Episode 161: Fireside Chat - The Past, Present & Future of Club Capital

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. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital. Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we bring the founders of Club Capital, Micah Cannon and David Munson, onto the podcast, and we talk about the past, the present, and the future of Club Capital. It's almost 3 years since we started the podcast, and we've actually not done a podcast like this and had both of them on at the same time. And so if you've wondered a little bit about just even how Club Gatherer got started, but if you like me and you just learn, love learning about how businesses get started and how did they kind of get it off the ground and what was the genesis of that. And as Gerber says in his book, you know, what was the entrepreneurial seizure that the entrepreneurs had to start a business? I think you're going to get a lot out of this and and how, you know, it's not always this clear-cut academic book about how businesses started. Sometimes it's just messy in the beginning, and hopefully you'll pick up some things that will be impactful to you on your journey as well. Without further ado, here's my conversation with David Munson and Micah Cannon. This podcast is brought to you by Autopilot Recruiting. Join over 1,200 State Farm agents in putting your recruiting on autopilot. Any successful insurance agent will tell you how important team is. Finding those rockstar team members doesn't happen when left to chance. It happens through consistent recruiting. You never know when you're going to lose a team member, and the key to an incredible team is constantly searching for the best talent. Autopilot Recruiting is a continuous recruiting service where you'll be assigned a recruiter that has been trained to recruit on your behalf every business day. This recruiter will take over and revamp your career plug, send out assessments, do prescreen phone interviews, and schedule your in-office interviews. All you need to do is to show up and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. This ongoing service is extremely affordable and a no-brainer for taking your insurance agency to the next level. Listeners of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, go to autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code Club Capital to get started. Again, autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code CLUBCAPITAL to get started. Micah and David, welcome back to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey, I'm excited to be here, uh, again. I think today's conversation will be fun.

Yeah, thanks, Bradley. Happy to be here.

Yeah, glad to have you both. So look, I've had both of you on individually, and since that you've both come on, we've— man, the podcast has grown exponentially. And so, David, I want to kind of start with you. For people that don't maybe know you and kind of your journey, and then really even the journey between you and Micah about how Club Capital came to be and how the company got started. I think it would just be great for you to give a little bit of the backstory. That's how we start every one of the podcasts anyway. And so I think it'd be great for you to kind of tell a little bit of backstory and the journey about how all this, how Club Capital even came to be.

Yeah, Bradley, you know, I think I've been on here before, and I know Micah's been on here a couple times, but I think it's the first time we've been on here collectively. So, uh, you know, I thought it'd be good to just share, you know, Club Capital started in 2016, but, uh, but, you know, Mike and I, we, uh, we, we went to College of Charleston together. We're, uh, we're good friends in college and, uh, and post-college afterwards. And, uh, so our, our story kind of starts, uh, well before the company starts. Um, so, you know, not that many people know that, but, uh, I thought it'd be a good, good forum to share that. Uh, and, you know, we started Club Capital in 2016. And, you know, after we got a few of the first agents on board, myself being number one and then some of the Suttigroup guys. And then, you know, Micah came on and really, really took over the company and really built it up from there. So, but yeah, I just want to share a little bit about the backstory about Micah and my relationship before Club Capital.

And to my knowledge, you guys are still good friends. You started a company together and you're still good friends, right?

A little bit.

Depends on the week.

Yeah. I get that. I get that.

That's great. Well, I may ask actually about that because, you know, some people have started businesses with their spouse, significant other, friend. And how have you guys been able to kind of work through that? But we'll get to that in just a second. Micah, what's your thoughts about just the backstory and the journey of Club Capital up to this point?

