don't understand uh you know my clients this and my clients that and i said bro i could drop a pin in your backyard and start marketing to your clients tomorrow how are you going to stop me well the relationship i go how did you get them in the first place did they have another agent at that time yes so so you think they're never going to change again like you're so good and and this is so okay so what i'm interested in from your perspective is how do we start to break down this this is just barely starting i mean you probably get these calls too i get calls every week from producers around the country who feel shackled they feel chained to these agencies williams johnson thompson and you know whoever you know lebowitz agency and you know if it wasn't for that brand you wouldn't sell a single policy and and any of these these you know we'll call them kids you know regardless of age young to the industry people who who just want to grow and and feel like they're they're part of something bigger how do we start to break down these barriers because to a certain extent i feel like i've lost the battle like i tried for a really long time i feel like there hasn't been that much movement and um you know so what is a better tact how do we how do we start to break these barriers down and to what you just said to allow where an agency principal would allow someone inside their agency to have a personal brand how do we do that first and foremost we have to honor the reality that we're in we are not going to change those people fill in the blank those people yes and i am not here to dispute that you can be successful in a multitude of ways in our in our industry right my heritage is the independent channel i worked for carriers coming up in the business for carriers that represented or had independent agents represent them i i'm not knocking one way or the other there's a lot of ways fundamentally to get where we want to go what i'm concerned about what keeps me up at night as i think about my role in this industry i've got 21 years behind me if i play my cards right i don't have 21 more but i have more i'm worried about the agents who have not yet joined the industry and i'm worried that they won't because what they see is too representative of the way it used to be and not a not enough of what it could be and i think you represent what it could be i represent i'm an independent contractor i'm a 1099 i have a book of business um i won't get into the particulars here because it's an agreement that i have with another independent agent but we have to start getting creative and thinking outside the box about what does the next generation of sales leader want from an employment arrangement how are they going to get paid how many different ways are they going to get paid how many hours a week are they going to work what is that going to look like we've learned a lot in the last 15 months we cannot let it take us 15 years to learn the lessons and implement them in our industry so i think fundamentally we have to honor where we've been it's not we're not going to change history right but we can position ourselves you're primed to do it you own an agency you can reinvent what that producer agency agreement looks like you can do something that's never been done before if you feel compelled to do it you have that ability other agencies who are larger have maybe some more to overcome some more hurdles but what's the willingness right what's the willingness to be the innovator in that sense yeah i i agree with you you know i stated that my goal when i founded rogue risk was to develop 20 millionaires that weren't related to me um i don't know when that's going to happen but that will happen and by that i mean i want to empower at least 20 people inside my organization to to be able to to make life changing the insurance industry has given me i've said this a million times in this show it's given me a life i could have never imagined the way where i grew up and where i live today could not be more different um the things that i thought were possible were were were microscopic versus the world that i now know exists and that's wholly because of the insurance industry so i think you know always with respect do do we push the boundaries of what's come before only because this industry has changed many lives that being said i completely agree with you that the the lack of willingness to to flexibility and compensation agreements with young up-and-coming producers and i don't again i don't mean young in age i mean young in the business um it just befuddles me it absolutely you know there's some people doing some good work uh i don't know if you know david carruthers but he has really interesting ideas around compensation um a guy by the name of miles merwin in south carolina has this whole uh uh producers to principles program where he helps producers start to think like principles both inside and outside their their agency and so i do think there's some work but we're talking about tiny little portions of our our industry that you know when when there's 40 what 40 some thousand independent agencies um you know we're talking about small numbers i think that i think that in two until there is a outspoken until there are multiple outspoken case studies on these type of compensation plans which are i'm gonna i'm gonna throw in a bucket of that includes some sort of ownership or ownership-esque type upside in a business um for producers then you know i i think we're still gonna see that pushback or the baby boomers just phase out which you know can't happen fast enough my goodness not that i don't love you all yeah it's it's um it's interesting because i similarly i i'm positioned very well in the industry right and a lot of that was because of the hard work that came before me um that i was able to reap the benefit of and i i don't i don't overlook that as i tell my story i would challenge a little bit of the thinking again you are here you've been here for a while you