Episode 173: Fireside Chat - Looking Back on 3 Years of the Podcast with Micah Cannon

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. 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 CareerPlug, send out assessments, do pre-screen 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 Club Capital to get started.

Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hammer, your host. So today we're going to flip the tables. Micah is on here and he's actually going to interview me, and we're going to do a little bit of a debrief. We had Micah and David on just a few weeks ago, and we started talking about a little bit of the history of Club Capital. But we haven't actually really done much of a history of the podcast, and I'm going to share some of the things and memories over the last 3 years. It's hard to believe it was actually in December, uh, December 27th, 2019, that we first launched, uh, some episodes of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. So it's been a wild ride the last 3 years, and so we'll go back a little bit, and then we'll share with you kind of how we see the future. So Micah, welcome. Excited to have you actually flip the tables on me and interview me for once.

I know, I'm excited to, uh, to kind of sit in your seat today. Um, I think, uh, since we've, since we've launched the podcast, we literally— it's, it's been one of those things where you, you launch it and you start running and you don't look back. Um, and, uh, so I think today will be fun to, to really look back. Honestly, it It is wild to me that it's been 3 years. It feels like— I don't know why it feels like a year, year and a half. Yeah, it's been 3 years since we, since we did this and launched it. So excited to be able to kind of reflect today and, and especially from your perspective, kind of see how the last 3 years have been. And, and I think it'll be fun. You know, some of this I know and some of the details, obviously. I know, but I think it'll be fun just for our audience to kind of see some of the behind the scenes of what it's looked like over the past 3 years. And, you know, what did those first 5 episodes feel like and how did we analyze them versus, you know, where we're at today?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you do too good of a job, you're going to take— you take my seat. They're going to— people are going to boot me out and put you in as the host.

Oh, man, I definitely wouldn't worry about that at all. So you do a far better job than I could on this. Uh, but you ready?

I'm ready. Let's rock and roll.

All right. Uh, well, uh, Bradley, thanks for being here today. You know, really good to have you. Um, so, uh, first question, uh, obviously I think just real simple, it'd be good for, for the audience to know. Um, uh, you know, just what's the history of how the podcast, uh, got started?

Yeah, uh, super simple. Um, but in— when we came together in August of 2019, I guess it was maybe within about a month or so, I came to you on one of our just weekly calls, and I said, hey, I think I want to start a podcast. And you said, cool, what do you want to do? That's really what it was. And I said, I really don't know. I just, I like podcasts. I've learned a lot of, uh, from podcasts myself, uh, the last few years previous to that. I had really began to take a deep dive into podcasts and, and loved it. And I, I don't really know, looking back on it, what What spurred that thought? Maybe my, my quick start kind of kicked in at that point. And I said, I want to start one. And you said, what do you, what do you think it'd be? I said, I don't know, let's just interview cool people. And I think that you— that was probably a big part of it is because the basis and still to this day, the essence of the podcast really comes at a core from interviews and interviewing cool people. And, um, and that's where we started. And really, it wasn't much of a long discussion that you and I had from that. We just, we, we went with it. And I do think that there's a lesson, uh, in that. Now look, looking back on it, you know, we'll talk about some of the things if we had to do it over again, for sure. Um, but it was, it was a thought and we went for it. And I think that there was a lot of things I didn't realize at the time, But I will say that there's a lesson in entrepreneurship and business is that, you know, we had an inspiration and we just kind of went and ran with it. Now, at that point, I would have had no idea the people I would have been able to meet through this, the folks that we would have been able to serve through the podcast. Obviously, the downloads, the listeners, the support we've been able to get through it. I had no vision of that. As much as I talk about vision, on the podcast and how much I believe in creating a 3-year vision. There's no way that I would have had that type of vision in that moment. I thought it was something— let's— it's cool, let's do it. And we went with it. And kudos to you for saying, yeah, let's roll with it. That sounds great. And you gave me a lot of leeway to just kind of run with it at that point.

Yeah, I remember that. What I will say I think it was a quick decision of we should do this. And you do, you definitely push me sometimes, right? You have that quick start in you and I generally say yes, but let's think about it, right? And it's like, all right, no, I already actually got it teed up, ready to go. But what I would say, I remember thinking back to the beginning of it and we both shared in the vision, I think, of, you know, ideas. You know, ideas are great, but execution, you know, is really what you need to focus on. And there's a lot of podcasts out there, right? And so I thought, yes, we should do this, but let's make sure, let's make sure we really do it. Yeah, let's not, you know, hey, if we've got an idea, is this an idea for 10 podcasts or is this an idea for you know, really something that can stick around and be meaningful for the industry.