Yeah, I mean, we— so we started Club Capital in 2016, but what David and I graduated college in in 2010, right? Uh, from College of Charleston. So we, we knew each other back in college. Uh, um, uh, I was in his wedding, vice versa. Yeah. I actually knew his, his, uh, wife before I knew him. We just happened to, uh, have classes, uh, together. Um, and, and she is the one that actually introduced, uh, uh, the two of us. Uh, so I've heard the credit. Uh, yeah, Manny gets a lot of credit for that, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, she's the real initial founder of Club Capital. But no, we became good friends back then. We were kind of the, the business-minded, uh, um, ones within our, our friend group, I guess you would say, within our immediate friend group, um, for, you know, what different— what everybody else was kind of doing and focusing on. And, um, so as our, you know, uh, friendship grew, uh, over time, you know, we just always kind of came back you know, talking about certain things going on, uh, you know, in business and in our lives. And I, I ended up going into, uh, consulting. I did a master's right out of college, um, uh, primarily because I wasn't exactly sure, you know, what I was going to do, uh, right away. So I just doubled down and decided to get into a master's program, um, and, uh, ended up getting into consulting after that. So did management consulting. For a bit. I always had this itch to, to, that I wanted to start a company, um, but there was a sense of, of what are you going to do, right? Um, what, what's the company that you're going to start? And, um, and I remember, you know, just I had scratch pads and thinking about different companies and things like that. And, um, and just, you know, not, not knowing exactly what I was going to do. So I ended up starting, uh, working for a company, uh, in DC doing consulting in healthcare and I have absolutely zero healthcare background, but came at it from a business perspective. They were doing a lot of like technology implementation, process improvement, stuff that, you know, at the end of the day has nothing to do with the actual, you know, healthcare aspect of it, of delivering it, but really the business side of how to, how to measure the impact of that. So that was actually really fun. I joined a small firm I was the 15th employee at a firm in DC. And, um, what was the precursor to that is trying to find jobs out outside of grad school. I was just, uh, crashed on David's couch, uh, for quite a bit, um, going to interview. I think my job was actually just to sit at the Starbucks, uh, that was near the office and, uh, and just apply for jobs and, and ended up finding what was an amazing, uh, job and initial career for me. I joined a, you know, the small firm that was started by some really, um, some really bright guys in the industry. So they were, you know, had already been in the industry probably 10, 15 years. Some of them were doctors and then started a consulting company to be able to kind of tackle the things that they saw, you know, missing or an opportunity. Um, and so I, I thought at the time, I'm like, all right, well, I'm not starting my own business, but these guys seem like some good ones to probably learn from and see what they do, um, and how they do it. And it turned out to be right. I mean, they did an incredible job. I learned a ton, and they grew the company in a matter of a couple years, uh, to over 100 people, and they ended up selling to a publicly traded company. Um, and so I got to kind of see and be at least a part of some of that, kind of see the inner workings of how that happens. And meanwhile, you know, friendship with David and just kind of learning and seeing, you know, what he was doing, you know, being a part of a massive company, but also then being the small business side of that massive company, right? It's interesting how you can have kind of both sides to that. And so we would always talk about, you know, what's going on in his world comparative to what's going on in, in my world. And like, what are the types of things I'm doing and delivering for, you know, billion-dollar enterprises versus, you know, the things and some of the— sometimes the struggles of what he saw on like the small business front. Yeah, that's kind of where a lot of the conversations of Club Capital actually came to be, of like, how can we, how can we package and deliver really big like enterprise-level services, um, but to the small business, right? I mean, I was doing consulting for huge enterprises and my billable rate was staggering for, you know, for, for what I thought, you know, uh, I was doing and how young I was at the time. And I'm like, well, first off, this is definitely why, you know, we don't work with any small businesses, right? Because small businesses can't afford whatever we're doing, right? Um, and so that's where a lot of this started.

Yeah, mainly too. I mean, Mike and I would get around and talk on the weekends or, you know, over a beer and really talk about how, you know, consulting. He was looking at these healthcare systems and how they were able to compare costs and compare revenue items. And, you know, that's how when Club Capital came to be, I was like, man, there's really nothing like that on the small business insurance agent side. You know, we go around to our study groups and we talk about how much we spend on marketing or how much we spend on payroll. And I was like, I was watching Micah implement this for these big healthcare systems on cost savings and revenue. I was like, man, that'd be pretty cool to have in our agencies. And not just rely on, you know, kind of our own data, you know, as we grow and try to scale our agencies.

So.

So that actually leads me to one of the big questions that I actually do not think that I know. And in thinking about this, I was curious, do you remember the conversation that you had that said, yeah, I actually think that there is a problem in the marketplace or a pain in the marketplace let's go build the company together. Like, do you remember that conversation? What was that like? And when do you both remember kind of having that look or that thought of like, yeah, we're actually going to do this. We're going to have, as Gerber says, we're having this entrepreneurial seizure. Now we're actually going to go do something with it.

