Episode 140: The Bottom Line - Tiger

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. 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, it's Bradley. So many of you know, if you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, that I love to play golf. I was fortunate enough to be able to play golf in college, not at a super high level, but still love to be able to play one or two tournaments a year. Well, when I was growing up, my— one of my very first tournaments I ever played in was in 1997. It was at a little goat track, 9-hole course called Anderson Creek. And that day was the Thursday that Tiger Woods was playing in the 1997 Masters. And so we were all so excited to get into the clubhouse and find out what Tiger had shot because the year prior— so I was 16 at the time, so I'd driven— that's one of the first times I was driving. The year prior, I remember watching Tiger in the US Amateur whenever he won at Pumpkin Ridge. And even if you're not a golfer, hang with me. Will use some golfing analogies, but I'll get to a much broader point that's hopefully applicable to many of you. And, um, so Tiger then, of course, that was very instrumental in my life. And so whenever I graduated high school in '99, ultimately went into college, obviously in the fall of that year, Tiger had really started his rise to prominence. '99 and 2000, arguably the best years ever played by a professional golfer. Tiger won so many of the tournaments, majors, et cetera. The reason I tell you that is because obviously as a golfer, you grow up at that point, he was so impressionable on me. Everybody wanted to be Tiger. You wanted to wear Tiger's clothes. You wanted to swing like Tiger. You wanted to, you know, whatever. And so I wanted to be able to see Tiger. In person. And so fast forward a couple years, and he was playing in Atlanta at Eastlake, and I was able to go over and see him. And then also I saw him at Atlanta Athletic Club. And, you know, when you get next to a celebrity that's as big as Tiger, Michael Jordan, LeBron, um, a president, etc., I mean, it, it's, it's, it's a different, uh, it's a different experience if you've ever been around somebody like that at that level. And so I was able to get really close to Tiger behind the driving range. And when I was watching him hit balls, I noticed how many people were around him. And at the time he was seeing Butch Harmon, and then of course he went on to see Hay Kaney, et cetera. So I think I've seen Tiger maybe 5 or 6 times in person. And of course, talent-wise, from hitting the shots and watching him play is an incredible experience. But I just happened to notice the team of coaches around him. So obviously he had his swing coach, but he also has had people along the way to help him with his, his putting whenever he struggled. And he's also worked with not necessarily sports psychologists, but he has an entire team around him, not just helping him with his business interests but all the other things. You think about that, every single person that helps work with Tiger are not even remotely close to as good of golfers as Tiger Woods is. Matter of fact, I'm no— I don't know of a single professional high-level tour player that has then gone on to be a teacher of the game. Okay, so now that does happen occasionally in some other sports, but it certainly doesn't happen in golf. Well, if you think about that, Tiger is able to see the results of his shots. Okay. But Tiger can't see his swing. Look, I know that there's apps out there, TrackMan and all those other things that he's able to be on, be on video. But even with that, he wants outside voices, other people watching him swing. Let me give you another idea. Or another maybe analogy, you also can't really defend yourself in court. Furthermore, why do Fortune 500 companies have board of directors? So that the leadership team, the C-suite, has a board that can help check their ideas and to be able to call it straight and say, that's, that's not, that's not a good path to go on. And that becomes incredibly valuable. That's why those board positions are not necessarily so highly coveted, but they're paid because of the influence and the perspective that they get. Well, here's the problem. A lot of us don't really have that level of accountability for us as small business owners and entrepreneurs. Matter of fact, if you're like me, you kind of wanted to get away from the corporate world, or you wanted to get away from working from some— for someone else to be able to have freedom. You didn't want to be able to have to report to someone, and I get that. The downside of that is, and this is the key point, the downside of, of wanting and desiring freedom so much is you only have one voice in the conversation, and it begins to get really difficult, almost impossible for you to be able to see your own swing. It's really difficult to be able to read the label from inside the jar. You don't know what you don't know. You don't necessarily know how that you're making emotional decisions. You don't see your blind spots because they are blind spots. And so how do we get that? Well, it can come from other peers that are maybe in the same industry that we're in, and maybe outside of that, um, workshops, groups, coaches, other business coaches. And the point is, is not necessarily to specifically sell you on you need a business coach. Although that has been the best investment that I personally have ever made. If you get with the right one that can help you accomplish the things that you want to accomplish, there's incredible coaches out there and coaching is becoming more of an industry than it ever really has before. But you really got to begin to think about what it is that I want to be able to do and then find the right coach that can help you to be able to do that. If I wanted to work on my putting and I was really struggling, but I was going to go try to play competitive amateur golf, I would go try to find one of the best putting coaches. Mike Shannon is one of them who's worked with a lot of tour players, Matt Kuchar and many others. And he's, he's, well, at least he was at one time at Sea Island, one of the most renowned putting coaches there is. And there's a few others out there and they niche down into that's specifically what you want to work on. And so then there's other generalist business coaches. And there's coaches in a specific industry. It just depends on what it is that you're optimizing for. And furthermore, of course, there's personalities. But even if it's not a business coach, having an accountability group, almost building your own board of directors, so to speak, that can help you to call it straight, call you out on your bullcrap, but then also encourage you whenever you are down. Because my goodness gracious, entrepreneurship and small business ownership is incredibly lonely, isn't it? I mean, even whenever you are surrounded by so many people, it doesn't mean that you can't feel isolated. You can have so many people around you on a day-to-day basis, jump on and off, on and off of calls, have so many clients, so many people pulling at you. And yet it's some of those times that you feel the most isolated. So I'm calling this podcast Tiger because that's one of the things that I saw, is that he at the highest level with the best golfer, in my opinion, of all time— some of you are going to message me and tell me it was Jack, I get it, I'm a Tiger guy, uh, for all the reasons I detailed, uh, out earlier— but when I saw that saw that he is always looking to get better, it really influenced me. And I love the process of learning from people who are a few steps ahead of me and how they got to where they are. I hope this serves you if you've ever considered being able to bring on a coach or being a part of a program, et cetera. But if you go back and listen, last thing I'll say, go back and listen to the episode that I did. Uh, talking about ideas are everywhere, but implementation is everything. These two episodes go together, and that is that whatever it is that you're learning from someone, implement, implement, adopt what it is they say, what they're sharing with you, because you paid for the information. And then you can go in and adapt it to you and make it yours, right? But adopt it the way that they have, because they spent possibly years perfecting this model, this framework, this idea, this concept in their business well before they ever shared it with you. I hope this served you well today. We're so grateful for all of you. Till next episode, lead well.

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