are a different generation than the one that's coming up my sweet spot working with my clients is zero to three years it's that critical um we call it the validation period if we could strike that word from our language i would be right we're valid you're already valid on day one what a stupid concept right um i get it it's a business but the sales people coming up now i would challenge are not as motivated by money as even to use your word the 20 20 million dollar producers um just for me personally i had a a woman reach out she's a fellow business coach and she was holding an exclusive event for seven figure business owners and she invited me and i wrote back and i said don't meet your demographic thanks for the invite and she wrote back and said bummer let me know if i can coach you there and i thought this is a woman who's made a huge assumption about what my motivation is to be here doing this work it is not to make seven figures i would challenge that this generation coming up cares less about the number of zeros in their paycheck and more about aligning themselves with an industry that is doing good for good and i'm nervous about that we still have a reputation issue to overcome you and i only have the megaphones we have in front of us to tell a different story and that's what you'll see this you see this in my content you see this in my videos how are you showing up regardless of the noise around you regardless of the dude in the cubicle across from you regardless of the agency owner who's concerned about his maserati in his second home in palm beach how are you showing up as an insurance salesperson because you can control every single individual relationship that you have with the people you want to reach regardless of the noise we're not going to change the institution not in my lifetime not in your lifetime but you can absolutely change the way that you show up in it and the way that you thrive despite it what's up guys sorry to take you away from the episode but as you know we do not run ads on this show in an exchange for that i need your help if you're loving this episode if you enjoy this podcast whether you're watching on youtube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform i would love for you to subscribe share comment if you're on youtube leave a rating review if you're on spotify or apple itunes etc this helps the show grow it helps me bring more guests in we have a tremendous lineup of people coming in uh men and women who've done incredible things sharing their stories around peak performance leadership growth sales the things that are going to help you uh grow as a person and grow your business but they all check out comments ratings reviews they check out all this information before they come on so as i reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you i need your help share the show subscribe if you're not subscribed and i'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because i read all the comments or if you're on apple or spotify leave a rating review of this show i love you for listening to this show and i hope you enjoy it listening as much as i do creating the show for you all right i'm out of here peace let's get back to the episode i well see i just agreed with you on something that i'm going to push back on now now that i actually think about it you said we can't change the institution i think we are in i think the work done today will change the institution we may not see it in our careers because i also will not be in the industry in 21 years god willing um but not in an agency owner capacity although me who who the hell i don't even know why i say these stupid things who knows what's going to happen on the record ryan yeah yes i'll be fact checked in 2040 or wherever the heck it would be um so but i guess i believe we are currently in a time uh again and this is this is my lens uh experience you know coming from you know really going from being a boots on the ground producer at a local agency not knowing anything about the world outside of what i learned at that age that was it we weren't we were taught not to go to industry events we were taught just just show up do your job everything will be fine okay and and i learned a lot of really great stuff but i first got out and saw the broader industry um in 2010 i did my first uh a keynote uh in san francisco which was actually awesome and um in the industry i saw is completely different than it is today so we've made serious progress now i wish it didn't take a decade plus for these things to happen but you know because we still have we still have issues around um uh uh diversity not just in in ethnicity but just in you know we have these agency principals who are so completely unwilling to i'm not even talking about giving away equity because that's immediately where everyone goes they didn't earn it how about you just give them the ability to build a platform you know simple steps of empowerment beyond you know i do believe the days of you're lucky you're getting a check have come to an end i do believe that um those agencies are not thriving anymore they're the ones that are that are coasting into into into you know wherever they're gonna go most likely just be bought up and whatever legacy that person thought they were gonna have is now brown and browns and um you know that's on them i good hopefully they get a big enough check but my point is i think sitting here today in 2021 we are in a place where your voice hopefully you know the voices that come on this show other shows you know uh um i just think we are on a point where these conversations are starting to move our industry that that the insure techs are coming up that they're starting to stick and whether you believe in one business model or another the way they operate is forcing people to make to think differently about the business so i do think we're in a very influential time where maybe 20 years ago it wouldn't have mattered i i do think today some of these