I mean, Bradley, I remember that conversation just, I mean, in my head, you know, a little bit about my background, you know, third generation State Farm agent. I would call my father and ask him some of these questions on the business management side or my mentor down the street. And I call him, call him, ask him some of these questions on, you know, hey, who do you use for payroll? Who do you use for your taxes? And, you know, I'm like, man, if I don't know these questions and I, you know, came from the business a little bit, I certainly know that outsiders don't know this information. I was like, that's frankly, I think it's unfair, right? So I was like, somebody needs to put this together where it's one suite. And I really wanted it for myself. Uh, so it was really kind of scratch my own itch. Um, and then, you know, we, I was like, I want this all in one place. I started an agency to focus on insurance and financial services. Um, and, uh, not necessarily doing my own books. Uh, so that's, that's really where it came from. And then, you know, that was, you know, client number one, call it. And then, uh, you know, with our study group, we got about 20 more, uh, agents on board from there. And then that's when Mike and I. Uh, you know, we were keeping up on, uh, on how everything was going and we were like, hey, Micah, I think it's, uh, we had a serious conversation about, hey, why don't you come help out? And I think it started gradually and then Micah made the full jump, right? And then came on and kind of the rest, you know, a little harder than that, but it's, the rest was pretty history from there. Micah came on and does a great job.

So I think some of the background is, uh, and maybe go back just a little further is, uh, I mean, these were literal conversations at probably bars or David's living room. Yeah. You know, having some drinks or some dinner and talking through it and, you know, thinking about, okay, what do we actually do, like, as next steps? And so, you know, some of that I was a part of. And what I think is, you know, a little bit different, I wasn't you know, especially even formally listed as, as like one of the founders, uh, uh, because, you know, it was a good idea and David actually, you know, was able to run with it. And I, I said, hey, I think it's an awesome idea. Like, I didn't know if it would actually pan out, right? Uh, and I'm obviously busy doing my own thing. Um, and so David, uh, did kind of, you know, really just run with it, right? And he said, okay, I'm going to do this and, uh, kind of make a partner on that, uh, on the CPA side, another one of our partners, and one of the biggest things that we do right away is say, hey, well, we're not accountants, right? So we probably have some expertise on that side. And so ended up meeting somebody locally here in Bethesda, Maryland to be able to partner with on that side that's been a CFO his entire career, owns a CPA firm. And that's who our partner Javier Golden is that runs and oversees the Club Capital tax division. But that's kind of how that started. And I was kind of watching it a little bit from the sidelines as, you know, a friend and kind of advisor and saying, hey, well, how are you putting together the pitch decks and things like that? And, you know, I started getting involved and saying, you know, like, I put together a lot of our pitch decks for the consulting company and I'm— and, you know, said, hey, you know, let me, let me take a stab at it, right? And, you know, I think we can present, you know, the pitch in a different way and I, so I kind of started consulting him and, you know, what he was doing. And then it just got started. And then I said, yeah, hey, just give me the damn phone. Okay, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna sell this thing. And then I started selling it. I'm like, oh, I sold it, sold a couple people, now what, right? Yeah. And, uh, he's like, well, you should probably just, you know, start servicing them as well. I'm like, okay, well, I, I think, I think I work here now. So, um, and so it kind of turned into like, you know, Uh, I was just kind of helping at first, and it turned into kind of a full-time thing from then. And I ended up, uh, after I was taking calls from, uh, for Club Capital, uh, from the conference rooms and call rooms of my other job at the consulting company, I'm like, after this guy, I think I gotta quit this and move.

You gotta start making this, which was good.

I mean, you know, we were a small company at the time, definitely a big initial risk, you know, on my end because I was, you know, making pretty good money. And, uh, but I was also single and not married and, uh, and single and no kids, right? So, uh, it was a good time for me to say, all right, like, let me take this jump and get into, you know, actually, uh, into the entrepreneurial side.

When you're looking back on it, I mean, it was, you know, pretty risky, you know, definitely on, on Micah's side more so than my side. But obviously I felt a lot of pressure for the company to do well and to be able to, like, to be able to make that transition from a, you know, well-billing corporate job to a startup, you know. So, um, there was certainly, uh, yeah, looking back on it, it was pretty, uh, uh, do you remember trying to find the name of the company? Name of Club Capital?

Yeah.

Um, oh yeah, how did, how did you get the name?

I will say, not that there was Not that it was totally random, but I will say trying to search available domain names goes into a big part of finding a company name. You'd be like, nope, that, that doesn't work.

Yeah.

You know, I think it came about really, uh, you know, I found the other accounting firms, uh, kind of, yeah, in the space that have been around forever. They were, you know, Bradley and David and Micah. Partnership, right? Or, you know. Yeah, right.