Absolutely.

And representative of the brand. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I, I will say, I think it was a quick decision cuz I think we were both on the same page there. But we definitely both had that thought, I think from the beginning. And it luckily, you know, we, we both shared that vision, you know, over the past 3 years to get to where we are today. So, Oh, well, good. So, so I think one of the things to, to, I think to highlight too is, you know, maybe what was a guest or an interview that you were the most nervous about? Or maybe even just describe what some of the first interviews were like too, right? Because there may be a difference there. Two-part question, you know, what, what was it like on the first couple of podcasts, uh, as well as, you know, was there a specific guest that you've been the most nervous to interview?

The first few episodes were a disaster. They were a disaster. I had no idea how you actually interview, uh, let alone set up a podcast. And so I was doing some research, and my assistant at the time, you know, we— I was like, I think you do it on GarageBand. Literally, the first couple were recorded on GarageBand. The one that I did with you and Chris in the Club Capital headquarters, I think it was episode 1, that was actually recorded on GarageBand. I remember this is kind of embarrassing to think about at the time, but I thought to myself, okay, I knew that you need to have quality audio and we'll kind of talk about this for the future, but you want to have quality audio. And so I'm doing the research and I got all nervous of, you know, what's the mic to buy? And then I thought, okay, I need to buy 2 of them because every guest we have on, I've got to mail them a microphone and they've got to have the microphone and then they'll mail it back. And so I'm thinking about all this back and forth, which is hilarious to think about now because there's no way you could do that. Or is it really necessary? And so I was really nervous. I didn't have a structure. Nobody— I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have somebody that had been hosting a podcast that can walk me through. This is how you do ones over Zoom. This is how you do the ones in person, etc. And so I did. I didn't know. I didn't know how to prepare for the podcast. I didn't know what questions to ask. I was uncomfortable. So if you go back and listen to from the very get-go, you know, those first— I don't know. I mean, even to this day, but especially those first 10 or 15 or 20 episodes, it was fairly robotic for me. You know, I was really trying to overanalyze asking the questions. And, you know, I mean, how many questions do I need to have prepared ahead of time? So I wanted to be honoring to the guests that we had on and to our listening audience. But I would honestly overprepare sometimes. And so what that led me to is not being able to be present with the guest. And actually listening to what they are saying. So I try really hard now to really be present. You know, I, I've heard this before, like, be where your feet are. And so when a guest is talking, like, genuinely listening to what the guest says. And so now, I mean, we'll get into how I prepare later, but, but now I'm trying to be there versus, okay, I have these 8 questions, I have to get these 8 questions in to, to talk to you know, Micah, or whoever the guest is. So I was really nervous at the beginning. I don't get, I don't get anxious or nervous now. But there was one guest for sure that I was very nervous about. And I was very surprised that we were able to get him on the podcast. And it was General Stanley McChrystal. And that was one that the more I prepared, for that podcast, the more nervous I got. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy has seen a lot. His career— I don't even know what to ask him. I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm thinking, I'm Googling, how do I, how do I, uh, make sure that I say his name correctly? Like, is it General McChrystal? Do I say General Stanley McChrystal? I mean, I am just completely terrified about this. I think I ended up sending you some boxers about this, and I was like, oh yeah, I am really nervous about this. You don't want to mess that one up. I don't I messed that one up. I'm thinking, you know, tech is going to be messed up. I mean, there's all kinds of, kind of things. He could not have been more gracious. I mean, you listen to the episode, he was great. We, we were able to— he had just came out with a book, Risk, and I think that that had a lot to do with— I mean, a lot of our listening audience obviously is insurance agency owners, and so I think that there was a tie there. And really, for him and a lot of other guests, It's been the right place at the right time. Think about that in your own business. Like, you reach out to someone to make a sale, it's just not the right time. And then you reach out to them 6 months later and they're like, yes, I'm in, you know? And it's just sometimes the right place, right time. I think that was the way it was with General McChrystal, but he couldn't have been more gracious at the very beginning. Way before we hit record, he said, oh, call me Stan. I'm not calling you Stan. I'm not calling you Stan, you know? But he, he had ties to Alabama. Um, he had family here. He, he knew Huntsville. He had come down to the, to the Huntsville area because obviously Huntsville has a lot of defense contractors and a lot— and, and a big base of Army here. So he had actually been here a number of times, uh, which was great. And that put me at ease tremendously from that podcast. And, and, uh, so I, I, I you know, asked him afterwards. I said, hey, if you come out with another book in the, in the future, would, would you, would you be willing to come on? And he said he was. And, and so that was, that was a great episode. It was an honor to get to, to talk to him and, and have him on. But yeah, definitely before, uh, outside the first few that we had on, he was the one that was, I was absolutely the most nervous about.