conversations do have real impact and change they do so so hang with me you're at 10 000 feet i live in the weeds with my clients so when we say we can't change the institution for kayla or jordan or bill in the weeds they're so in the weeds that the institution is almost irrelevant to them what's in front of them is i have to build my book of business i have to prove my worth i have to show my boss that i'm hustling all of that that is so classic insurance sales grossness that yeah i'm with you i mean like i wouldn't have staked my future and my livelihood on doing this work if i didn't believe that we could change the future right if we could move the needle in some way and i'm really proud that by stripping away my corporate identity and developing my own strong brand that i'm in a position to do this and a position to show other people that the path from there to here isn't as um un overcomable as you might think yeah that it is and doing that by example that's really powerful and i'm with you i've got one eyeball on what's going on in sales and another eyeball go what's going on in technology and where will the two need as an agent who has a book of business full of small business help me help me make it make sense for me to continue to feed that machine when we still have huge efficiency issues agents selling small business are never getting paid what they're worth if you spend five minutes with a client on the phone you've lost money on that deal that's the reality of our business right show me the solution i'm all ears tarmica is the solution to that problem and i'm guessing they're a sponsor right well they're only a sponsor because i use them no i get they are the solution because there's there are other people doing what they're doing and i here's here's what here's here's my i'm gonna i'm gonna uh give you uh two two two two more thoughts um one i think uh small business and personal i think all the efficiencies are are uh self-inflicted wounds and i say that knowing full well that changing agency management systems and changing culture and changing process is tough completely agree i i have i worked in an agency that was on tam and it still is on tam and you know simple things that i do every single day here sitting in my office doing probably three people's jobs in one that takes is you know takes them you know all three people to do that thing but the solutions do exist they're just hard you know like moving to a commercial alliance comparative radar it's not easy and it's not perfect right look what i think is interesting about our industry in general and and and it's still small business is still tough i'm not discounting that what i think is interesting in general is um and i see this in so much so many of the decisions that i see agency leadership make is they will complain about an imperfect or broken solution but use as an excuse not to move the fact that what could be uh uh an improvement and efficiency improvement isn't yet perfect so so it's like we could get better but we're not going to get better because that's not perfect even though this system over here is wholly flawed in so many ways and so i i start to like you know some of those things like i i just start to say like all right maybe i should stop talking about tarmica i use it every day i sold three accounts today on it already average buying time less than 40 minutes right so when i say i believe in them and they're a sponsor they are because i would like want more people to use them but there's part of me that's like maybe i should just keep all these things quiet and just become a really efficient business and have that be a competitive advantage and i don't know what the right thing is because um when i you know when when you when you you know and i don't know if you've seen this in any of the things you do but when you put yourself out in public and then you promote something right there's always this thought that like somehow you're doing it for your own benefit that like it's just you know why not simsy ryan well simsy does screen scraping and it's inefficient and the rates are oftentimes guessed that and not accurate and that doesn't use apis you know i mean like there are all these things there's nothing in simsy i think they're working hard i just don't think the tool is as good as tarmica today and that's why i promote the things that i do and and my point is not it's not about me i'm going down a path that i didn't want to go down my point is i feel like the efficiency problem we have actually solved this and people are just choosing not to to do it that's the part that bothers me is like we could put fun exciting sexy tools that allow millennials to be the technology native technologists that they are and really go out and be whatever version you want to be the craft brew person or the winery person or the art gallery person or whoever you want to be like all those tools are at your disposal and we're just choosing not to give them to our people and it frustrates the hell out of me why do you think that is i think that when someone is making their number in personal income it is impossible to get them to do anything that is hard i think that's what it is so this the person who's got the ability to pull the trigger on that sort of once they've hit their personal number they do nothing you're right so i'll tell you just another brief story i'm talking way too much i'm supposed to be interviewing you but um you got me all fired up here so um when i was with the murray group our travelers rep used to come in twice a month a marketing rep never needs to go into an agency twice a month they don't need to go in once a month but he used to come in twice a month and he'd bring donuts and cookies and all the standard stuff and i always forget his name we're just gonna call him mike um i said to him he walked in i was like mike i love when you visit man but like why are you here all the time and he said ryan we i have 47 agencies in my district that i'm