Episode 190: Net Gain Growth with Troy Korsgaden

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Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hemney, your host. On today's episode, we have Troy Korsgaarden. He is one of, I think, the second 3-time podcast guests that we've had on. You know, Troy does not need any introduction. He is one of the few people— and I mentioned this in the episode— that we could just talk about so many different things. We'll cover a range of different topics. He's got such an incredible perspective at a high level of what's happening in the insurance and financial services industry, but at the same time, all the way down into the nuts and bolts, the day-to-day operational things that are happening. You're gonna get a ton out of this episode. We cover a wide-ranging amount of topics, and you're definitely gonna wanna pick up his new book, which we dive into. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Troy Korsgaden.

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Troy Korsgaard, and welcome back to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Thank you, Bradley. I'm excited to be here.

Always excited and honored to get to, to chat with you. So we're going to dive into a number of different topics, as we always do every week. But before we hit record, uh, we were discussing some of the things we're going to cover, and I shared, uh, that I think of all the guests that we have on, specifically someone who comes from not just an insurance background, but just in general business, you literally, quite figuratively, travel the country all the time. And you have this unique perspective in a way that is, I don't think that anybody else does, to be able to kind of zoom in and zoom out, be 30,000, 35,000 feet in the air, see these broad, economic macro things that are happening, and then at the same time go all the way down to what happens on a day-to-day basis in an office, and then be able to have the juxtaposition between both of those and say, okay, well then how do I communicate that? And so it's great to have you back on. So I guess I'm going to lead that with this broad question. What are you seeing? What are you seeing since last time we had you on, year, year and a half ago? What is happening in the marketplace?

Yeah, you know, my last book was Inflection Point, and we've hit it. I knew it was coming. I could feel it coming. You could feel it coming. Everybody could. But we've hit it. There's a lot of disruption, right? And whether it's rate action— and I say, I don't say rate increases, I say rate action— everybody's in the same ballgame. We're all in the same boat. It's not one against the other anymore. We're dealing with forces now the economy, the supply chain, all those things. You take that and then you change— economics are just changing right before our eyes. Agent economics, which is kind of one of my fortes, has drastically changed over the last 3-5 years. And now it's hit an inflection point. If you're not on top of your economics for your small business, you're in trouble. Because the economics have changed. And if the business changes along with that and gets out ahead of it, there's ways to make profits. But that disruption is the biggest thing. And then you just have every facet of the business. Some of it's awesome, right? Drones and technologies we didn't even know about just years ago. And then you just change the way the business is. Great time to get into the business. You wouldn't think so, but it really is. It's exciting. So, a lot going on, but I'm excited about it. With disruption comes opportunity, always throughout my career and throughout history.

What do you think people are feeling? I mean, at the time we're recording this, it's the tail end of 2022. We'll be a month or so into 2023. What do you think? Give me your crystal ball. It may not be a fair question, but what do you, what do you see the path forward in 2023?

I see the opportunity is in that we're, we're starting to see things as clear as can be. There's relationship customers and then there's transactional customers. And as an industry, we, we've got to serve everybody, but not all of us need to serve the same people. So I, I really look at the opportunity for those who may be smaller today that want to be big if they focus on the right customer and they serve the relationship well. I talk about this in my upcoming book. You got to embrace these new technologies because you can't just say I'm a tech-only operation or I'm an advisor-only operation. Customers want to choose when and where and how they want to do business. But I really think there's an opportunity like there hasn't been for the last 10 years where the relationship is going to come back in and it's, it's people are going to realize it's easier to do business with one place that offers everything rather than one-offs all over the place. Doesn't mean there isn't a place for one-offs. Don't get me wrong. But I, I think for a lot of your listeners that want to offer something to their customers where they make it easy for them, I think the opportunity has never been greater, but it's for those who retool and those who really look at business differently than they used to for the last 5 or 10 years.