It sounds more like a law firm.

Yeah, more like a law firm, right? So, you know, you know, really what I wanted with Club Capital was to be one central place for your agency's financials. And I want to go more the way of like Mint.com or Personal Capital. So certainly Personal Capital kind of, yeah, you know, they're kind of like a money tracker on the, on the personal side. So I wanted, wanted something where it was kind of a, uh, yeah, money revolving around your money world for insurance.

And that's kind of, you know, we liked Club Capital because it was, you know, it had some sort of sense of, you know, the whole idea with Club Capital was to stay incredibly niche-focused, uh, on our target market. Um, uh, I mean, everybody's heard probably the term public accounting firm. Uh, well, that what that really means is that they're open to anybody and everybody. Right? Um, and, and we didn't want to be that. Like, the whole goal was to not be that. Um, and we wanted it to be more than— we wanted it to be bigger than us, right? So like, when you think about like a typical like accounting firm name or law firm name, it's, it's very much about their names. Um, and we said we want this to be bigger than that, right? This isn't about us or me or you or, you know, this is about setting up a system and a company that, that works, um, and can be there for a long time. So we wanted it to be different.

Yeah, more so besides the services we provide, we wanted to feel like a membership, right? Uh, you know, the more, more agents that we get involved, uh, you know, I truly think that the stronger the community gets and the stronger the product gets because we have more data to, to look at, uh, you know, your agency, whether you're, you're just starting out or you're trying to scale from, you know, in the middle of your career or even later on. But, you know, every single agent helps out that community by anonymously sharing their data. So I truly wanted that membership feel where it's like, hey, we're on this together. The more that we're a part of this, the bigger this thing grows, obviously, but also the more we all benefit as well.

Right.

I think that's a big part because when you're talking about financials, oftentimes agency owners are really reluctant to want to share that. I'll, I'll talk about production numbers all day long, but when it comes to the money, it's almost like that's taboo. We're not going to go there. And so what the part of you being able to say, now we can share it anonymously to be able to see where people are, it just opens up this perspective to not in a comparison way, right, but in a very good way of benchmarking. There's a big difference of having to compare yourself, and that can get into mindset things, but be able to benchmark off of what some of the top people are doing and see how you're doing, to be able to— am I making the right investments, etc. So I, I think that was key. I think it's so cool, you know, you read in business books about maybe some of the unicorns, Facebook and Instagram and all this, but I think it's just as equally as cool to be able to hear the backstory of small businesses. You know, I mean, really, small business is the backbone of, of the American dream, and unfortunately Man, the statistics are just really tough. I mean, 96% of businesses don't see their 10th birthday. That's, uh, it's unbelievable to me that it's that, that it's that low.

Um, I'll cut you off there. I'll cut you off there though and say, what is the number one reason small businesses fail?

What do you think it is?

Cash flow. It's cash flow. And, and at the end of the day, and you, you have some, you know, you've covered some podcasts, uh, on this before, um, more on the coaching end of things. But, um, cash is king. Cash is king. And access to cash and understanding cash flow, um, and how it can affect the business, um, is crucial. Um, and so that, you know, that's just kind of— I say that because you, you know, brought up that statistic. But it's so— that is one of the areas that we go into so much, um, you know, with our clients, uh, is, you know, when you come on board with us and the whole goal of Club Capital, you know, and kind of David's background, my background, you know, neither of us are accountants, right? The goal is, is not just to create, you know, an accounting firm that produces a P&L. Um, that's obviously a means to an end, right? I mean, we, we need to be able to do that, but it's more of the why, right? Why are we creating this document? What are you going to glean from this financial information to make— to one, understand the business a little bit better from the financial side, um, and hopefully make better decisions from it, um, and understand that one of the biggest things we talk about too, just from a small business perspective, is understanding, you know, really why all the financial statements matter. It's not just a P&L that you need to look at. But understanding, you know, how the balance sheet can affect your P&L and truly on a month-to-month basis, the difference between profit and loss statement or income statement and the cash flow.

Yeah, you mentioned there's a couple— I'll just piggyback on that. You mentioned the number one reason. I think it's the only reason they go out of business. People go out of business, they run out of cash, right? So that's the only reason you go out of business. And then so just on that. And then Bradley, just to piggyback on your question too, or kind of like sharing financials, just to go back to that for a second. I mean, it's really the elephant in the room that I saw, like in going to meetings, fall planning conferences, right? It's—

Awards.