in charge of last year three of them grew three he was not just grew with travelers like literally made a dollar more than the year before three out of 47 you guys are one of them he goes he goes and i said wow and that kind of took me back right this is probably 2007 2008 and i said what how can that be and he's like they hit their number and i go what do you mean he goes everybody has a different number every human does for some people it's a million in personal income for someone for some it's 150 000 the minute the controlling human whoever that person is man woman 70 or 22 the minute they hit their personal number they do nothing to move forward they just do the bare minimum to maintain that number and i think that the vast majority of the decision makers in our industry have hit their personal number i do not disagree with that um and i'm thinking back to my days when i was agent facing in a it was an underwriting role but in the field calling on agents and you could see the ones that were riding it out that were coasting that were satisfied and then you could see the ones that were in sales mode they were in growth mode they were they were committed and they were sleeves rolled up with their team on a mission and it's a totally different energy think about it from the employee's standpoint who would you want to work for yeah culture comes from the top right i think it does i think that i think especially in agencies privately held agencies i think that um you still usually have one person who's making a decision and if they've hit their number everyone else is screwed i think that's i think that's really what it comes down to so so here's my question to your you're talking about you're in the weeds producers who are you know trying to validate themselves which is again i completely agree with you stupidest concept ever what keeps them from moving to an agency that excites them why do they stay in that situation oh i'm gonna deliver a truth bomb here i don't i don't think we tell them the truth on day one i don't know that most producers have any real sense of what actually selling insurance over the course of the first three years of their career looks like they see the maserati in the second home in palm springs and they think that that's the outcome and as you well know that is not the outcome yeah you are far more likely to quote unquote fail than you are to succeed and if we're not telling you that in the first meeting we've already sold you a bill of goods so what do i think why don't they go i think they're in shock frankly in the first six months to 12 months about what they thought it would be versus what it actually is i agree with you i uh so so basically so what i what i hear you saying and tell me if i'm wrong is that they it's almost like they haven't they had they're they're they're they're like caught between you know i'm looking at this thing that i would love like aspirationally but no one has explained to me in real terms what it takes to get there and the other thing is and this is the other like dirty inside secret of our industry is that unless you actually own the agency the maserati is never happening it's just never happening like you just you there's not enough money like that's one of the things that has been the most eye-opening to me as an agency owner at this point is how little we actually get paid versus the amount of time effort and expense that it takes to run every single thing that you have to have to run an agency not just like the extra stuff but like the minimum stuff costs real dollars that add up every month and um and it is very expensive and time consuming and then when you when you try to when you start splitting that now i'm going to give 50 of it to a producer or 60 or 70 whatever your makeup is it's very difficult so it is um it is that's a really i i agree with you because i i guess and this is where i'm struggling and i'd love your feedback on this and um is i'm looking to hire a producer i can't find anybody i'll i'll i would hire anyone who has a u.s property casualty license in any state right because i need what i what i need them to do is sell insurance we work completely over the internet we have a whole process we use video phones text email all the things right i have all the well not all but i have a lot of the sexy tools that make it fun and interesting and engaging and you can really churn and burn and do a good at the same time doing a good job for people i'd like to believe we have a fun brand can't find anybody no one wants to come in you know what i hear i'm making 75 000 base can you match that no i can't freaking match that i'm a startup agency like what do you want you know what i mean like so it's like it's what's interesting to me is every what i started to to get a little bitter about and this is where hopefully you can walk me off this plank or just push me into the ocean um uh is i kind of like should i actually feel sorry for these producers like there's opportunities out there that i know there are if anyone really hates their job call me i can put you in an agency that you're going to enjoy like they're out there but man like i look at how they actually have it it's not always that bad and they're complaining about how they're boxed in and i'm like yeah but you have a 65 000 base you wonder how much i made this year negative 65 000 so you know what i mean it's like i don't know am i crazy like i just i feel like it shouldn't be this hard to find someone to to sell small commercial in our process it's pretty fun we use gifts on slack i curse it's completely cool you can wear lululemon like it's you know what i mean like it's a decent place and i just everybody wants security and i'm like that's i don't know you don't get to have fun and be secure at the same time in my opinion am i am i wrong am i crazy i mean you did it you're doing it i'm doing it yes you know i don't i think selling insurance from my vantage point has to be one of the most entrepreneurial