I'm gonna do my best to try to articulate this question. And it is this idea between continuing to do what works, meaning, well, this is the way I've done it for 5 years, 10 years, as an example. I'm not going to go past that. Uh, I've been doing it this way for 5 or 10 years and it has been working, Troy. Why would I change? Why would I change? Right? Because the idea is just keep doing more of the same. Well, then at the same time, understanding that I've got to adjust to some of the things that are happening in the marketplace, but yet not changing the core fundamental of how we do things. Does this make sense? Like, what's the, what's the middle ground between those two?

I, I, it's, it's like trying to get balance in your life. You want to strive for balance, but you never get there, right? Because you go over here and something over here is out of whack. It's just the way things are. But that doesn't mean you don't try for balance. So let me try to answer it, you know, being articulate if I can. If you just focus on quoting as an example to win customers, you're going to win customers. It's a numbers game. But if that's all you do, and I know people that do it way more successfully than I ever could do in my career, they're still only focusing on one segment of the customer. And you have to look at the whole big picture. And if you're a small business, and that's, you know, the audience that we're talking to today, the carriers win at the big macro. They quote millions of people and the returns are great. I mean, it makes sense. But after a while you get your biggest portion of the segment that you can get, and then the long term, the retention, the bigger profits through other products that might have a bigger return on investment, you're only going to get that through a relationship. So I just really think that if, if you don't do transactional selling at all, you're not attracting some of the new customers that you could get to have a relationship with on the long term.

It—

the, the reverse is the same. So I mean, I could answer this in a number of different ways. I think you just constantly have to go, as a business owner, what's working and what's not. If it's working, I double down, but a year from now that may not be working. And so I've got to be nimble enough to go back and forth. But I, I favor the relationship. If I have a choice, I'll choose the relationship every day, and I can tell you why.

Yeah, um, with the pace that— well, Let me go back. Obviously, you, uh, you know, contact rep— I mean, you really put that on the map for so many different people. Um, I just even within the last week or so have heard people voice difficulty of trying to get people to meet with them in person. And, and I don't mean just because it happens to be around the holidays, I just mean in general, like, they've really struggled. Um, What are some of the things that you think are still the same and some of the maybe best practices, tips that you've, you know, spoke with people around the country about actually being able to have that, you know, relationship, that relational communication with their both, well, two things, both with their current customers, but then also with prospects.

So make sure I answer this completely, but I'm gonna zero in on what you just said, getting people in, 'cause that comes up with me a lot, uh, for carriers and for agencies that, uh, are having struggling to get people in post-COVID. Uh, COVID got people that weren't out for the right reasons, right? And then when they started to come out, they were cautious. And so where you wouldn't be able to get somebody in an environment like this on virtual, now everybody's doing virtual, right? It's just what medium do they like? Do they like Zoom? Do they like FaceTime? Do they like Messenger, you know, virtual, what, what, whatever platform they use, they're open to it now. And, and so here's— and I'm just going to pause so everybody listening can think about this— we default as human beings to assume that people all want the same thing. So yes, it is for certain that less people want to drive half an hour to come see you. It's true. But not all of them. There's still a segment of customers, which, by the way, there's 320, 350 million people in the US. They're not all under a sheet at home in their house. They're going out. They're going out to dinner. They're going out to see their lawyer. They're going out to see their doctor. They're going out to see Whoever, their dentist, they go out and see other professionals. They drive an hour, they drive a half an hour, they go to see them. Our issue is in the industry, we need to quit defaulting to assume they want it on email, to assume they want it on the phone or whatever. We gotta give them reasons to come to see us. One of the reasons is the small business has all their tools in their office. And their greatest tool is their team. They have a huge investment in people to be there, uh, to offer them service and to give them the type of service they desire and have every right to expect. To do that, we need them to come in. So we just need to position this different and not default. Now that's the answer to the first thing, and I'm happy to answer the rest of the question if you'd like, but I think if we got something across in this talk, don't default. But yes, it's an admission. Less people are going to want to come in, but not all of them. A great majority of them still want to touch you. They still want to feel your energy. They still want the knowledge you have, and it's better expressed person to person.