Yeah. You know, big agent gets up on stage, talks about their production. You know, what they don't tell you is that they have 30 team members. And that the lead company's giving them all their leads for free, right? Um, so, you know, I wanted to pull back the curtain on that, uh, and, and not in a way to expose anybody. That's why we do everything anonymously, but really to show like, hey, who's running, uh, who's running the most profitable business, not the most top-line revenue. And, and I think there's like a lot of that that's just, just hidden. Um, right. I want to know the, uh, you know, I think one of our clients says, uh, I want to know who's the most profitable agent you've never heard of. Yeah, that's awesome. And not just necessarily, you know, the top line revenue that gets up on stage and, you know, lead companies, give them all leads and you have 30 employees, right? So, you know, that's a little bit of the why too, is I felt like as in our industry, sometimes we focus on the wrong thing, right?

I think that's so— I'm so glad that you added that because it really is about good at business, right? Being good at business and running the business end of your business and having a look at all of those things. I mean, it's a—

if you're—

look, I mean, there's— gosh, I think I saw recently Uber has not been profitable maybe ever, okay? I mean, so it is possible, but they have a different endgame. When you're a small business owner, as Micah said, Cash and cash flow, or at least access to cash, is paramount. Uh, you can't go a day without oxygen, and a business is the same, and the oxygen of the business is cash. And so I, I completely agree with that. I mean, look, we love Mike Michalowicz, Profit First, right? And, and that mentality and, and that mindset and even that structure But there's a big difference in profit and cash, and I found that out the hard way myself of not understanding the difference between, between the two, um, in my business. And so, Mike, I want to ask you, I mean, the growth that Club Capital's had over the last several years is, is pretty unbelievable, and that's obviously from the work that you guys are doing. Just where does Club Capital stand today? We've done a little bit of kind of like the journey backstory. Where does Club Capital at today?

Yeah, uh, so I think, you know, I think it's probably good to be able to, to kind of remind people too that, you know, Club Capital, we've grown significantly, uh, you know, in the last— what are we at, 6 years now? Yeah, uh, over the last 6 years, um, you know, but, you know, one of the things that, that keeps us, uh, I think really connected, um, to our client base is that we're also a small business, right? I mean, yes, we're incredibly niche-focused, but we're a small business, you know, very similar to our clients. And, you know, we go through some of the same growing pains as everybody else, and we've got some of the same issues, you know, either operationally or, you know, kind of growth-wise that we go through as every single one of our clients. And so we're able to I think just really understand our client base. But where we are today, we are— we serve over 600 agents and growing at just an incredible pace. And, you know, which I think is one of the things that, you know, is definitely, you know, certainly my largest challenge, right, that I have to make sure that the company is ready for. Is how to grow at that speed and still deliver an absolutely amazing product and service out to our clients. We should be growing at a rate of, you know, close to 300 to 400 agents a year, which is incredible because, you know, it's obvious that, you know, we're striking, you know, we're really satisfying a need in the marketplace and and being able to— I know that the, the services that we provide truly do help agents become better business owners. And so it's amazing to see truly the impact we'll end up being able to have on an industry, you know, at a growth rate, you know, like what we're seeing. So that's great. But, you know, internally we're at about 35 employees, which I think is probably probably a lot less than what people would think. You know, I see some of the clients come on board. I think they think we're almost like corporate at some point, or we're this incredibly massive vendor. And, you know, while we may be a little bit bigger, you know, than some of our clients, we're certainly, you know, in the same general sphere as our clients in terms of a small business.

And so, yeah, hiring people, training, right? Oh yeah, everything, everything that happens in an agency, it pretty much happens in our— yeah, our world too, right?

We might call them different departments, but we've got the same departments, right? Uh, we got sales, we got service, we got marketing, uh, we got operations. So, you know, we go through some of the same things, uh, um, too. But I mean, that's kind of where we are now. I mean, in terms of vision though for the future, for Club Capital. Yeah, we definitely were already the largest agency-focused accounting and advisory firm in the country.

