Episode 134: The Bottom Line - A Simple Managerial Framework
In this solo episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, host Bradley Hamner addresses the core challenge for small business and insurance agency owners: how to grow leadership, develop teams, and scale profitably. He introduces a concise three‑part managerial framework—clarify expectations, provide training/skill development, and ensure motivation—presented as a triangle. Hamner shares practical tactics such as using one‑on‑one meetings to verify expectations, employing role‑plays, playbooks, and skill‑building exercises to equip staff, and differentiating intrinsic and extrinsic motivators (recognition, financial incentives, personal goals). He emphasizes the need for individualized coaching styles, referencing concepts like Radical Candor and the importance of tailoring feedback to each team member. Throughout the episode, multiple sponsor reads promote Club Capital’s accounting and advisory services for insurance agents, DirectClick’s digital marketing solutions, Coach P Consulting’s sales coaching, and Rock Solid Virtual Assistants. The episode concludes with a reminder to buy back time via virtual assistants and a call to action for listeners to apply the framework to improve performance and profitability.
Chapters
So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.
Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it. Just get what you need and go. So with that, let's get into today's episode.
Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee, or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm. Hey everyone, hope you're doing well.
So this came up twice today, and so I thought I'd share it with all of you. I was talking to some other business owners today, and I don't know about many of you, but I'm not a great manager. I've never been a great manager. I mean, the name of the podcast is Club Capital Leadership Podcast, and really leadership is a, is really a journey. But when it comes down to, to managing, and I know many of you are really great at that, uh, have some clients that are just amazing, they seem to have the discipline and the commitment and the focus and the attention that's required. But I also know for a large majority of you, you're visionary entrepreneurs and you love to be able to bring on new ideas. And you sometimes maybe, like me, chase the bright shiny object and, and, and, uh, get distracted by things. And so where that really hurts is in the consistency of management and managing of your direct reports. And so this is not my framework. This was a framework I picked up from a mentor of mine, Alex. And so I want to give him full credit for this, but Anytime that I'm thinking through if there's performance issue, or maybe there's not even a performance issue, maybe there's an opportunity to go to the next level with the direct report, I'll always go back to these 3 simple things. And so if you think about it in terms of a simple triangle, number 1 is, do— does your direct report know what's expected of them? And I know that sounds so obvious. But sadly, I can remember specific times in the past going to someone and asking them in a one-to-one session about why this certain thing didn't get done. And they would say, "Well, I didn't know that you wanted me to do that." And I know many of you have probably had that scenario in the past and you think, man, I thought I was so clear as to what was expected of them. Number 2 is if they are, they do know what's expected of them. The second part is, have, have they been trained to actually do the thing? And so let's say that you were really focused on having appointments in your business. Well, they may very well understand that they need to set, you know, 1 appointment, 2 appointments, 3 appointments every single week, and why that's important. But if they don't have the word track, if they don't have it role-played, if they don't have a playbook, a roadmap, a blueprint to be able to actually make that happen and feel like that they've acquired the skills— I mean, you've heard me talk about skills and beliefs and traits, uh, several times, even in some of the interview podcasts, then ultimately they're not going to feel confident that they can actually achieve what it is that you're asking them to do.
Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create and measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee. Or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm.