I mean, I get that. I think that's the one I would have probably been the most nervous for too, for sure. Um, I remember, um, I told this to you at the time, um, uh, but, but I'll just kind of reiterate here. I, I thought it was, you know, one, amazing how we got, uh, you know, him to, him to be a guest, you know, on our, on our podcast. Um, I think, you know, maybe at the time that was definitely like by far just, uh, what a big name to, to be able to get as a guest and be able to interview. I thought that was so cool. And it was also just kind of almost like a weird, like, full circle moment for, for me. Um, because when I had actually, uh, just graduated college, which I know at the time, whatever, 10 years ago or whatever that was, probably more, um, I had actually applied to work for General Stanley McChrystal. Oh wow. I don't know if you remember this, but He has a company called— so he's retired from the Army and he was best known for leading his command over the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq. But he came back, retired from the Army, and he has his consulting company now called the McChrystal Group. And so before I was at Cove Capital, I got into consulting. I went You know, I went to business school and then I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll get into consulting. And he— I ended up applying probably for like an analyst or some sort of position within his firm. Did not get the job. I don't really remember what happened there. I just remember thinking, wow, what a cool company, you know, ran by this ex-general. That'd be so amazing. Anything. Anyway, nothing ever came from it. I didn't think about it for years. And then come to find out we're having him on our podcast as a guest. I was like, wow, what a, what a small world. For sure.

Yeah, that is a full circle moment.

So I guess what has surprised you the most about, you know, being a host, you know, of a podcast, right? Maybe as the host or or just, you know, just in general about, you know, maybe the logistics behind it? I mean, what surprised you the most stepping into this role?