And just stop there for a second. I mean, Bradley, you asked kind of the state of affairs of where we are. I mean, you look at it in 2016 when we started with, you know, like I said, myself and 20 guys from our study group, you know, to now where, like I said, you know, over 600+ locations. you know, all the other traditional accounting firms, you know, we've been able to do this in 6 years versus they took 15, 20, 25 years to build up. So, you know, we're incredibly proud about that and, you know, honored from the clients on that. And, you know, I think like Micah said, it's really to keep that focus on helping, you know, helping the community build up the membership. The more people come on board, the more, you know, obviously the more we all benefit from it. Right, from a, from a data share.

Yeah, I mean, even just our— the way our training goes internally, uh, I, I think every single one of our clients would be super happy to see, you know, how much time and effort we, uh, we spend just during, you know, employee training, uh, training our employees on, on how our clients work and operate, whereas very typical firms, right, it's you know, you're going to work with, you know, 70 different types of businesses and they're going to be at 70 different stages in their business, right?

Bradley, we have a few acronyms in our business, right? So they need to be trained up pretty, pretty quick.

Absolutely. No, I mean, that's such a good point though, actually, is that you want to be able to know, does this person get my business? Do they know my business? Do they actually get me, get my business? And that is a big deal because, you know, somebody coming in if they have a finance degree, have an accounting degree, they may know numbers, but they need to know and understand how this industry specifically works. And so that whenever someone's having a conversation with them and throwing out some of those acronyms, that they're able to like, okay, I, I, I know what you're referring to, and I know what, what, what you're sharing, versus, you know, having no, no clue whatsoever. I mean, Mikey, you talked about your career starting out in consulting. I mean, I'm sure you just went from client to client to client. One client was in technology, and the next client's in, in aerospace, and the next client's in, you know, defense contracting or whatever. And it's just, you know, that, that, that's hard to learn all of those industries at, at that quickly, let alone you were able to really understand this industry and go deep on it and then obviously train your teams to be able to do it.

So I think it's a different, uh, it's a different language, you know. Mike has, you know, uh, you know, hung around me enough where he's picked up a lot of it, and there's certainly enough agents now where he definitely knows it. Uh, you know, we have a few guys on the team that, you know, that have been on the team a couple of years that just by hanging around agents, I mean, some of it's just time and talking with agents, right? But, you know, even between, you know, the different companies, you know, one uses lapse cancellation, the other one uses retention rate, right? So it's, you know, there's even language specific from carrier to carrier that, you know, I'm sure you're aware of. But yeah, the learning curve's steep, just like it is in our offices, right?

Part of that is truly what we designed as our, um, you know, competitive advantage though. Uh, you know, I mean, even we look at the, the services that we provide, um, the services that we provide out of the box that are like our, our essential services, um, are, are already 1 to 2 to 3 steps above what a, what a— I'll call it a typical accounting firm. Would provide. Our base services are really, in, in our sphere, known as CFO light services because we don't just provide a P&L quarterly or at the end of the year. We're providing, you know, a dashboard of financials and analytics every single month, like on demand. I mean, you have to log into the analytics platform that does— that we do publish, you know, the 3 financial statements every single month, um, but you have access to KPIs, which is key performance indicators, um, and you can track, you know, how those KPIs are doing for your business, right? So identify those that really mean something to you. What are the numbers I need to know, you know, at a glance? And then how are they compared to the target? Like, that type of stuff is very, you know, just out of the box is CFO-like. I mean, it's 2, 3 steps ahead of of, you know, what our, you know, say, competition is already doing. And that's our base service. But like, for us to be able to do that, you know, it's really because we're niche-focused. Like, we are able to be efficient at creating what our deliverables are going to be, right? And then kind of standardizing how we do that so that we can offer better services at a low price. Right, so the goal was how do we create— and that's kind of what we wanted to do between kind of like David and I— is how do we get that enterprise-level service right down to the small business owner? Um, and one of the key ways that we do that, um, is being focused on our niche, right? We can kind of do it— it's way harder than it sounds— but do it once, right? And just focus on them rather than if, if you know, if we were opened up to 20 different types of industries, or 100, or whoever walks in our door, you know, we're kind of having to create from scratch every single time, get to know that business, spend the amount of time on that business so that we can create the KPIs for them and understand what their transactions are, who their vendors are. You sign up, and the thing now is most of the clients sign up with us, we know better than they know themselves. We already know where they're spending their money. If they don't know how to pull their documents, we already know where to pull them. Right. Here's the statements that we need from you. Here's how to navigate the screen so that you can pull them for us.