careers without having to be an entrepreneur right you check you you pick your clients if you're working for the right firm you pick your schedule you within if you're independent you've got a multitude of carriers you pick your favorites you develop i mean it's other than the fact that your name's not on the door and you're not writing the check to the irs it feels very entrepreneurial but to actually flip the switch and go all in on your own is next level it's why so few do it right it's why uh in my case as i plug into the industry in more of a consulting role there's a lot of people that would do what i do but as an employee of someone else right because you get the better health insurance and you get the pto and you get the sick leave and the number one hurdle i hear when i talk with people about starting their own thing is the health insurance what about the health insurance it's a real consideration but it can be overcome so what is the health insurance for that producer what is the thing is it book ownership is it uh even though it's not his his or her favorite position that they've is it is it that bad what's the what's the thing right and and i don't think you're playing up enough that culture piece um because you know i don't know you that well but i see you now and i see your energy and i see your vibe and if that's true right if that's carried through to the end which i believe it is wow it would feel different working for you than working for someone who's got a mandatory 8 a.m sales meeting and is asking me what's in my pipeline that's the story i would be telling yeah i i agree with you on that i think um i think yeah i i just and because i know there's other there are other um agency principles um that struggle with the same thing right they're not to interrupt you this was this was a thing 21 years ago when i started in the industry the number one question i would get asked from agency principles when i was calling on them directly who do you know got any good producers who's looking for a home they're still asking today 20 this is never going to go away right this is always going to be a thing for our industry always and i think you know i'll be honest with you i wouldn't even hire a licensed producer if i didn't need someone today i would go find someone who was just simply hungry because you know and that's the really interesting part to me is uh i've had two people turn turn the position down because i wouldn't pay them a high enough base yet both of them uh describe themselves as entrepreneurial and i said those two things don't go together those those are not those are not those don't coexist because uh you you know what i mean like you can't you can't be afforded infinite upside and uh a solid you know a solid platform to land on if you fall those you just can't have both those things and um and i agree with you i do not recommend i've had a lot of people call me about going out on my own because you know it was march 9th of 2020 i launched this agency and i tell them don't do it don't do it go find someone who is matches your disposition and and and will give you some some some some leeway to run and go live that life because this life is terrible i mean not to mention i mean and granted i'm taking a calculated risk with the understanding that hopefully there'll be more upside so i don't want to act like i'm it's not like i'm just a masochist i mean obviously i'm investing in something but you have you don't see your kids you're stressed out all the time you're going to absolutely have issues with your spouse or your partner or whoever you spend time with because you're not going to be around and when you are you're not going to be present and you don't make money so like those things i are very difficult so when i look at it i think there is this there is a celebrity around being an agency owner and unfortunately i feel like i've played a role in that and i almost want to roll that back a little bit because i did it because i was fired three times in a row that's why i that's why i started an agency it was blatantly obvious that the universe was telling me i'm not a super employee if you're a great employee then just find the right culture i guess is my thought i don't know i'm just like it just seems to me like there are so many really good opportunities in the industry and those people are struggling to find good people and i'm like man it doesn't have to be here there there's tons and i don't care if you want to if you want to work on the west coast the east coast i don't care if you want to work for a big organization or a small one i don't care if you want to work for a man or for a woman or for whatever a bills fan or you know i don't care you know i mean like there are so many good opportunities yet we all kind of stay and bitch and i don't know how to fix that i can't like i can't help myself i'm i have a background in the social sciences when someone calls me a life coach for insurance agents i cringe first and then i say oh yes they finally get it um are we talking about you ryan are we talking about other agency principles because you've just laid out a lot of common experiences yes for agency principles but those are exceptionally personal for you right you chose this path you are on this path full disclosure i several years ago took a year off i share this story very publicly by now now using the language i've developed i was burnt out i didn't know what it was then i just knew that at almost 40 single making a lot of money with no kids i questioned what the heck i was doing in this industry doing this work i took a year off it was brilliant i took a year of retirement in the middle of my career and i i did amazing things and i learned a lot about myself mostly because i looked outside of the insurance industry and started to feel curious and motivated by things other than what i had always known to be true in insurance and one of the things you you can't unpack you can't disassociate all the things