And so if they know what's expected of them and you've taken the time to actually train them, what's the third part? Well, the third part is, are they motivated to do it? Because I think about in, in times in the past that I've been explicitly clear as to what is expected, and looking back on it, I do feel like that we had the right system in place, we had the right training in place, but they were simply not motivated to do it. And motivation really kind of comes in two places. It comes intrinsically and extrinsically. If you go back and look at one of the really early— or listen to one of the really early episodes of the podcast, it was with Seth Preuss, um, founder of MyVation. He actually talked about this. He talked about intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. And so extrinsic, one of the ones I always default to is just dangling a carrot, you know, dangling a carrot. Just let me just throw money at the problem. As opposed to a lot of times they just want the recognition. They want the acknowledgement of a job well done. And I've, I still to this day have to make myself think in that, those terms, because I want to default to, well, let me try to find an incentive and a promotion. And there's nothing inherently wrong with incentives and promotions, but if that's the only thing that we're trying to lead with, with motivation. And so anytime I'm looking through a performance issue or even helping another business owner think through it, I'll think, okay, number one, how are they clear on what's expected? And surprisingly, again, it was the case for myself, is if we go to that team member, employee, and ask them, hey, did you know that this was expected of you? Yes, I did. Do you know how many was expected of you? No, I have no idea. Um, it's been surprising for some of the business owners. So that's number one. What is the evidence that you have that they know what is expected of them? And then number two, what have you done? What, what can you specifically point to in your training program to make sure that they're equipped with the skills which would ultimately give them the confidence needed to actually do what's expected of them? And then number three, What have you been able to do? Have you tapped into their motivation? Um, everybody knows this in sports, you can't coach everybody the same. Now you want to coach everybody fairly, of course, but you can't coach everybody the same. Some people need tough love, some people can take feedback and criticism a lot easier than others, and other ones you have to be a little softer around that. And so even if you're a fan of the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott, and I certainly am myself, I think it's important to make sure that You're tapping in individually, individually into— in those one-to-ones, having those one-to-ones on a weekly basis is time to be able to do that. It's tapping into what actually motivates them. Is, is it, is it going to be— some people are just very individually motivated to be able to bring home a certain amount of money. Maybe they want to be able to pay off some debt personally. Maybe they want to be able to get a nicer apartment. Maybe they want to be able to buy a house one day. Maybe they're just saving for something that they want to do for their family. Maybe they're more motivated by the team achieving its goals. We'll never know unless you're actually meeting with your team on a regular basis. So hopefully that little triangle framework helps you. It's been really helpful for me to be able to just, you know, I don't really have a model around it, but I do think about it in my head.
Am I clear? Number one.
Number two, have they been trained? And then number three, uh, do they, are they motivated? To actually make that a push. I hope that serves you. Appreciate your time as always in these solo episodes and our interviews. I hope that you get a great return on your time. Until next episode, everyone, lead well. If you're listening to this podcast, I know you're someone who has a growth mindset and you probably want to be able to grow your book of business as well. Well, DirectClick specializes in helping insurance agencies leverage Google Ads and SEO to drive inbound phone calls leads, online visibility, and even organic traffic. You can be confident in knowing exactly how well your ads are working and getting support in what really matters in your business. Get exclusive online marketing support today when you visit directclicksinc.com. You know how important it is to develop yourself and to develop your team. Well, if you're going to do that, you want to do it with the best. Work with Coach P Consulting to learn and implement the same strategies that he used to sell over 700 life policies in 2021 alone. You'll get personalized coaching 2 times a week and an in-depth look at how his office is run, and Coach P will train your team alongside his own. Get your first month free when you mention the Club Capital Leadership Podcast during signup. Visit coachpconsulting.com to get started. If you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you've heard me say many times the best use of money is to be able to buy back your time, and one of the best ways to to do that is by hiring a virtual assistant. Whether it's an executive assistant or creative marketing assistant, Rock Solid has a unique hiring process to net the very best talent, and they intentionally match you with a great fit for you and your team. They value your success as if it were their own, because it is. If you're looking to build a rock solid team for your business, reach out to Tracy and her team at rocksolidassistants.com.
The best use of money is to buy back your time, and one of the best ways to do that is with a virtual assistant. Rock Solid Virtual Assistants brings together top business leaders with exceptional virtual assistants to build successful relationship-driven teams. The services they provide range from graphic design and marketing to executive admin assistance and everything in between. There are many virtual assistant companies on the market to choose from, but at RockSolid, their processes and passion for what they do place them at the very top of that list. Not only is their hiring process exceptional, which nets them the very best assistants, but they also provide superior support to their teams for the duration of your time with them. The matching process at RockSolid is unlike any other, and they have the track record to prove it. Their hands-on approach has proven to increase the success rate of their teams exponentially. So if you're looking to build a rock-solid team for your business, reach out to Tracy and the team for a no-pressure discovery call at rocksolidassistance.com. They value your success as if it were their own, because it is. So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.
Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it. Just get what you need and go. So with that, let's get into today's episode.
Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee. Or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm.