And I think really that, you know, we can talk about some of the things we're doing into next year, Bradley. But, you know, really, I think that CFO light that Mike has said, it's really the why behind it, right, is, you know, the why is I wanted to be able to, because again, I wanted this myself when I was starting, but I wanted to take an agency from $0 in revenue or, you know, whatever you take over to $500,000 quicker. And then when I got to, you know, that number, I wanted to be able to scale from, from that to $1 million or $1.5 million quicker. And I wanted to know the agents out there that are doing it. And if, you know, if I could glean, you know, it's the same reason we go to a study group, right, is to find out what the top guys are doing, top guys or girls are doing, and find out, you know, how they're doing it more efficiently. And if that could save years off my, my, my learning curve, you know, why would I not try to take advantage of that?

You bring up such a good point. The best way for us to learn is through experience, but nobody said it always has to be your own experience. It can be someone else's experience, which is exactly what you're saying. Is it— is there a way that for me to be able to learn from some other people that are years ahead, how can I take decades and compress that into days of learning and be able to almost pull these threads. I think about the, you know, there is a lot of different ways to, to, to, to have, quote, success in business. I mean, there is. However, there are these essential elements, and financials is a part of that. And let's just be really real. I mean, there's people that you started business because you wanted to be able, in addition to having the options and the freedom in the business, Part of that freedom is financial freedom. You wanted to be able to have complete control not only of your day-to-day, and you wanted to be able to go on vaca— I get all that, and that's a huge part of it too. But a big part of it is you want to be able to provide for your family. You wanted to be able to be in complete control of that. And unfortunately, some people will start their business thinking that they're going to end up just being, you know, multi-millionaires, and they go, man, this is really tough the first couple years, you know. I mean, for me, I made my first 3 years combined than I did my previous year. My wife was like, you sure you want to keep doing this? And I was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I'm going to keep doing it. But, but it was, it was, it was tough.

You bring up a good point, and it's not, uh, it's not all the same for everybody, right? Some people are trying to scale revenue, uh, and they want to grow their book as fast as they can. Others want to, you know, they want to be profitable, uh, and there's a lot of people that are that are in between that, right? They want to grow while taking some profit. So, you know, the numbers that we provide on that, you know, they, they give you the information, but that doesn't necessarily tell you where you need to go, right, Bradley? Right. So yeah, it's all a personal level with your family at the end of the day of like, hey, how big do you want to grow, or where do you want to take this thing? Um, you know, at the end of the day, you decide where you want to go, right? But let's, let's start there. Let's have a, let's have a concept of, hey, what does it look like couple years down the road, what do I want to build, right? And then, you know, hey, we could use other people's experience to get there quicker, why not, right?

Yeah. Michael, I want to ping it back over to you as we're, as we're kind of closing. But I do, I, I, I love the whole visioning part of business. It's probably my favorite part. Vision and then reverse engineering back to strategy. That's probably the thing I enjoy doing doing the most. Just lean out maybe 12 months from now, and if you want to go a little bit further, but lean out 12 months. Where, where, what's the vision? Where, where's Club Capital going as an organization, as a, as an enterprise over the next, uh, couple years?

Yeah, I think we can talk probably vision tactically, probably what are, what are some of the things, you know, that I can see happen over the next, uh, next 12 months. I mean, I, I think just overall vision-wise, you know, it comes down to, you know, what's, what's the vision of the firm, you know, what's the mission of the firm, and, um, you know, with those in mind, what should our, our goals be, right? So if our, if our mission is, uh, you know, to help agents become better business owners, um, you know, and kind of with our vision there that we should be able to, to have you know, kind of a certainly a, a pretty dominant share, you know, of the entire market. I mean, we're already the largest accounting firm, uh, uh, and advisory firm within space today, um, which is kind of like nice to say, but we're definitely not where we want to be, right? So, you know, and truly in terms of making a massive impact on the industry as a whole and all of the agents and and families, you know, that come along with that, I think we really need to be, you know, at least, at least 25% of the agency force out there, which I definitely think is possible for us to achieve. Now, that's not going to happen in the next 12 months, you know, but I think that's really where we would say, look, we're, you know, surpassing that 25% mark. Based upon, you know, what our mission is, uh, and the deliverables that we have, that should be what our goal is, right? There would be— there would be no reason to be less than that, right? Um, uh, because we have a superior service and we can help, um, and what our service does is provide ROI. So there's really no reason to, uh, for others to, you know, necessarily not use it. We can make that impact. So that's really where we see the company going. I think over the next, um, you know, 12, 24 months, we're going to see us, uh, kind, you know, continuing to have a pretty massive, uh, growth rate, um, you know, likely doubling, uh, in size over the next 12 to 18 months, um, uh, which is, uh, definitely harder and harder to do. We, we definitely did that the first couple of years and you know, have the past couple years kind of 60-70% growth rate, um, which is pretty big. And to continue doing that is, is, it's much harder, right? We talk about being at 30-35 employees, so having to hire that many more, uh, employees, which is not necessarily one for one, but, um, in a tough labor market, right?