So I'm going to go— I'm going to go to two ways with this, two different places that have surprised me. First of all, the thing that has surprised me the most is if people think that it's just, hey, turn on Zoom, hit record, talk into a mic, and roll with it. And then all of a sudden you get produced on the backside of podcast is just way more. It is way more to it. The operational load— I've been using that term with our team quite a bit, especially the last several months. It's heavy to get all of the guests scheduled, to be out ahead enough time so that we can produce now 3 episodes per week. There's a lot more that goes into that than what people realize. My part of it is easy. Source the candidates, which— or source the guests. We can, we can talk about that if you want to. You know, that part of it, plus this part, the actual talking into the mic, that's actually the easiest part. But making sure the files are uploaded in the right place, having the right systems in place, making sure the right team— I mean, it's, it's you and I, certainly we, we talk more strategy, I would say, high level. Um, and then, uh, Courtney is reaching out to all the guests, making sure that they've got the links, getting their assets like their bio, getting their headshots, because we put it out all over social media every single week, making sure that, uh, Ellie has on my team, uh, enough information about each one of the guests to write the emails Okay, so she has enough bio, so I have to recap her over Voxer after every episode that we do. So she has some, you know, tidbits to be able to write the emails. Ali, our amazing podcast engineer who I've talked about, to be able to make sure that he has the files and he's out ahead. I mean, he's been doing it from the very get-go. If it was left up to me or somebody on the team, we'd never produce an episode, you know, just to do that. So to have You know, everybody plays a piece in this. I'm just one small part into doing it. If it was all just about hitting record on a Zoom and knocking the sucker out, it would be easy. But there's just way more to it than what people realize to pull all of that together, to edit it, make it sound good, making sure we— for our podcast sponsors, right? Recording of that, the conversations with them about you know, uh, where they're going to be in the episodes and, and what that looks like recording those things. I mean, there's, there's a lot with that. The second part is, is that surprised me is, um, you know, reaching out to some of the guests that we've had. I mean, you asked me one time, man, how are you getting these people on the podcast? And I said be bold enough to ask. Truly, that's it, right? Be bold enough to ask. It really comes down to I am sourcing the guest from a lot of different locations. One of my favorite is I will go to some of the Facebook groups and I will literally search podcast or books and I will see what books people have read and I'll think, oh, that's a great guest. That's a great guest to have on. I totally forgot about that person. and then I will send a screenshot to, uh, Courtney in Slack and she takes it from there. I mean, that's all I— that's what I do. And so now let me tell you, we have gotten turned down quite a bit. Some of it is, and we're accustomed to it now. I mean, 3 years in, you're accustomed to it. Some of it is people are genuinely busy, right? They just can't fit it in. They get so many requests. And guess what? We go back to those people. We say, hey, uh, we, we understand. We now have it as a system. Can we follow up with you in the future? Is it okay for us to send you an email in, in the future and reach out? And a lot of them say yes. Second thing is, we've gotten a lot of yeses, but people will say, no problem, we'll come on for $25,000 an hour, um, you know, Ryan Holiday, Robert Greene. I mean, we, we've reached out to some pretty big names. One name started at $10K. We came back and we said, hey, we're at, you know, X downloads per month. They dropped it down to $5K and now they're down to $2,500. So I'm like, we're going to reach out to them in a little bit whenever we get, you know, to 10,000 downloads a month and we'll come back to them. They'll come on for free, you know. So that's what I hope for. So We haven't paid a guest to come on and understand it. You know, kudos to these people to be able to charge $10,000, $15,000, $25,000. And so I won't say who, who those guests are that have requested that, but there's some big names out there. If you can think about who they are, we have reached out to them and there's a few names that I'm going to reach out to over time as our, as our listening audience grows, as our downloads grow. And hopefully we'll have an opportunity. And so truly, I, uh, we're just being bold enough to ask. And so hopefully some people can pick up something from there. Um, I'm not afraid of the no. That's what it comes down to. I'm not afraid of the no. Courtney sends me the screenshots of the people that say, hey, it's just not the right time for us, we're busy coming up into the end of the year. So I think those are the two things is, um, that kind of stand out. I would have known that at the beginning and You know, I didn't know. I mean, do we pay every guest that comes on? And so, you know, as you get a bigger audience, I mean, you think the ultimate is Joe Rogan, right? I guess he is number one. I mean, anybody would want to come on the Joe Rogan Show, and certainly we're not even like a drop in at that level. But, you know, we— you do this over a long period of time. And I will say this to the last thing is kind of a bonus. Is I didn't realize this at the time, but there is a concept out there in the podcast world called podcast fading. So people get fired up about a podcast and they say, I'm dropping a podcast, and they do, and they do a season and they do about 12 episodes. They don't necessarily have the structure and the team around them and they go, man, this is a lot of work, you know, like I'm editing the podcast and I'm sourcing the guest. And so before you know it, they, they said they were going to do twice a week and then they— or twice a month, and then they do once a month. And before you know it, they're not doing it anymore. And I get it. I get it. And so I think once you push past— once you can get past that, whatever that is, you know, a year and you can consistently produce, then, then, then you're over that hump. And I feel— and we are, you know, we are. I love doing this. I love serving people. I hope it is helping these business owners. I'm so appreciative of the text messages and emails that I get that say, hey, I really enjoyed that episode, that, that, that's helped me. That means so much to me and it keeps me going. It really does. It, it feels, it feels very mission-driven to me, to be honest with you, Micah. And I would have known that at the time. But when I close out a lot of the episodes and I say, hey, I appreciate your time, and most of all, I appreciate your attention, I hope you got a good return on your investment. I mean that. I mean that. I want to try to do the very best that I can. And I told you one day, this was maybe after about the first year, I said, you know, Mike, I feel like it's turning pro, right? Like, what does it really mean to be a pro podcaster and embrace that idea of like, I'm a podcast host and I want to be a pro at it and I want to do my best, and I'm not there. By no stretch of imagination, but I do take it seriously, people's time and attention, and hopefully that I'm honoring to them and just the way I am in this episode too. So be bold enough to ask, you don't know.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the things that, um, you know, both of us, you know, it's not like we came to— came into this with a wealth of knowledge of, um, you know, how to run a podcast, um, and, uh Obviously, we were avid listeners, I think, podcasts, but we don't know the operations, the logistics, or really the business side of the podcast either. We said, and we didn't actually really think about it that way at first. We were thinking about it as this is probably a good value add. This is a good way to enhance the brand of Club Capital and really just really just talk to some interesting people and add some value in a way that this is a free way to do that, right? Kind of an entry-level way to start having a conversation with people within our space, within our market. And it's definitely— we've learned a lot from that. And I think that on the business side, the thing that's been interesting to me is is seeing some of those, you know, how do we, how do we attract guests? How do we attract, you know, really big guests and seeing what some of the— I think what some of the, I guess, more professional or in-demand guests have asked, which has allowed us to kind of understand how we need to look at it too. And look at the business side. I know, I think there's been some that have, you know, I think in our first year they wanted to make sure, you know, we're not getting on any podcast unless you've been around for a year.