Don't you feel like too, I mean, let's just call a spade a spade. You or somebody on your team has made some calls to get people in for an appointment and they got 3 object, they got 3 nos or 3, you know, semi objections and they said nobody wants to come in.

Yeah.

Yeah. Can I role play?

Yeah.

Let me, let me role play. The number is 5. Okay, you, you ask as many as 5 times, and this is a science, by the way. It's my science because I've been studying this for over 30 years. If you ask them as many as 5 times in a conversation, they'll come in. But there is a percentage that won't. They won't because their health. They won't because they just don't feel like it. And it's okay. I don't worry about the ones who won't. I worry about the ones who will, and the ones who will, will come in because I sold the appointment. I didn't sell a product, I sold the appointment. So I start off with— and this is just fundamental, this isn't new, this is fundamental— I answer the objections before they come in. So, Bradley, I've known you for now for quite some time. I know you're a busy guy. And so, you know, I've got to contact you. And when I contact you, I got to give it my all to get across what I would like you to do for me. And what I'd like you to do is to come in to see me. And Bradley, I know you're busy. I want to work around your schedule, but it's important that we get together. Just like you get together with your doctor, your dentist, your lawyer, your CPA. I'd like to meet with you, and it's not going to take more than half an hour. I have to ask you some questions. I want to give you some new information on some new and exciting things that are going on with my company and within my agency. And I'd like to get you in and out of here professionally. I won't rush you, but I will be respectful of your time. Would you like to come in this week or would next week be better for you?

I'll be in next week.

Okay. Now, a lot of people will say right after I said, I know you're busy, they'll go, I'm busy. I know you're busy. That's why I brought it up. Now, if I'm a caller working for the agency or for the brokerage or for the company, because we work with a lot of companies that have employee advisors, but we're all in the same ballgame. We're all saying the same thing. I know you're busy. I want to work around your schedule. Now, at that point, my caller might say, I know you're busy. You're marked as a VIP. I want to work around your— we say these kind of things. Everybody's a VIP. If you got your insurance with us, you're, you're important. Okay, we're not lying to them. You're marked as a VIP. I need to work around your schedule. So, Bradley, let me tell you this. We can see you before work. We can see you right after work, or we can see on your lunch. We're going to be flexible. It's your schedule we're worried about, not ours. What's the best time for you? Do you like the early mornings or right after work? Do you like lunch? Do you like on your way back from lunch? What, whatever. We're gonna, we're gonna accommodate them to where they gotta tell us 5 times they just don't want to come in. And some people don't. And I, I'm gonna tell you what it is still today. 25% of the people aren't gonna come in. They're just not gonna come in. But I can get in over 70 to 75% of them still today, even after COVID, which was dramatic. But they want to come in. They just need you to give them reasons because they're paralyzed. They've been paralyzed for 2 years. They need somebody to just say, come on, get down here. It's going to be easy. And one of the other big ones I told you in that original conversation, We're not going to sell you anything, man. We're— we— this is what we need. We need to gather information and give you information. And if they say, I don't want to buy anything, I say, well, Bradley, that's not the reason I— why I called. I'm going to gather some information, give you some information. If you want to buy something, hey buddy, we'll set up another appointment. Okay, fair enough. And it's just— it's, it's a conversation. But I don't go into any conversation, Bradley, thinking that I'm going to convince 100% of the people. There just isn't such a thing. But when you start, and I'm going to go back to the original part of the answer, the default. People default to the email, like they'll send a life quote through an email, and you're like, who's sitting at home going, woo, I hope somebody calls me or emails me a life quote. They just don't.