that you've experienced that have led to this point and and package them up the way you want they they stand as they are right in the moment in time and for me one of the things i considered because i knew so much about insurance i'll start an agency that was the only thing i could think of that was entrepreneurial and allowed me to do my own thing i'll start an agency then i thought about actually being an agency owner and i i was like i'd rather start over at ground zero and it's in an entirely different industry than be an agency owner and it's not because i don't appreciate and validate the work that they do it's important work but that's not me that is not me and one of the things that's interesting about this moment in time i am if i've learned nothing i got married very young was married for eight years in my 20s about 30 got divorced and for the last 10 years have been taking some twists and turns risks in my personal life and my professional life and the place that i've arrived to is this is where i am right now adjunct advisors is it is my blood sweat and tears right now and i am all in but i am also okay if i am not all in forever yeah that if i change and i grow and i collect these experiences and they put me in a different place at a different time i am okay with that i would not have been okay with that for the first 10 years of my career i thought the decisions i made had to be set in stone i thought this is the path that i'm on this is the stake that i have put down and i will i will live and die by this and giving myself that freedom and that ability to be nimble and to be flexible and to roll with it is what caused me to leave the carrier side and join the agency ranks leave the agency ranks take a year off and now start doing my own thing i don't know what's next nor do you right and so there's this we are highly qualified now in new and different ways because of the risks we've taken we've learned skills uh physical skills right how to onboard new clients how to pick a management system how to host a podcast you've also learned about resilience you've learned about communication you've learned about navigating difficult times with a partner or spouse right like these are all we're collecting all of these experiences together and i'm going to pause because if you give me a microphone i don't shut up no it's tremendous i told you in the beginning though context is the key to this show and i'm an open book i don't think we honor enough over and over and over again and i see it still today we have the persona that we wear at work and we have the persona the real us right the one that comes out on the weekend when we're around the campfire with friends when we're putting our kids to bed at night that's the real us in our industry we've made it really really difficult it's not false it's just an observation we've made it really difficult for people to show up as who they are that's where back to our original conversation that's where that bravado comes from that's that putting on a coat that isn't yours that doesn't quite fit and why do we do that because it's all that we see i want to work exclusively with women who sell insurance that's my hope and that's my dream why don't i right now because there aren't enough of us yeah we're sitting inside agencies we're processing certificates of insurance we're completing proposals we're making the producer who's not a woman look really good at his sales presentation and we're not taking the next step we're not taking the risk why because we don't honor all the places we've been we don't honor that we are qualified we have left difficult relationships we have said no and no is a complete sentence we have done hard things but when it comes to taking this next step in our career and getting where we want to go it's a hard stop and give me my megaphone right it doesn't have to be a hard stop and this isn't a gender thing necessarily but i am a champion for women in our industry i firmly firmly believe we have fundamentally everything it takes to be successful we just have to see the path yeah i i completely agree with that i think um you know i uh had a um a mentee who became uh a sister of sorts um in a different life and the very first thing that i said to her um because i forced her to get on stage and do different things and the very first thing i said to her was i don't give a fuck what some fat 60 year old white dude thinks about you and the way you operate if i see you back down for a second that's when i'm gonna get pissed and um and and watching her i learned so much about you know i i'm a guy like i've never been a woman before so i don't necessarily always know what the life is you know what i mean like i can try to empathize but i don't know i'm a dude so but working with her and spending as much time as i did and watching her develop it was very interesting to see um her journey and where she is to now i i couldn't be more proud of her but it just is um it's just it is interesting i think and and this is what i've never understood about about ever about any what any homogeny like i get that in a certain extent there are certain concepts and ideas that need to be homogenous inside an organization in order for it to run properly but but there are so many other aspects of the business that don't need to be in order for it to be successful and in all of these situations i've never understood choosing anyone other than the best person for the job and that is the part that's where i'm hoping we get to and we need we do need to push certain um certain initiatives to get people into those positions but you know i it's just sad to me that we haven't given particularly women enough at bats in our industry like it just that might not then i don't mean that sounds um diminutive i don't mean it to be i just mean it like i don't know i in many regards i prefer working with women because dudes are freaking terrible i mean like it just it's just tough you know they're tough every dude i