That's right.

Because of that podcast fading aspect. Right. We want to, you know, be a guest on a podcast we know that's sticking around.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They said a year and then there was a few guests too in particular that said, hey, contact us again when you're past 100 episodes. And that was a big part of it. I mean, you know, when I was— and we did, and we did, and we did, we reached out to them again. I mean, the, the list of people that we have, you know, I don't want to, I want to necessarily give names because, you know, I'm hopeful to have them on, okay? I mean, uh, for sure they've given us a commitment that they're coming on. I mean, there's 4 pretty big names, um, that I'm super excited about that have given us a commitment that keeps saying, hey, yeah, well, we're working with their assistant at this point, but they say, hey, follow up with us Next month, follow this next quarter, you know. And so we keep— we're, we're not pushy, we're just persistent. And, and that helps us, like, because when you get— when you get a name, okay, then you can share with those other names. This person, this person, this person, this— these people have been on the podcast and they immediately recognize it and they say, oh, okay, well, if they've had them, then I'm willing to come on. And so it just takes that continuous— like, you think about it over a long period of time. And this is a business lesson too. I really think it happens to be for the podcast. Do the boring work, right? Repeat successful actions and just keep doing it over a long period of time and good things will happen. You know, like if we had tried to accelerate and within 3 months, like, we're going to get all these guests and we're going to do 3 episodes a week, it, it just would have crushed the system. We were just not ready for that. And so, um, we just keep showing up, just keep showing up. And, and, uh, what's up? I haven't even read this book, but I like the COVID Chop wood, carry water. And so we just keep chopping wood, you know, um, and just keep serving.

So, well, I think, you know, just going back to, you know, how do you source and, and find guests? And because I think that's, that's definitely an area a lot of people are like, man, how do you find this, right? And, you know, to your point of don't be afraid to be bold enough to ask, right? It also, you know, I think what goes into that and how I see it from my end is, you know, you're also, you know, a small business owner, right? And a manager of a sales team. And really, at the end of the day, what are we doing? We have a sales process for getting guests. Yeah, right. And with sales, you got to be persistent, right? And you don't settle on one no. And you can't be afraid of the no. You got to expect it. Right? And you just got to keep asking and you got to follow up and you got to have kind of that sales process to bring these guests in. You got to sell the guests on why come on our podcast. And so, you know, we didn't necessarily think about it, I think, like that at first. But I think, you know, we've been very fortunate, you know, that you have that background too and can kind of have that process for the team. But that's in essence what it is. It's sales.

Yes. Right.

Yeah. So, so with kind of the success that we've had, you know, over the past couple of years and definitely not podcast fading, right? We're going from 1 episode a week to, to 2 episodes a week to now we're at 3 episodes a week. Certainly just ramping up, you know, how we do the podcast. You know, if you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Well, I thought— I've given this some thought because I knew you were going to ask me this. Um, I don't like to necessarily live with regrets, and I don't know if there's any regrets, but I will say there's a few things that I think that were very timely and helped us along the way. I mean, when we first launched it we were 2 episodes a month, and then we moved to 1 episode a week. Okay, and that was a big move. That was a big move to do that. I think at the time we had been 6 months into it or so, and we launched this in December of '19. So obviously, you know, a few months later is, is when we were in the middle of COVID And so some of those episodes in first part of 2020 were obvious, had an element of COVID in there for sure. But I think that the biggest thing that I think we could have done a little sooner is move to then more than one episode per week, right? Looking at it is that we went to two episodes earlier this, this year. We introduced solo episodes which are now on Fridays. I think we could have done that earlier than we did. And provided more value. And then just in November of this year, we introduced our Wednesday Fireside Chats. And so, um, and going from, going from 2 a month to 1 a week was a big jump. That was a big jump. Interestingly, and maybe it's just because of the nature of the solos, going from 1 to 2 wasn't a huge operational load, meaning I can record Um, I can record a solo, you know, that usually those are 8 to 12 minutes if you kind of look at the length of those, and I do that on purpose. Um, but then when we went from 2 to 3, that's when the heavy operational load came in because you're bringing in, you know, uh, additional guests that got to be recorded. You've got to get on their schedules. Um, there's just a lot more— the time, the length of those. Like, this is a Wednesday episode.