So, yeah, a little silly, a little overboard, but you get the idea, right? No, it's not overboard at all. I think you painted, as you always do, a very vivid picture. And a few things stand out. One, nobody would ever question your conviction level to the importance of the appointment. And it makes you think. Is the agency owner, as an example, are they that convicted? Are they, are they, uh, sharing that conviction with their team as to why it's so important? Because if then they do, then they can begin to go from the team member to the customer to the prospect. Because if you're not convicted as to why they should come in, the team is probably not going to be that convicted as to why why people should come in. So I think that, that, that stood out to me. Not to mention, as you were going through that, uh, as you said, the number of times that you invited me and shared with me it's important to come in, you know, um, it made me feel like I was— it was important. Like, I, I do— I, I really am compelled. I need to come in. I mean, I want to know what this new information is that's out there. And I think people will, you know, know that Customers do want to be abreast of what is changing and what's happening, not just on, as you mentioned earlier, not just on rate action, but just in general. You know, it comes up that a friend got in an accident, a friend's house burned down, or whatever that may be. It makes them start thinking about their own, their own policies.

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Podcast.

Wow, you unpacked a lot of stuff there. You know what, one was, uh, that last one, the stories are really important. They can connect the dot when they hear that. The other one is a sense of urgency by the leader. If you have a sense of urgency, they have a sense of urgency. And a lot of us within, we're all guilty of it, but I try to be really cognizant and intentional about the way that I lead people. That is, you can't be silly with your energy, but people want energy, man. And you know what I'm talking about, when that, that person, when you go to the Christmas party or you go to a birthday party and that person walks into the room and the whole party just starts going towards them. It's, it's an energy that everybody wants. They want to be around it. And so I— you unpacked a lot of stuff there that I think is really important. And the last thing on what you just unpacked is a lot of leaders, a lot of owners expect their teams to do something they don't do. So, you know, we're all about learning enablement, service enablement. And the way you do that is by example. And so a lot of the training that we do with carriers and with, with advisors, agents and their team members is really about, okay, watch this and then repeat it. And then we put you out into the room and let you do it. And it's just that attitude. I think that was what you were trying to get across, that attitude.

Yeah, it was. And we were talking about this before we hit record. In your new book, Net Gain Growth, we had talked about that people were asking you, and maybe you can kind of speak to this about, you know, what you were seeing in the marketplace, because there's always something that you're beginning to see that says, you know what, I need to get this message out.

I—

people are asking me for these things. What were some more of those things that you were seeing that kind of led you to say, you know what, it's time for me now to, to put this new book together? And we'll, of course, talk more about where people can pick that up, etc., in just a little bit. But what were you seeing in the marketplace? And then how does your new book— how does it help to guide people to some of those solutions?

Yeah, so, you know, when I wrote Discussion Partner, which wasn't that long ago, that was a precursor to Inflection Point. We could see where things were going. And so, and we've hit the inflection point. Since then, my, my publisher put together a training program. And even with 8 modules, what we call business accelerator tools, people would go, can I get it all in one thing? And so the new book, Net Gain Growth, is really my whole career of taking and making relationships and putting it in one place. So not all over on the computer where people go, I'll take a little of this, a little of this. Puts a wrap around it. So Net Gain Growth is not about the future of insurance. It's really a resource book to be able to go, okay, here's the workflow for a great appointment. Here's the 4 things, non-negotiable appointments you should have, you know, like the new business review, you know, add-on business, you get the idea. And then I took some of the stuff that I've written and talked about for years, like the concierge program, which is right now going ballistic because people get it. They now— it was a little harder 10 years ago to talk about concierge because they're going, hey man, I just can't get my day-to-day work done. I can't much less try to implement a concierge program. But they see we're doing the heavy lifting on the concierge, actually helps them with their day-to-day work. So it really puts it all together. It's not just the scripts. It's the how-to, that workflow that's so important because you can have a great script, but if you don't have a flow to it, it's just a bunch of words on paper.