talk to is you know i get the you know i do this and i sell this and you and no one can see me but i'm kind of doing this like walk with my shoulders thing that guys do that goes all the way back to the beginning where it's bravado and it's and it's it's posturing and uh i i am very glad because i can you know and i don't know if you run in these same circles or not but like there is a whole group of of agency owners that is starting to form that is outside of kind of the standard lines that are drawn um in some cases are literally state lines uh you know i mean like like that that have that are completely women-owned businesses all different you know people from outside the country inside the country all different parts of the country all different spectrums of of vantage points and they're doing really good work and um it doesn't that doesn't have to be your business but i'm really glad that today that that business can coexist in our space and it couldn't have even a decade ago they would have been pushed out through whatever mechanism was possible yeah no i love that and i i love the progress too i'm happy to be part of it anecdotally a friend of mine in the business sent me a message on slack not too long ago and he was chatting with an agency principal and he's like meg you got to hear this um he had asked about diversity on the sales team this was a a pretty traditional independent agent maybe a dozen producers on staff every single one of them identified as male every single one of them white and asking about diversity he said oh yeah we hired a woman once we tried that once period so so one singular individual defines an entire and so so i'm guessing she showed up and and let's play the stereotype game right she wasn't super competitive she wasn't motivated by money she wasn't aggressive you know all the things that we think about when we kind of juxtapose men and women in their sales styles next to each other and so she's walking in on day one into the sales culture that is all about those things that she's not and guess what she didn't make it how surprised are we what what what did we possibly do within our control to change that outcome for her and the firm it's really expensive to hire someone you know is going to fail it's really expensive i don't recommend it and like with that in mind my many many of my clients are women not exclusive my insurance clients why do they work with me because they want to work with a woman it's the number one reason people choose me i i get no control over it right but they understand how what it means to support another woman in business they know that the energy is different all the stereotypes they're true and so why are we not leveraging this why are we not creating practices around meeting people where they are could you imagine if you said out loud that i work with uh cfos you know who are are managing hectic work life schedules what does that feel like to the buyer of insurance oh she gets me she sees me i didn't even throw gender in there yeah but already we're gonna self-identify we're gonna self-identify with whatever that reality is in that moment i think we're we've got to be really honest with ourselves in the cultures that we're creating within these agencies and how high how hard are we really are we really trying there's enough to go around right like there's there's more than enough to go around yeah right there's more than enough there's if there's any if anything is that i've realized is true it's i mean there's an agent who's in the county just below me who's a tremendous agent who in a different decade would have it would be never you never talk to him you would never go share with you he calls me he's like hey what do you think about this thing i'm like oh here's exactly what i'm doing you know and he does the same with me and and the idea is that today there's the there's so much business there's so much business that there's there's just no reason not to share and be open and you know and what i would say is i i i am i am competitive i do like not that you're not competitive but you did say that you weren't motivated by competition um you know i i do like a bit of competitive nature but well i guess my point is you know if i were to stereotype that situation what i'd probably say is she probably was she probably was a bulldog she probably was willing to work and get in and what happened was they didn't support her like they would have any other person that came into that spot and and it wouldn't matter who you were if you were if you looked just as vanilla as all the rest of the dudes in that room and they cut you out and didn't support you and you got the leads because you were the odd person out that dude would have failed too so you know i actually would you know my i bet she probably didn't even get that opportunity if she wasn't more than qualified for the position and it was probably just because the culture wasn't supported and again i don't want to trash all these agencies and make it seem like this these are terrible places to work because i don't mean it to be that way but there is i think we really have to if we're if we're if we're if we actually care about our legacy and growth and i want to be respectful of your time way over and and we are trying to grow and we are trying to set our businesses up for more than just an exit in a few years right because none of this applies if you're exiting in a few years do whatever you want who cares but if you're not then these are the things we need to be thinking about like really thinking about that that you know how do you position your team and if you're just a pure capitalist and nothing but just a pure capitalist having a woman on your team who you support because women like doing business with women some at least some do makes sense just from a capitalistic standpoint i mean i just that's that's i don't know i said to um billy williams i don't know do you know billy williams you familiar with him i know of billy