I know you got to wrangle me.

What's that?

You have to wrangle me.

I have to wrangle Micah. I was like, hey, Micah, like, need you on the schedule, buddy, you know? Um, so things like that. So I think that if I had to do one thing— everything has kind of laid out the way it needed to lay out, I will say that, okay? But moving and providing more value, doing more episodes per week, I think we could have moved that forward maybe 6 to 12 months or so. So I don't, I don't know if that's necessarily like regret, but that's one thing. If we had to do it over again, we would have been doing more than one episode per week, um, earlier. That's probably the biggest thing.

Yeah, no, I get that. I, I remember when you talked to me about, you know, wanting to move to 2 a week and then wanting to move to 3 a week. And, you know, a lot of it is just understanding, you know, us, you know, collectively getting a better understanding of how to really have a successful podcast. And, you know, what does that look like and how do we do that? And, you know, I think when we were looking at it, it ended up being a no-brainer of like, yeah, we need to do this. And yeah, we probably should have done this sooner, you know, if we would have known. But yeah, definitely moving now to 3. I mean, you know, quite the operation to have in the background. And everybody that we have on the team and on your team doing this is, I mean, truly everybody's got kind of their role and really what they excel at. And it's amazing to see us continuously execute every other day, right, on putting something out.

So Well, I mean, I, I— listen, we talked so much about team and getting A-players. I mean, I, I really mean this, they, they are an incredible team, and it would not happen. I am one piece of it. People hear my voice, but it is really the team, uh, that, that is around me, um, to be able to produce this. And everybody knows that. I mean, like, if you're a business owner, you're listening to this, you understand the value of team. And this is absolutely, this is absolutely no different. It really does require, it's a team effort. Um, and listen, we make mistakes. We make mistakes along the way, right? I mean, there's things where, you know, we have a misspelling on a podcast. It's like, oh my goodness, I gotta go in there and like change that in Captivate real quick and get that, get that produced. Um, uh, so, you know, but those, those things happen, you know, people aren't perfect. You know, there's a lot going on. There's a lot of moving pieces. And so, hey, we own it. We, we, we, we say, hey, How can we get better? We think about what are some of the protocols we can put in place to kind of have some checks and balances to reduce those type of things. You know, sometimes tech doesn't work, right? Where's a day that we were like, why is this episode not uploaded? It's supposed to be on there and it's not on there. I've had some tech issues with, you know, with Zoom. We've had a tech issue in the past. We, you know, we switched over to using Zencastr for some better audio quality. And the very first one I did, it was like, didn't know how to use it and other things. And so, you know, but along the way, we have learned and tried to iterate and improve. And going into 2023, that is no different. Is that how can we make this better? How can we continue to have great guests? How can I be a better podcaster, ask better questions, and just, and just really overall put out a better product for all of you?

Right. Just a quick aside, I remember one of those quick mistakes we had in the past. I remember even the podcast page on our website misspelled your name.

I forgot about that.

Had your last name as Hammer. Well, somehow we all missed that Hammer time over here. Yeah, well, every single one of us.

I've gotten that quite a bit, so I've been called worse.

All right, well, I think maybe just final question here is, with everything that we've looked at from the podcast, I will do it differently. I mean, what does the future of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast look like?