Yeah, and that's why, that's why he's charging $10,000 per book. Okay, so that's why it's his life work in a book. So if when you go to purchase it and you wonder why it's $10,000, now you know, now you know, right? So I mean, so, so So thank you for discounting.

I like your attitude. That's, that's—

well, surely you haven't— you're not charging that for a book price. I don't know. But anyway, uh, you know, I remember, um, when I was at Auburn, I, I don't know what year it was, at some point I had to write a paper And the night before, I don't know why this stands out to me so much. I think I've told this story before, but I was looking at, uh, I would assume it was a word processor, probably Word, I guess, on my computer. And the, uh, the, the, the blinker, you know, of the, the empty page was just blinking. And I was like, oh man, I don't know where to start. I just don't know where to start. And if I could get the first paragraph going, I got into the flow. And it was the night before and I knocked out this paper and did fine, I guess. You know, I got through college. But anyway, the reason I'm painting that is so often we just need— I need to get started. I don't know where to start. So somebody hears that and says, okay, I need, I need the script. And then, you know, they're listening to your— what you said a minute ago and they're like rewinding and typing out your word track. But when they really need, they need the template, they need the cheat sheets, they need the cheat code, so to speak, of like, can you just give it to me and we can put a little bit of spin into it? You know, can you just help me out? And so obviously that's awesome that you put that into really a handbook for agency owners.

Yeah. And there's stories in it, not to the degree of like a discussion partner, but there's stories in it because people can relate. And you go all the way back, right now my agency contact rep position is more popular today than it was when I wrote Power Position Your Agency. And that book has over 250,000 copies in circulation. But people realize you need a manager, somebody that can manage your relationships for you to make sure you're in front of the right people at the right time. And so we talk about that too. I didn't go back to Power Position, but I acknowledge Power Position was really a, a defining moment in my career. And it's stood the test of time even to today. Now, did technology change it? Yeah, of course. You know, it sped things up and it made it easier to figure out the propensity to buy, the propensity for people to meet with you. You know, there's a lot of things that change that position, but fundamentally that position is just spot on still today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, what, uh, I, I'm curious your thoughts. I'm gonna go kind of broad stroke on a few things in general and then, and then dive into a few more specific things. Um, uh, over the last few weeks, and people may, may or may not have seen much of this, uh, but it really, it really took off on Twitter. People were talking about AI, specifically OpenAI. How do you think, where do you see that coming into insurance and artificial intelligence? Where do you think the benefit's going to be over the next 5 to 10 years?

So I think AI and what I call open platform product solutions are going to change the whole industry. Speed is happening right now all around us, but AI The promise of being able to see who's going to need what before they need it, you know, similar to you wanting a jacket or a pair of shoes or whatever. Instinctively, we all are using AI just from our gut and our head. You know, these people need an umbrella, these people need blah, blah, blah. But it's going to affect rates, it's going to affect service, it's going to— everything's going to be just in time. And I'm working on a lot of stuff that has to do with blockchain that it's not billing, although billing will be affected by blockchain, but security and things that need to be delivered now in real time, you know, limiting fraud, limiting the need to have 10 people putting one thing together. But artificial intelligence is gonna is. It's currently changing everything right now. I just, I think technology, we haven't even scratched the surface on insurance because it's not money, it's the time that companies have. They have all these huge legacy systems, they're still trying to either sunset or they're bringing in new stuff, and you're just starting to see the speed in which things are happening. And so I, you know, I Swordia, I— my manager used to say this, he's up here right behind me, I wish I was younger, man, this is so exciting. And he was excited about a computer that wouldn't fit on my desk, it was so big, man. I mean, like, in the palm of your hand that we got technology now that just literally is life-changing. I think it's exciting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. What do you think about the technology in vehicles and how that's going to affect premiums over the next, you know, look, I mean, let's not go out 50 years. I think that's too far. Let's just say the next decade.