williams yeah so billy williams is amazing and we got a little into the into the um into the into the race issue because when he came on was like hardcore blm rioting or protesting whatever um and i just said you know i've never understood i've never understood racism from the pure standpoint uh maybe i just played too many sports it makes literally no sense there's no uh you know there's no sense to it you always want to surround yourself with the best and the brightest and if that's the case then to have a have a racist bone doesn't make any sense at all so what that means is you don't actually want the best and if that's the case then we need to push those people off the island anyways because we don't want them so like i you know i guess i just you know i i have a hard time relating to that to that mentality you know how you try to empathize with your enemy and then you understand them and i just have such a hard time with that because at its core i'm a capitalist and i feel like if done without corruption capitalism is the freest way for everyone to be equal unfortunately we have too many corrupt individuals in our system so i don't know i went way off the rails there but that's just uh that's uh i don't know i would i would leave you maybe with this thought or challenge this thought to deepen the thinking a little bit um that apprehension apprehension to change what you know what's familiar is often because of a perceived threat and so when i think about these cultures and and these are real stories um more than once i've had clients who have come to me because they've been excluded in some way right the carrier had four tickets to the ball game it was the the four male producers who got invited why didn't i get invited from the female producer and part of it is that we want to perpetuate what we know it's safe there and so this culture this sort of bro culture is is what we know it's familiar and it's safe and so we make decisions some of them deliberate some of them a little less so um to protect what we know because of of the unknown is a is a threat right and so there are ways we can force progress and i'm a fan right um one of the last things i did when i was on the carrier side of the business was uh the carrier was going through a whole revamped hiring process and are you making sure that you have diversity at the table i think it's great are you calling out your own bias are you are you recognizing that even though you might know who you think you want for the job do you have diversity at the table why are why are we not doing this as insurance organizations right as as agencies and capitalism or just good business or just being relevant as we look to the future right this is these are no longer nice to haves these are imperatives our clients will demand this of us part of the work i do is for carriers right so carriers work with lots of agents they have lots of choices i work with them on a branded coaching program that they can deliver to their message to their agents to create an environment it also addresses the diversity issue the inclusion issue we have why is it a space for women because there hasn't been a space for women to have these conversations so it's really less about like oh gosh we have a problem maybe someday we'll find a solution it's like no we have a problem and we're willing to invest legit corporate dollars to solve it so yeah i think that you know i i probably i probably have a little more libertarian take although i completely agree with the concept because it's how i run my own business um i think that i think you are wholly right in the organizations that when moving forward are going to be the ones who look for ways to provide opportunity um in places where it may not have existed before i think that it makes a lot of sense on many levels um i'm never one for mandating anything on anybody but as a best practice i wholly believe in it and it's the way that i personally operate um so i don't know if there's someone out there who's listened to all this and hates where they work and wants to sell a shit ton of insurance i have a job for you so um hopefully someone will find it finally take me up on that but uh meg i we went a million different places i had a tremendous time i want to thank you so much i wish that we talked more about specifically about what you do but we've teased what you do and um tell everybody where they can um tell everyone where they can they can get more where they can listen uh and we'll have all the links up in the show notes as well but but let them know where to find you yeah uh website's a great place to start adjunct advisors with an ors linkedin meg mckean i'm all over linkedin it's why are we not all as insurance professionals right wink wink um and i host a podcast it's called bound and determined friends in the industry will get the bound reference um on itunes and and all over the place but it's a a show that features the stories of women working in insurance and they're not the insurance stories it's the rest yeah good stuff well i appreciate the work you do i think it's it's very important i'm so glad we had a chance to talk today and i look forward to the next time close twice as many deals by this time next week sound impossible it's not with the one call close system you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call this is the exact method we use to close 1200 clients in under three years during the pandemic no fluff no endless follow-ups just results fast based in behavioral psychology and battle tested the one call close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible if you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning visit master the close.com that's master the close.com do it today place in tech changes every day but i don't fear the future because i'm with the leader plural site their online learning platform has the hands-on expert-led courses i need to master new tech 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