Just like, yeah, agencies are going through, right?

Yeah, it's really hard. I mean, having to hire, you know, when you double your employee size going from, you know, 4 to 8 or, you know, 5 to 10 is one thing. Trying to go from, uh, you know, from 30 to 50, um, will be different, right? So we'll have some different challenges, uh, ahead of us. Um, but that's just kind of where I see ourselves kind of going size-wise. Um, but I definitely think there's some things that we're looking at in terms of, you know, focus and how we start, you know, continue to expand how we're helping agents. Um, We definitely have, you know, some fun things that we're going to be trying to do certainly over the next 6, 12, 18 months.

Yeah, I think, Bradley, that really comes down to, you know, the services that we offer now is really, you know, the essential packages, like Micah said, is really transactional and historical in nature, right? So, you know, now with CFO, we're looking forward and we're saying that exact conversation, hey, Bradley, where do you want to go? And having our team help diagnose that so we can save that time like we talked about to get you there, right? Almost like, you know, that conversation of where do you want to be in 3 to 5 years? What do we need to do to help you get there? Because we have some of that data, right? And I think you'll see us continue to expand in those areas. You know, we have that data set. So wherever agents spend money, you know, wherever we see that we can add value and we can help agents make smarter financial decisions, I think that's where you'll see us lean into and really look at that now from like, okay, hey, you know, we have this information. How do we help, help the lives of, you know, of our agency owners and like Micah said, their families make smarter business decisions, get them to where they want to go quicker. That's, that's really where it is at the end of the day.

Yeah, I think, you know, just to be able to be so clear on the mission and to say, you know what, we don't know exactly forward 3 to 5 years. But we do know this, we're going to stay focused on the vision to be able to serve small business owners, to help them be able to go further faster and to continue to make them better business owners and be able to make better financial decisions. And whatever that looks like over the next 3 to 4 to 5 years, as, you know, things continue to change, I think is really awesome. I have to just say I'm grateful to be a small part of the journey with Club Capital. And looking back on I guess, Micah, when I met you sometime in 2017. It's been pretty awesome just to be a small part of the ride and to be able to be a host of the podcast. I want you guys to know I'm super grateful. So I'm thankful to put that on this episode. So, yeah, we haven't done one like this before where we have a little bit of the past, the present, and the future of Club Capital. So for our listening audience, we're grateful for all of you. And hopefully you enjoyed learning a little bit about the history of Club Capital, a little bit about where it's, uh, going. All right guys, appreciate y'all. Hey, want to give a big shout out before you go to our podcast sponsors: DirectClicks, Autopilot Recruiting, of course Club Capital, Rock Solid Assistance, and Coach P Consulting. Look, if you're ready to take your agency to the next level, you know you need to develop and invest in your team. That's exactly where Coach P can help you. Go to coachpconsulting.com and make sure you let him know that you heard about him on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. If you want to be able to get quality leads into your sales team's hands, DirectClicks. They can help you with your SEO, with your pay-per-click. Go to directclicksinc.com. Our newest podcast sponsor, Autopilot Recruiting. Alex and his team have built an incredible service that's going to be able to help you to be able to find, attract, develop, and retain those A-players. But you first have to be able to attract the right people. And you know the importance of doing it on a regular basis, but having the discipline and consistency. Look, you're busy, you're developing your current team, you are meeting with clients yourself, you're wearing so many different hats being the CFO of your business, being CSO, CEO, COO. It's just so many different things. And oftentimes as the agency owner, you're in the suite, C-suite, by yourself trying to do all those different things. And so recruiting on a regular basis, critical to do it, but what you really want is you want the leads, great people in front of you that you can interview and decide whether or not they're going to be the right fit for you. That's where Autopilot recruiting comes in. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com and make sure you use the code Club Capital to get started. All right everyone, until next episode, lead well. 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 in this podcast, we'll give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation? Check them out at club.capital.