So we're already having and have been having conversations on, you know, flying vehicles, you know, how are you going to insure them? Who's going to be able to sell them? You know, all those conversations are happening now. I think you'll see it happen a lot faster than UBI, right? You know, usage-based insurance has been going around for 15+ years, and I remember working on it back then, and now it's come to its own. I think you'll see that, you know, whether it's flying vehicles or, you know, driverless vehicles completely, all that's going to happen a lot faster than these other technologies. So I'm not prepared to put a stake in the ground on, you know, how they're gonna rate these things, who's gonna sell them, how the products are gonna be delivered. But it's like anything, you know, the fax machine, fax machine changed business and it evolved that product. I mean, the first one I used, it was thermal paper, walk outside and it just all turned black, you know, and now you look at, They're obsolete, basically. I mean, people still use them, but you now, you scan something. So I just, I think you're just going to see things continue to evolve. But I'm going to answer this just a little different in the end. You know, how are we going to be affected? Well, back to the economics, because I just, I've studied agent economics. If your whole model is just based on one product, and now that product pays less commissions for new business or more or less commissions on service, if any, you need to look at your business and go, okay, how does this change how I deal with my customers? I've taken it to such a degree that I, I could make a case for giving people free advice on auto just so I get all their other products. You know, and, and now I'm not gonna— it's not gonna go to that extreme for everybody, but you just gotta keep looking at it. When I first started, and possibly when you first started, if, if you weren't the king of auto, you weren't in business, or the queen of auto, you weren't in business. You know, I think auto is important. I think it's more important than it's ever been. It's just not the economic engine for a local small business that it was. Doesn't mean we should ignore auto. I think Double down on auto.

I think there's really 3 different ways to grow any business. You got to get customers, you got to get those customers to be worth more, and you got to keep them longer. Those 3 things. Well, I want to ask about acquisition channels.

Yeah.

What do you see as— what do you see as, um, I mean, look, I, I think some people in this would say, you know, my strategy on acquisition of new customers is spaghetti on the wall. I don't know, we just do a bunch of different things. You know, we, we do some kids' sponsorships of ball teams over here, we do a little bit of this, we have— we buy some leads, we do, you know, we do a little bit of referrals, we do a little bit of, you know, uh, uh, calling our current customers. We do— like, it's just end up we're doing a lot of different things, right? What do you see as Maybe like the way to get customers moving forward as a consistent acquisition channel.

So I'm open to all things and I'm attached to nothing, just period. You know, I learned that a long time ago. I didn't think it up. I just learned it. So I'm open to all things. And a friend of mine many, many, many years ago said to me, Troy, he goes, you got the right concept. He goes, when you first start, the funnel is wide open. And then as you start to get successful, you can start to close the funnel to focus on the things that are the most profitable, that give you that, those 3 buckets that you just talked about. And so I, I use the same principle in recruiting new people into the business, whether I'm doing it at a carrier level or at a local level. You just got to have everybody coming through the funnel. Now, to be throwing spaghetti against the wall your entire career doesn't make sense to me. It does when you first start, and you got to be open to throwing spaghetti against the wall because if things start not going right, and by the way, lead— you know this— lead sources are great this day, next year or halfway through the year, they're not. You just got to be nimble enough to keep changing. So you asked about, you know, where business is going to come from. It's going to come from affinity marketing through, you know, relationships either at a local level or on a macro level. So that could be strategic alliances with retail, with car dealers, with lawyers groups, with teachers groups, with doctors groups. Those are affinities. Birds of a feather flock together, and there are multiple reasons to do business with different affinities. But again, if you're a one-hit wonder and you just got one thing, you're not gonna go very far in this business. You're gonna do well and you may make a boatload of money. I know people that just do auto that make way more money than me today, way more money than I ever made. But I wouldn't want that model. That's not a model for me. My model is a long-term model. I'm not in it for the sprint. I'm in it for the marathon. So whether the listener is at $20 or $40 or $50 billion company, or whether they're a million dollar commission or $300,000 commission, you, you want to open your spigot as big as you can get it, but be intentional and say, this is where I get the best return on my investment, best return on my energy, the best return on the equities and the equities. You and I have been in this business for a while. And so we don't want to just put it all out there only to lose it because we made one big mistake.

