Episode 204: The Bottom Line - "There is nothing more powerful..."

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it.

Just get what you need and go.

So with that, let's get into today's episode. Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee, or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm. Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee. Or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm.

Hey everyone, so I don't get on social media very often, and if I do, it's going to be Twitter these days. And I did see something though on Facebook a while ago. I screenshotted it and it popped up in my— I liked it so much it popped up in this little app that I use called Day One. And it's, uh, from a really awesome business coach. He actually coaches other coaches, but his name is— he's Australian, his name's Taki Moore. And he was doing this, what do they call it, like AMAs, ask me anything. And somebody asked him, best advice someone gave you lately? And again, this was some time ago, but he said there's nothing more powerful than someone who's admitted what they want. There's nothing more powerful than someone who's admitted what they want. And I chewed on that for a really long period of time when I first saw that. And when it popped up again, so much— obviously, I'm talking about it on the, on this podcast. But I just wanted to share some of my own thoughts around that. And obviously, I very much agree with him. I think there's so many times— look, this has been my journey. It may not have been yours. And I'm specifically referring, referring it into the context of business, but I'm sure that you could really apply it to other aspects of your life, is not allowing ourselves to be completely honest, first and foremost, with what it is that we want in the, in our business and our career, in our businesses. And what it is we're really trying to accomplish. I think that's number one. I think then number two is then taking the step to share that with someone outside of yourself. So what would that look like? Many of you may journal or you may have tried journaling, but where do you get your own thoughts out? When I was first— and I'm not going to talk about thinking time too much on here on this one, but when I was first introduced to the idea or the concept of thinking time and spending time thinking about my business, um, I was like, oh yeah, that's probably a good idea, but I didn't actually do it. Uh, like many things we may have shared, myself or a guest that I've had on the podcast may have shared an idea that you hear and you think, oh, that's actually a really good idea, maybe I should consider doing that. There's a huge difference between doing some— or thinking it's a good idea and writing it down to do it versus then actually doing it. And I think this is kind of one of them. What have you really told someone or told yourself for the first time? This is really truly what I want, not what I see someone else doing and trying to then say, hey, that's what they're doing, that's what they want, it's there, I'm going to adopt that. And you just being completely, totally honest with yourself first and foremost and writing it down either in a little physical journal that you may have or in some type of note-taking device. I personally love Notion. Uh, I was an Evernote person for a really, really long period of time. I've now migrated everything personal and businesses, all of them over to Notion. I just really love it. Um, but that's where I do it. That's where I put all of my thoughts. Um, especially thoughts around business. And I began to get those out. Not all of them, I'm not sharing those, but a lot of them I am. And so having someone that you can openly say, this is what I'm trying to accomplish in the business, not, not exactly just in a, you know, here's my objectives and key results this year. But this is truly what I really want out of this business. And the more that I have worked with some small business owners outside of myself the last 5 years or so, the more that I found that almost all of them didn't have an outlet. They didn't have anybody that they could actually share openly and without judgment what it is that they really truly wanted. They felt like that they needed to carve the edges of certain things and say things in a way that is actually what everybody else wanted. And they thought that that was the right thing to say, or the right thing that they should be wanting to strive for in their business versus what they really want. And almost to a person, every time that they have been completely honest— not with me per se, but first and foremost with themselves— and they actually said it out loud, the more that they began to see like, oh, okay, see, I'm not actually judged by that. And in some cases, it was way bigger than anything that they were doing currently. But they said, this is really what I want. In other cases, it may not have been by a certain type of public, uh, recognition, etc., but they said, this is really what I want. I want to be able to accomplish this. It's the revenue I want. It's the personal income I want. I want to be able to take my family here. I want to be able to have the income means to do this. I want to be able to pay off debt. I want to be able to invest in, you know, have this type of boat. I want to be able to have these type of experiences, uh, whatever that may be. I want to be able to I have a 4-day work week. I don't want to work on Friday, Saturday, Sundays, whatever that is for them. They were finally able to say, this is what I want. I want to go from $10,000 a month to $30,000 a month personally. I want to go from $30,000 a month to $1 million a year, $84,000 a month personally. Or maybe I want to make it $84,000 a month in the business, whatever that is. When they, they Whenever they were able to get that out themselves to themselves first and share that with someone else, everything else began to get— for me, this happened for me. I have a very, very small group of people. I have my coaches, my mentors that I work with that I share. This is what I'm trying to accomplish. I just was having a session with my mentor and coach the other day, Mike. And he shared with me some things. And the first question he asked me, I thought he was asking in the context of kind of the business. And he said, no, no, no, the bigger impact that you're wanting to have. And I took, I took a couple of minutes just to reflect on that and said, you know what, here's exactly what I want. This is what I want to be able to accomplish. And so it actually was ironic, the timing of whenever this popped up in my app, day one, and I was reminded of it from Taki, that there's nothing more powerful than someone who's admitted what he or she wants. Can I encourage you to share that with yourself and be very honest of what it is you're trying to accomplish, um, and using your business as a conduit? And then, are you willing to share that with at least just one other person and sit down with them, coffee, or if it's on Zoom or a phone call or whatever, and say, hey, I just want to share something with you and put this out and ask you to to encourage me through this and, and help me through it, because this is what I truly, really want. And maybe in some cases it would be outside of what everybody else may think that you're actually optimizing for. I hope this served you. It definitely has been impactful to me to not only be honest with myself, but to be able to share that with other people. There's nothing more powerful than someone who's admitted what they want. What is it that you want? Till next episode, lead well.