Yeah, I touched on a few things. We're going to stick with the 3 episodes per week for the foreseeable future. I think that, gosh, you don't want to necessarily say that that's going to be a forever thing, but you really do see, okay, We've got a really pretty good tight system here. Um, I think continue to provide value on those Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday is going to be our interviews, Wednesday fireside chats, and Friday solo episodes, keeping those 8 to 12 minutes. I, I really see that structure staying in place certainly in 2023 and, and for the next couple years. Um, that's number one. Number two, Uh, we are going to continue to curate and find amazing guests. We've got, uh, some of the people that we've got lined up for— that have already recorded some episodes that'll be dropping in the next, uh, in the next few weeks— are amazing guests. And, um, uh, you know, we want to try to find a blend. You know, we realize that— I haven't got to say this yet, but Just more philosophically is there are some, uh, other great insurance podcasts out there that really kind of get down in the weeds. Every episode is just specifically for insurance agency owners, um, and, and the things that they share. And I think those are great. Listen, podcast people listen to multiple podcasts. And what we want to do is integrate and have some guests that are specifically in that space, but then also bring in thought leaders. Like a General McChrystal and an author and a general leadership person like a Mike Michalowicz, etc., and kind of have that blend of— it's a little bit of both, right? And we talk a lot about leadership and a lot about culture, and I really feel like it's a journey. It's a journey for all of us. You know, no one person has this thing completely licked at all, and I don't— we don't have the podcast. And so it's really— I kind of see it as we're on a journey together, you know, in the community that we're building within the podcast. And so there's some ideas that I have around continuing to develop the community, um, things that you and I will talk about as far as our vision goes into 2023. But I really think structurally, uh, we'll keep to 3 episodes a week. We've got some really big names that have given us commitments going into, into next year, so I'm really excited about that. And, uh, I will say that one thing I haven't mentioned is the one biggest thing I was surprised about that I didn't say earlier is what happens before I hit record and what happens after I hit record. I mean, the connections I've been able to make with some people that I can, you know, reach out to now and talk to and people I've got in my phone. That has been unbelievable. That has been one of the biggest blessings through this whole thing is just getting to make genuine connections with people before and after the podcast. I wish, I wish I could just record that, you know, I wish, I wish I didn't hit, hit pause on some of those.

We need to, we need to uncut. We need the uncut version.

Yeah, we'll get that. Maybe they need to try to get the unfiltered version of that, you know. So, but man, I've talked to people, you know, for 30, 45 minutes after a podcast has ended and just made some awesome connections. And so that's been a huge blessing to my life.

That's great. Well, I'm definitely excited about the future and, you know, gosh, over the next, over the next year, the interviews, the conversations we're going to be able to have and just to know that we're going to have 156 podcast episodes drop over the next year is pretty wild. So Uh, well, Bradley, it's been, uh, really fun today, uh, looking back on, on the history of the podcast. Uh, thanks for taking the time to do this and, and, uh, and reflect and let someone else ask the questions for once.

Yeah, well, you did, you did awesome. You did awesome. I think, uh, I think if, uh, if something happens, I'm gonna let you step in and, and take it over. Okay, Micah, that's great.

All right, sick day episode. All right, there you go.

That's right, that's right. A big shout out to our podcast sponsors, obviously Club Capital. Couldn't do it without the team at Club Capital and my team. But a big shout out to Autopilot Recruiting, Coach P Consulting. Make sure you reach out to them. And of course, DirectClicks, directclicksinc.com. So thankful for their partnership because if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to pull all this off, as I've said many times throughout this episode. So, uh, go to directclicksinc.com. Make sure you mention on with all of them, you heard about them on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, ready to get a fantastic team in place for 2023 and you want to develop them, go to autopilotrecruiting.com, put— use the code Club Capital to get started, and then let David know at Coach P Consulting you heard about him. He'll give you your entire first month off. All right everyone, well, I hope that this has served all of you today and you got to kind go back through a little bit of memory lane with us of the podcast, maybe gave you a little bit of insight into some things that we've just not been able to share before, and hopefully some of the lessons and, and that we've learned along the way, and how we've tied it back to just general business as well. And hopefully you've seen a journey. I can't thank you all enough for making 2022 such an amazing year, and we really mean it when we say we want to continue to do everything we can to serve you, serve your teams, um, and serve your businesses, to continue to help you to be able to grow in your journey. And so means a tremendous amount to us as you've continued to listen on a weekly basis and share the podcast with just one other person. Uh, that means everything to us. And so, all right everyone, hope you have a great 2023. Thanks for everything you do. We're going to continue to try to do our best to serve you in every way we can moving into next year. All right, everyone, till 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, 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.