Hmm. Yeah, it's almost like create flow, add friction, just create flow through a lot of different things and then begin to go in and add some friction to it to say, well, then let's pare this down. These are the 3 acquisition channels that our specific business is getting— like, we can really go deep in these 3 or 4 or 2 or whatever areas.

I agree. But you do— I do agree with that. But I want to preface it with this, with the most intelligent way of approaching it. So in other words, you know, a lot of your listeners may remember Larry Bird, the basketball player. He wasn't the greatest basketball player, in my opinion, of all time, but he was one of the greats because He, he took the shots, but he, he took the best calculated shot. So, you know, you gotta swing if you're at bat, but you don't swing at every pitch. You swing at the ones you think you can get. And then yes, you're gonna have some failures. You'll learn from 'em. And, and marketing, I'm just telling you, it's, it's, you can, I go back and read books that really affected my life and they've impacted me sometimes more today than they did 15, 20 years ago. You know, because I just look at them in a different way, and I look at them with today's lens, and I can do something different with it.

Uh, there's not a place that you travel to, uh, when you're flying across the country that doesn't have, um, you know, an issue or, or a problem with turnover or being able to hire great people. All right, you see now hiring signs, and I'm not saying specifically in you know, agencies per se. But I mean, that, that certainly is the case. Um, what— how have you— how do you think the labor market has changed just in the last 2 years post-COVID?

It's changed. And anybody who says it is the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago— but the people that say it's changed and I can't find anybody are people that aren't recruiting. Look, it— and I'll say the same thing to somebody that has 20,000 employees or somebody that has 2 and wants to get to 4. You're going to lose people. I talk to people all day long with all different brands in our business, and I talk to them at a high level. I talk to them in the field, like most of the people listening. If you're in the field, Quit trying to compete against these big name companies, whether they're municipal, whether they're Google, whether they're some type of retail brand like Target or whatever. Quit trying to compete against them. Here's what I would say, and I should write a book about this one. Sell the opportunity. What got you into this business? If you're listening to me, nobody said Hey, man, tomorrow I'm going to double your pay, what you're making today. They didn't. They said, usually step back and here's the opportunity. If you do these things and you come to work with us in underwriting, or you come to work with us in sales, or you come to work with us in claims, whatever it is, sell the opportunity. And that is what people want today. I think it is harder today because the economics that are going on in the world today, the world, not just in your state or your city or your country, it's the world. People just have a different mindset, but they all still have that same desire to be something more than they are today. And if you can sell them on that, you have the right opportunity and everybody's path is different. But sell them the right opportunity and they will come to work with you. But you can't talk to one person. You have got to make this a daily routine. Every hour, every day, you've got to be out recruiting. And here's my motto. I've said it a million times and I'll say it again. Everywhere you go, everybody should be a prospect to buy from you. To stay with you and to buy more from you in the future or to come work for you someday. They're either a buyer or they're going to come work for you. Now, are they all going to come?

No.

But if you got that attitude and you're selling the opportunity, a large percentage of them will go, you know, I'll do that.

I think you just tied a bow on it. And we just wrote your next book. We just got— we just got his next book. You had another one in the works. We just But that's the next one. Okay. You heard about it on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. I want you to write that book. Okay. Troy, it's always a pleasure to have you on. At the time of this recording or when it's going to drop, your new book has just come out. I know people are going to be clamoring to get it. Where do you want them to go?

Go to coursegarden.com. You can reach us at support@coursegarden.com, or you can click on the website and there'll be an advertisement for it there. Thank you, Bradley.

Awesome. You got it. All right, Troy, we'll have you back on in the future. We'll have you on for the fourth time. Okay.

I'm honored and I'm excited to come back again.

Appreciate you. All right, everyone. So here are always some of my key takeaways. My goodness gracious. I think whenever I was looking back on the things to share as my takeaways with Troy, I was going to go through kind of the nuts and bolts, the 1, 2, 3. But I will say more than anything, it's hard not to be, uh, kind of catch his energy and enthusiasm and the way he approaches certain things. Like, you can tell his conviction. I was talking about that, his excitement about the future, where things are going, versus being concerned or nervous about all the different changes that are happening in the marketplace. And I think that that mindset and that attitude is absolutely something, and the energy is something we can all really pick up on and emulate. I mean, look, uh, tactically, whenever he role-played around the conversation, that was a huge takeaway, his approach to that. I think you're going to want to go back and maybe even transcribe what he was sharing there, or just pick up his new book, Net Gain Growth. Go to korsgaarden.com. I think his conversation around technology, AI, where things are going, I thought I found that just incredibly interesting. And then, you know, just number 3, I'd say, I mentioned this a little bit, but just the sense of urgency, the sense of urgency that, that the team needs to pick up from you. Because if you don't have it, the team is certainly not going to have it. So those are some of my big kind of broad stroke, broad stroke takeaways from my conversation with Troy. I love having him on. Just have gotten to know him quite a bit over the last couple of years, and he really lives a life of service and giving back. So it's an honor to have him on. Go to coursegarden.com and pick up his new book, Net Gain Growth. I mean, look, he, he talked about it, you know, in the podcast. He was mentioning at the very end about you got to be doing it every single day. I mean, What did he say? I mean, everyone you run into, his kind of mindset is either somebody is going to buy from you, they're going to stay with you, they're going to buy more, or they're going to work for you. And that approach, maybe that actually should be one of my big key takeaways too. And he talked about the value of making sure that you're recruiting on a daily basis. Well, if you know you need to do that, but you need some help in structuring your, you know, recruiting CRM that you have that you use, or, uh, whatever that may be, uh, or you just want somebody that's going to help make sure that you're doing the right things on a regular basis, it's exactly where Autopilot Recruiting comes in. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com and use the code CLUBCAPITAL to get started. And then of course, when they come on board, you're going to want to sign up for Coach P Consulting. It is— we're just a little bit, few weeks into 2023. Want to train them. You may have had some new people on, on board. And if you want to train them and develop them the right way, you want to do it with somebody who's doing it at the highest level possible. Go to coachpconsulting.com. Let David know that you heard about him on the podcast and he'll give you entire first month off. You know, financials can be intimidating. Business financials can be intimidating for some people. Some people it's not, but it is really important that you be able to have clean financials that you can use to make good decisions in the business. You hear me say that often, but it really is a skill that you can develop. But, and you can work with somebody who has the perspective of working with, oh my goodness, hundreds of agency owners at this point, and they know your business, and there is so much value in that. They know the ranges that different, you business owners need to be in and what the top ones are doing and how much they invest in, what's the profitability, is it— should be 10%, 20%, 30%? What's the right number to be at in terms of profitability, marketing investment, team and development, your business vehicle, your, your office building, etc.? So many different things. And so just having that perspective is really valuable. And plus, to be able to make the right investments into, into the back into the business and know when to be able to take some chips off the table. That's where Club Capital comes in. Go to club.capital, book a, book a demo, reach out to somebody on the team, and they'll work with you and kind of get to know and understand your situation, be able to kind of give you some best practices and tips. And then you can make an informed decision about, you know, whether— where does Club Capital fit for you. So go to club.capital and book a no obligation. Demo. All right, everyone, hope this episode was of great service to you. We're wishing you all the best in 2023. Hope it is your best year yet. Until next episode, lead well.